The King is Out, His Name is Khan: Long Live the King (Part I)
April 16th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
My Name is Khan, although narratively based mostly in the USA, has to be understood and theorized within and around the framework of Bollywood; the Urdu-Hindi film history and its transnational circuits of production, distribution, and consumption; Shahrukh Khan’s star narrative, and the determining context of the Indian political scene along with that in the US and its “War on/of Terror.” Even prior to the Indian Partition in 1947, most Muslim artists had what Sa’adat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) mockingly called “shuddified” or Hinduized names – Dilip Kumar for Yusuf Khan, Madhubala for Mumtaz Begum Jahan Dehlavi (1933-1969), Meena Kumari for Mahjabeen Bano (1932-1972), or the more ambivalent (non-halal) Johnny Walker for Badruddin Jamaluddin Qazi (1923-2003) and Nargis for Fatima Rashid (1929-1981). At the contemporary moment, the biggest stars of the Urdu-Hindi film industry in India are Khans: Shahrukh, Salman, Aamir, Saif Ali et al. It might therefore be tempting to conclude that the Bombay film industry is indeed a level playing field. The Khans are all Muslims, at least nominally. Cinematically, they enact, with a few notable exceptions, Hindu characters. Culturally, the vigorous fanzines of Bollywood idolize them as comfortably suave denizens of metropolitan Bombay[Mumbai] with understated or unexpressed Muslimness — their Hindu wives, girlfriends, or mothers facilitating this imagined assimilation or passing. Of course, for regular, non-filmi (“film-related” in Urdu-Hindi) Muslim men, this assimilation through marriage to Hindu women is generally frowned upon and can have potentially fatal consequences.
My ruminations on My Name is Khan, like a typical Urdu-Hindi film, lengthy and replete with intermissions, are an entryway into not just the film as cinematic text, but also its complex and rich transnational contexts that must be read in tandem. In a series of six thematic posts, with this as the first, I will expand on:
(i) The (B)Onus of Muslimness in Bollywood
(ii) Shahrukh Khan and the Pound of Flesh: the Cost of Stardom
(iii) Placating the gods of Citizenship: the Ritual Sacrifice
(iv) A Suitable Boy, “Decent” People, and Names that Pass
(v) The Price of Translating a Narrative and its Context
(vi) Outing the Muslimness, Finally: Some Viewing (and Hearing) Pleasures
John McCain Wants to Pull the Trigger on Iran
April 16th, 2010 § 1 Comment
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann points the spotlight on John McCain’s most recent (it’s practically part of his daily routine) warmongering claims about Iran.
Gates Defends US Soldiers in WikiLeaks Video
April 15th, 2010 § 2 Comments
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates discussed the Obama administration’s revised “nuclear posture” and other recent foreign policy issues on ABC News recently.
The portion of the interview released by ABC on YouTube expectedly begins with statements about the so-called “Iranian threat,” a delineation which Clinton expands upon even though she begins by admitting that the Obama administration takes everything Iran says with “more than a grain of salt.” When the secretaries are asked about nuclear-armed Israel’s non-participation at the Summit, Clinton dodges the implied purpose of the question by arguing that one of the central goals of the event is to address only those nuclear threats presented by “terrorists.”
At 9:52 Gates is questioned about Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s recent references to the US army as “occupiers” and his statements about joining the Taliban. Gates attempts damage-control by arguing that Karzai is merely catering to his domestic audience and General McChrystal has an excellent relationship with Karzai who is beyond “cooperative.” Be that as it may, the result of US policies through Karzai continue to paint a negative picture when the reality on the ground is examined.
The Result of US Policies in Afghanistan
April 15th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
The code name is Mushtarak, and its the largest operation ever launched by NATO forces in Afghanistan. With a big media campaign to back it up. It took two weeks of fighting to expel the Taliban from their bastion in Marjah, and now the battle to win the hearts and minds of its inhabitants is proving more and more difficult.
Allama Iqbal, Gabriel and Iblīs
April 15th, 2010 § 2 Comments
Allama Iqbal, 1877-1938
translated by M. Shahid Alam
Note: In the Qur’anic account of man’s creation, God asks the angels to bow down to Adam; they bow down, except Iblīs. God banishes Iblīs but, granting his request, gives him the power to tempt and waylay humans except those who submit in sincerity to their Creator.
Gabriel
Old friend, how is your time spent in banishment?
Iblīs
In fire wrapped, pain-swept, surging, toiling, unbent.
Gabriel
At our heavenly summits, we often talk of you.
Should you repent, seek grace, give us the cue.
Israeli Apartheid in al-Naqab
April 14th, 2010 § 1 Comment
The following is taken from an email sent out by Yeela Ranaan, from the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages (RCUV):
The Government of Israel is putting me on trial next week (Monday, April 19th, 11:00am in Beer Sheva): for expressing my displeasure at the brutal home demolitions in the Unrecognized Bedouin Villages. The government and its acting bodies do not want any resistance to the implementation of their racist policies, and therefore wish to scare and intimidate those who speak out…
I grew up in Arad, a town built among the Bedouin, to make sure that the Jews become the rulers of this space. It took me many years to realize that the Bedouin I saw every time I left my hometown are not part of nature, like the rocks and the wadis. It was not my education that had opened my eyes, a good Zionist education, teaching me to be part of a dream of redeeming the land. It was despite this education.
But once the blinds were lifted, it started hurting. I saw the pain in the injustice, in the ongoing feeling of my neighbors, now turned friends, of being treated as deserving less, as a bother to the natural development of our region – the Negev. Every baby born – a “demographic threat”, every time a home is built, economic stability achieved – it is seen as a menace in the only country they can call home… « Read the rest of this entry »
Propagandistic Anti-Semitism Report (Accidentally) Raises The Linkage Issue
April 13th, 2010 § 3 Comments
by Max Blumenthal
The Tel Aviv University/Stephen Roth Institute’s newly released study on anti-Semitism in 2009 is getting loads of media attention. Among the many outlets that have reported its findings are the AP, CNN, and Haaretz.
“Anti-Semitic incidents Doubled Last Year,” blared the AP headline.
Sponsored by the European Jewish Congress and produced with help from researchers around the world, including the Anti-Defamation League’s Aryeh Tuchman, the report’s release was timed to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Roth Institute’s director, Dinah Porat, who also sits on the board at the Israeli Holocaust research center, Yad Vashem, declared at a recent press conference that anti-Semitism is directly linked to anti-Zionism. This is also the conclusion of her group’s report, which focuses on the alleged connection between anti-Semitic acts and Israel’s assault on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.
The Roth Institute identifies the UK and France as centers of anti-Semitism, but also centers in on American targets, including the widely praised Palestinian author Ali Abunimah and the Muslim students at UC-Irvine who heckled Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.
U.S. vs. Merriam-Webster on Kyrgyzstan
April 13th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Restoration of Kyrgyz democracy will not threaten future of Manas air base.
In the April 12 U.S. State Department briefing entitled “The Current Situation in the Kyrgyz Republic,” Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake, Jr. explains to his audience that the purpose of his impending trip to Bishkek is to meet with interim leader Roza Otunbayeva and other members of the provisional government installed after riots last week caused Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to flee the capital. He continues:
My main goal will be to hear from the Kyrgyz administration about their assessment of the law and order situation, the steps that they plan to take during their six-month interim administration to organize democratic elections and a return to democracy, and how we might be able to help them to restore democracy and economic growth in Kyrgyzstan.”
The first question Blake receives is thus:
[D]oes this mean that you’ve basically thrown Bakiyev under the bus?”
Caspian Makan: The King of Opportunism
April 13th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Caspian Makan
The countless reports that have emerged since Neda Agha-Soltan’s murder by Iranian forces in June 2009 have resulted in the event being presented as something different than what it actually was: the tragic loss of innocent life during a political protest. When the images of her bleeding to death were broadcast around the world in every format possible, this normal girl suddenly became an icon, a reason, a threat, and with all the meaning that was pumped into the symbol that had been created to represent her, so too was her own individual humanity lost. Her death presented an opportunity for groups and individuals to capitalize on the loss of her life by claiming it as their own, and they did so with excessive indulgence, using it justify their own goals and political stances.
The son of the puppet monarch Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, responsible for the brutal torture and murders of thousands of Iranian dissidents prior to fleeing the country before the Islamic revolution of 1979, shed crocodile tears for “our beloved Neda” live on CNN. Senator John McCain, a vocal advocate of a military strike on Iran, called her death a “defining moment,” while urging the Obama Administration to abandon a diplomatic approach to Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, another vocal advocate of bombing Iran, shamelessly used Agha-Soltan’s name in “tribute” during a speech to the United Nations where he reiterated his warmongering claims about the so-called “Iranian threat.” Agha-Soltan’s face was plastered on t-shirts and throughout the internet as elements of the “Green Movement” claimed her as their hero, regardless of the extent to which she was actually politically active. However, no move by any group or individual came close to the level of despicability attained by Caspian Makan, a former romantic acquaintance of Agha-Soltan, when he fabricated the reality of their relationship into much more than what it was so he could leave Iran while giving interviews where he further misrepresented Agha-Soltan for his own advantage.
The Only Democracy in the Middle East: 09.04.2010
April 12th, 2010 § 1 Comment
This Friday’s demos were themed in respect to the Deir Yassin massacre. In Bil’in, the village committee and B’tselem photographer (who’s videos you often see here) and dear friend, Haitham Al-Khatib, was abducted near the end of the demonstration. Al-Khatib was returned home, battered and bruised, after over 24 hours in which he was unreachable.
