When India was attacked on 26th November 2008, news anchors and journalists started calling it ‘India’s 9/11.’ This film examines this terminology and the links between 9/11, 26/11 in Mumbai, Iraq, Afghanistan and Modern terror. The conversations between taxi drivers and their passengers in Mumbai taxis delve into these larger issues. A tragic terrorist attack, a lapse in security, the loss of the top Anti Terrorist Squad officials who were investigating the so called ‘Hindu terrorist’ attacks in Malegao lead the people to voice their notions of larger conspiracy theories at a time when the Mainstream media mentions none of this. These are not authoritative voices but perspectives like yours and mine on the events which affect and shape our lives. They are short takes, 140 characters long tweets in taxis, between real people riding in a taxi, in a city that experienced extreme violence, terror and loss.

The current poll on The Taxi Takes has a majority of 50% who say it should not be termed India’s 9/11 and 34% in favor of the Mumbai attacks being termed ‘India’s 9/11. However there are also a small 8 % who are not sure which hence makes this a rather balanced undecided poll.

Watch the film and cast your vote. But more importantly I urge you to listen to the common voices on the streets of the Mumbai Metropolis and gather a sense of where the Mumbai terrorist attack of might figure in the larger scheme of current happenings in the world. Please give your take and comments below.

Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, a former Pakistani lawmaker issued an anti terrorism fatwa in London this Tuesday. It stated that suicide bombing was banned by Islam “without any excuses, any pretexts, or exceptions.” This is a great stand and one that many other organizations have taken before. Even recently after the incident at Fort Hood, The National Coalition of South Asian Organizations released ‘their fatwa.’ The NCSO consists of over twenty organizations who had issued this strong statement after the tragedy in Fort Hood. It is not any different from most of the voices I heard in the Mumbai taxis. Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Parsis and Jews traveling through bustling Bombay commented on this unfortunate misconception between Islam and Terror and voiced the same concern as Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri and The Quilliam Foundation.

When will mainstream media truly pay attention to all the voices of dissent? Like I said , a great stand but one which has been stated by the common man for decades. May this fatwa enter the domain of pop culture and be talked about on twitter, blogs, backyards in Alabama, streets of Kabul, Mc Donalds kitchens and headlines of every big publication Worldwide as much as it was talked about in the Mumbai taxis. Inshallah!

It’s beyond ironic to think that President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace prize. This, just as he makes the largest blunder in the history of wars and orders more troops to catapult an ongoing escalation into another decade of suffering. It has been the aggressive policies post 9/11 that have sharpened the dagger of Islamist terrorism in the World. The Iraqis, the Afghanis have already acted like a forest that is being burnt down in search of a target – sometimes a man named Bin Laden and at other times fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction. To send more troops into Afghanistan at a time when America is still struggling under economic debt is creating more enemies. In fact this time, I think Obama is creating enemies out of his own American citizens who once believed in ‘change’ and now plead for health reform and more jobs rather than America’s 6th war since the end of WW II.

Artists, writers, news anchors, journalists, filmmakers, poets, trapeze artists and anyone else with a voice and body need to have their say and speak out. The cartoon above was published on Little Alex in Wonderland along with the eloquent and incredible Noam Chomsky‘s ‘take’ on ‘War, Peace and Obama’s Nobel.’ Michael Moore, the famous, talented attention grabbing documentary filmmaker wrote a letter to his president. Huffington Post carries this Open letter to President Obama.

Read it and go have a conversation with your Pakistani cab driver in New York. He’ll probably tell you he’s not planning on taking a trip back home this X’mas. Obama’s choices are creating an inferno of problems in Pakistan and the Indian sub continent. And with this surge, it’s only going to get worse I predict. Unfortunately no ‘Change’ for the better.

I had the great fortune of meeting Malalai Joya, a wonderful voice against the occupation in Afghanistan. She is against the warlords and drug lords in Afghanistan who she says are just as bad as the Taliban and are becoming stronger and more corrupt with the support of the US. A good account of the talk, written by Ellora Derenoncourt can be read here on the South Asia Solidarity Initiative site.
It was an honor to stand by this incredible human being.

In solidarity with Malalai Joya at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

On a separate but related note, this Sunday The South Asian International Film Festival SAIFF is screening ‘Made in Pakistan’ which appears to be an interesting documentary posing a fresh un-stereotyped view on what Pakistanis themselves feel and are doing in their country. Possibly some good post Halloween realism.
Tickets can be purchased here

Malalai Joya is speaking tomorrow at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.

This extraordinary woman and her story of courage and spirit is just what the World needs! During the Taliban rule Malalai Joya started underground schools in defiance of the oppressive militants. She spoke out against the war criminals and drug Lords of Afghanistan and at the age of 27 stood for parliament elections while facing death threats. Her enemies call her a ‘dead woman walking’. “I am young and I want to live. But I say to those who would eliminate my voice: ‘I am ready, wherever and whenever you might strike. You can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of the spring.” The Independant has done a great story on her while The Gaurdian features her message to the British people. After being deposed in 2007 for publicly denouncing the corrupt war Lords in the Aghani Parliament her voice sounds a signal of truth and justice at a time when words like democracy and freedom are being misused to send more troops into Afghanistan.

Malalai Joya

Watch Wide Angle’s documentary about this Woman Among Warlords. It’s an incredible story about about one woman’s conviction and strength to stand against deadly wrongs and believe in her power as an individual. If this doesn’t move you and Hollywood’s heroic tales do, then we all might as well ask Will Smith to save the World. Because according to me the cards are on the table and increasing troops in Afghanistan is America trying to star in Hollywood’s next version of ‘The Declaration of Independence.’

Come hear these women raise their voices.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27TH, 2009

THE SKYLIGHT ROOM, 3 PM—5 PM

CUNY GRADUATE CENTER, 365 FIFTH AVE @ 34TH ST.

Malalai Joya, Minister of Parliament in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. She is the author of A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice (Simon and Schuster, 2009).

Awista Ayub fled Afghanistan in 1981 for the U.S. After the fall of the Taliban, she returned to Kabul and founded the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange, dedicated to nurturing Afghan girls through soccer. Her work is the subject of However Tall the Mountain (Hyperion 2009).

Nasrine Gross, founder of The Roqia Center for Women’s Rights, Studies and Education in Afghanistan. Professor Gross’ work is profiled in Walking the Precipice: Witness to the Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan (Feminist Press, 2009).

Moderated by: Laura Flanders, GritTV

I just heard Rory Stewart on Channel Thirteen talk about his views on if the US is doing the right thing by increasing troops in Afghanistan. Mr. Stewart is currently the Ryan Family Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and the Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. As a former British soldier he walked across Afghanistan in 2002 getting to know the Afghan people, understanding its culture and studying the country. He writes about his experiences in his book, The Places in Between
He eloquently spoke about how he believes that the US goal of creating a Nation State in Afghanistan with the indirect goal of added US security from the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits was impractical.

He goes on to add that it might take several decades for Afghanistan to have basic education, infrastructure, a judicial and military system etc. institutions that Pakistan has. However in my mind, this does not necessarily imply security against terrorism.

Unlike Mr. Stewart I am not an authority on such issues, but I do firmly believe that Pakistan’s current political instability and situation should be of greater concern to the US than Afghanistan. A new documentary called RethinkAfghanistan is currently online to be viewed. I’m personally not in favor of another war, this time Obama’s war!

An excerpt from Rory Stewart’s Irresistible Illusion :

“Furthermore, there are no self-evident connections between the key objectives of counter-terrorism, development, democracy/ state-building and counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for state-building. You could create a stable legitimate state without winning a counter-insurgency campaign (India, which is far more stable and legitimate than Afghanistan, is still fighting several long counter-insurgency campaigns from Assam to Kashmir). You could win a counter-insurgency campaign without creating a stable state (if such a state also required the rule of law and a legitimate domestic economy). Nor is there any necessary connection between state-formation and terrorism. Our confusions are well illustrated by the debates about whether Iraq was a rogue state harbouring terrorists (as Bush claimed) or an authoritarian state which excluded terrorists (as was in fact the case).

It is impossible for Britain and its allies to build an Afghan state. They have no clear picture of this promised ‘state’, and such a thing could come only from an Afghan national movement, not as a gift from foreigners. Is a centralised state, in any case, an appropriate model for a mountainous country, with strong traditions of local self-government and autonomy, significant ethnic differences, but strong shared moral values? And even were stronger central institutions to emerge, would they assist Western national security objectives? Afghanistan is starting from a very low base: 30 years of investment might allow its army, police, civil service and economy to approach the levels of Pakistan. But Osama bin Laden is still in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. He chooses to be there precisely because Pakistan can be more assertive in its state sovereignty than Afghanistan and restricts US operations. From a narrow (and harsh) US national security perspective, a poor failed state could be easier to handle than a more developed one: Yemen is less threatening than Iran, Somalia than Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan than Pakistan.”

Most of March went capturing, downloading, editing and subtitling. The footage I have till now was unplanned, both in terms of the questions being asked and the way in which it was shot by me. However the compliance of the passengers and the audible footage gave me proof that the concept works and that the logistical details can be ironed out. I am inherently intervening in the space between the driver and passenger and then facilitating a dialogue between them. It’s a tricky thing to handle, especially in Mumbai where class distinctions prevent conversation to take place. A driver will rarely ever initiate a conversation and he will only talk if the passenger speaks to him. This premise is turned on its head in this project.

I am currently working on a list of comprehensive questions to be asked by the taxi drivers to their passengers. These questions decide the focus of the conversations and the key issues that will be addressed with regards to Modern terrorism. So I’m all in favor of inputs and feedback. This is my list. Feel free to edit it by posting your comments.

Q1. Have you ever experienced terrorism? What do you think terrorism is?

Q2. Can terrorism be avoided/ prevented?

Q3. After the 26/11 terrorist attack in Mumbai how do you think the:

(1) state (2)media (3) security forces

should have responded?

Q4. If you were a politician what would you have done?

Q5. As ordinary citizens how can we reduce terrorism?

Q6. What kinds of things make a person into a terrorist?

Q7. What can Muslims do to remove misconceptions about Islamic Terrorism?