‘Women and Islam’ won the Best Documentary Prize at the Festival ArtDeco de Cinema at Sao Paolo in Brazil. Look at the Festival site, the Award ceremony looks like it must have been a lot of fun. I would have also gotten an excellent audience to talk to about my work and give out promotional gifts, as they call it in the marketing World – stickers!

This award has simply inspired me to think that I have to create more and expand this project of mine. The several short films(Women and Islam is one of them), should be stringed into a feature documentary. So I think that will be next for sure.

I am really glad that the film is challenging the notions of what it means to be a Muslim woman in today’s society. Islam and it’s role and preconceptions need to be analyzed and understood in a deeper way. Mainstream media always generalizes complicated matters such as these and the individual testimonies of unique and strong protagonists do not come to the surface in Islam’s contemporary narrative. To add to the heady mix, when you bring in gender then an age old rhetoric concerned with the status of Eastern women and discrimination is heard. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being waged and perpetuated partially under the guise of liberating Afghani Muslim women – as we see in the video, many Muslin women are perfectly capable of helping themselves!

Winners of the 2011 Festival ArtDeco de Cinema in Brazil

The West should get to witness and meet other women like Sameena who might wear a burkha but are taxi drivers bread earners, mothers, teachers and scholarly daughters and even risk their lives to stand for what they believe. Sameena did not see the burkha as repressive or constraining, but some of us make that assumption.  I am glad that this film is getting the attention it deserves. I hope this fuels a larger dialogue around the world – if this inspires you, get in touch with me and let’s give your take!

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.

Newsweek has done a great job at condensing the news and events of this past decade into a short 7 minute film.

Of course US news and its elections take center stage but pertinently enough Terrorism seems to have dominated this decade in more ways then one. Ofcourse some direct associations can be made with each American President and the corresponding World Wars and events also. Ironically Madonna and Britney Spear’s kiss hogs more screen time than the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. A foreboding and predictive way in which the media is already heading towards titillation rather than truthful fact informing. If NDTV made this, would they give Rakhi Sawant’s ‘swayamvar’ more time than the Naxalite problem? Probably yes I say.

The Fort Hood attack and it’s coverage in the US is a scary example of stereo typing and even ignorant reporting. More to come on that.
So will the next ten years have a corresponding increase in headlines on Terror? What’s your prediction?

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

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.”

One of the notions I wanted to explore in the taxi dialogues was perceptions about Muslims. It’s a tough one to deal with and can come across as being ill informed. However I wanted to give the chance for this topic to surface. There is a shot of a young Hindu driver, Ram Singh asking an old Muslim passenger with a white beard this question. He asks, rather apologetically but also with a hint of curiosity, “If you don’t mind my asking, why does it seem that all terrorists are Muslims?” In fact any taxi drivers removed symbols of their faith after the 1992 – 93 communal riots in Bombay.

So the taxi drivers and passengers both had some prolific comments to make. But they didn’t look at the media or cinema and how it creates images. Post 26/11 there has been enough media bashing in India and Bollywood isn’t critiqued enough by the masses anyways. However Bollywood’s grand daddy Hollywood has surely come under the radar.

Yesterday I came across this gallery about Muslim celebrities in Hollywood. There are some fine men and women featured. But there seems to be an underlying current that their work is or should be directly connected to their faith. I think it may or may not be. In the case of ‘Allah Made me Funny’, it’s perfect to use humor to break down stereotypes and perceptions. The moment you laugh or don’t laugh about something, you either realize your beliefs on something or change your take on it by the simple act of laughing.

I also came across a great event at The Asian Pacific American Institute at NYU. It will be held today, the 25th of September between 6 and 8 pm at Tisch. Dr. Jack Shaheen is having a screening of his documentary, ‘Guilty Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After 9/11′ followed by a Q and A of his work.
Go to http://www.apa.nyu.edu/ to RSVP. It’s open to the public.

And please keep commenting on the blog itself and not on Facebook