A space where the values emanating from aqida are known.
22.3.12
20.3.12
Reviewing Meherjaan
I had the chance to watch Meherjaan today, a Bangladeshi-directed film set within a rural 1971 warscape that does a few things well, despite causing a few cringes (whenever the modern day was portrayed) and descending to Bollywood on occasion.
It was screened in London as part of the Tongues of Fire 'Asian' film festival that runs until the end of the week. The film was bouncing around Bangladesh last year, somewhat controversially as there was a little hullabaloo about the tastefulness of the Bengali Muslim girl falling in love with a Pakistani soldier, which runs against the rape-power differential.
I hear that it was cut several times by Bangladeshi censors, and would be interested to know where exactly. I am not one of those for whom controversy necessarily translates to interest and worth, 1971 interventions, whether documentary or fictive tend to leverage too much controversy-as-publicity, so much so that its becoming a tired cliche. Too much policing of singular national narratives from all concerned.
These folks from Chittagong (below) wanted it banned last year, it hurts them and this ecology of hurt should be explored further.
Theres a lot going on, needless to say a lot of thought, research and content that's usually silenced in war stories. My framing of this is not as a pukey love story, but as a depiction an extended family seek refuge in the house of the grandfather Khwaja Saheb'who the Pakistanis, it is hoped, would never dare to defy. You could watch this as a family as certain cuts will appeal to the Bollywoodised, the habitual melodramatic soap watcher, the artist, the airhead, the joker and the wannabe mystic. Elder murrabis who aren't particularly enamored by #Mukticrap might enjoy it if you can distract them during the more purile love sequences.
Significantly, and in a welcome nonsecular turn, Quranic ethics get frontlined on several occasions. Khwaja Saheb's socio-ecological akhlaq is shown as sculpted by that repeated refrain in Surah Rahman "Which of the bounties of your Lord will you deny?"
Contrast this with Meher's unsuccessful suitor, a plump mollycoddled middleclass Dhaka boy who doubles up as a part time Mukti fighter and roams around the village with a very different comportment.
I found some of the gender relations unbelievable, we don't do open touchy things between unmarried people, was this just Bollywoodification or am I missing something?
Coming from a family with very heterogeneous experiences of 1971-times, I appreciate the durable and variegated moving image the film tries to portray, even as I dislike the stupid annoying women that generally feature. It is an image that seldom finds a cultural platform in Bangladesh. Like a rape victim tooling up and going to war, not waiting to be commodified.
Meherjaan established layers of meaning where a film like Matir Moyna (The Clay Bird) by late Tareque Masud) did not and would not tread. I suggest that this has to do with the class composition and epistemystique (politics of learning) of the film-makers and characters. We were shown bloodymindedness, fleeting glimpses of pre-Bangla Movement politics (God Forbid!), Lalon Shah, Faiz Ahmed Faiz (that song about the intimate familiarity) and a sympathetic characterisation of an ageing Aligharian land owner. The Clay Bird was more coherent and magnificently made, but simplistic.
Emanating from director Rubayiyat Hossain's Master's research and humanrightsism, its an early film from a young female film maker. It did a good job of humanising the elements of the experience that misguided nationalisms have reduced to '200 000 of our women were raped by Pakistanis, now lets hang the Razakars'.
This line of dialogue did significant work for me.
Dear Land of my forefathers and cousins, more like this please, so much to explore and make sense of.
But please next time teach the Hindu actors how to pray properly and try to get less lame actresses to man the Dhaka flashing back device.
This Sunday the Brick Lane Circle host Yasmin Saikia at the Davenent Centre, she will be reflecting on her field research amongst the multiculture of rape victims, rapists and witnesses.
I would recommend going to see Abu, Son of Adam also, a Malayalam language film demonstrating a fine Islamic principle, one that should condition our selves to be developmentia-proof.
It was screened in London as part of the Tongues of Fire 'Asian' film festival that runs until the end of the week. The film was bouncing around Bangladesh last year, somewhat controversially as there was a little hullabaloo about the tastefulness of the Bengali Muslim girl falling in love with a Pakistani soldier, which runs against the rape-power differential.
I hear that it was cut several times by Bangladeshi censors, and would be interested to know where exactly. I am not one of those for whom controversy necessarily translates to interest and worth, 1971 interventions, whether documentary or fictive tend to leverage too much controversy-as-publicity, so much so that its becoming a tired cliche. Too much policing of singular national narratives from all concerned.
These folks from Chittagong (below) wanted it banned last year, it hurts them and this ecology of hurt should be explored further.
Theres a lot going on, needless to say a lot of thought, research and content that's usually silenced in war stories. My framing of this is not as a pukey love story, but as a depiction an extended family seek refuge in the house of the grandfather Khwaja Saheb'who the Pakistanis, it is hoped, would never dare to defy. You could watch this as a family as certain cuts will appeal to the Bollywoodised, the habitual melodramatic soap watcher, the artist, the airhead, the joker and the wannabe mystic. Elder murrabis who aren't particularly enamored by #Mukticrap might enjoy it if you can distract them during the more purile love sequences.
Significantly, and in a welcome nonsecular turn, Quranic ethics get frontlined on several occasions. Khwaja Saheb's socio-ecological akhlaq is shown as sculpted by that repeated refrain in Surah Rahman "Which of the bounties of your Lord will you deny?"
Contrast this with Meher's unsuccessful suitor, a plump mollycoddled middleclass Dhaka boy who doubles up as a part time Mukti fighter and roams around the village with a very different comportment.
I found some of the gender relations unbelievable, we don't do open touchy things between unmarried people, was this just Bollywoodification or am I missing something?
Coming from a family with very heterogeneous experiences of 1971-times, I appreciate the durable and variegated moving image the film tries to portray, even as I dislike the stupid annoying women that generally feature. It is an image that seldom finds a cultural platform in Bangladesh. Like a rape victim tooling up and going to war, not waiting to be commodified.
Meherjaan established layers of meaning where a film like Matir Moyna (The Clay Bird) by late Tareque Masud) did not and would not tread. I suggest that this has to do with the class composition and epistemystique (politics of learning) of the film-makers and characters. We were shown bloodymindedness, fleeting glimpses of pre-Bangla Movement politics (God Forbid!), Lalon Shah, Faiz Ahmed Faiz (that song about the intimate familiarity) and a sympathetic characterisation of an ageing Aligharian land owner. The Clay Bird was more coherent and magnificently made, but simplistic.
Emanating from director Rubayiyat Hossain's Master's research and humanrightsism, its an early film from a young female film maker. It did a good job of humanising the elements of the experience that misguided nationalisms have reduced to '200 000 of our women were raped by Pakistanis, now lets hang the Razakars'.
This line of dialogue did significant work for me.
"Some of you speak of Communism, others Socialism and Secularism, don't you realise that these are all ideas you have borrowed from the west? Have any of you actually asked the people (here) what they want?"Hossain leaves the audience with a cliffhanger that fascinates me but must annoy the hell out of Liberation Capitalists. Whodunnit? The Mukti, or the Pak army?
Dear Land of my forefathers and cousins, more like this please, so much to explore and make sense of.
But please next time teach the Hindu actors how to pray properly and try to get less lame actresses to man the Dhaka flashing back device.
This Sunday the Brick Lane Circle host Yasmin Saikia at the Davenent Centre, she will be reflecting on her field research amongst the multiculture of rape victims, rapists and witnesses.
I would recommend going to see Abu, Son of Adam also, a Malayalam language film demonstrating a fine Islamic principle, one that should condition our selves to be developmentia-proof.
15.3.12
[New genre of literature] Su-Fi
Explorations and envisionments of the future of human spirit.
Last night I attended a lecture by Laurent Mignon (Oxford Uni) at the Yunus Emre Centre in London on Ottoman Sci-fi.
He covered its history and historiography, as well as featuring a few utopic and dystopic examples. Towards the Tanzimat and late Ottoman periods such literature of the future gave writers and scholars access to a space to explore the technological and political reconfiguration of the world. Current sci-fi aficionados in Modern Turkey are cut off from pre Romanisation-of-alphabet literature of the genre they cultivate today.
Following humiliating defeat of the Balkans war in 1912-3 writers went into reflective mode, and sci fi used in a very Surah Kahfian way, with folks falling asleep and waking up later to worlds where political preoccupations had been resolved (Islamic World Bank, National Industrialisation et al.).
There's even a Maulana, Davudzadeh Mustafa Nazim, penning a novel where there comes into being an anti-western (speakers characterisation/translation not mine) anti-western union of Asian and African states, where 3d animated photos and snooping tech are pervasive.
One volume which I would dearly love to read is Jelan Nuri's 'History of the Future', where the land and seas are teeming with factories and smoke billows everywhere, and humans robotised until they are barely distinguishable from machines, and crucially nature lost, along with spirituality.
It is this spiritual territorialisation that I suppose Begum Rokeyya's Ladyland, Iqbal's Javid Nama, Khurram Ali Shafique's Republic of Rumi speak to.
Su-Fi already exists in the guise of teaching stories and self-serving hagiographies of pirs. Maybe the infamous RAND report is a work of Su-fi? Perhaps its all about Surah Kahf?
Su-Fi asserts a world in which the soul, its work and refinement are at centre stage, through politics, technological, conceptual or other transformations.
In these days of hOpening, embodiment and ensoulment, cultivating a few channels in this direction seems like a good idea from where I'm sitting.
Last night I attended a lecture by Laurent Mignon (Oxford Uni) at the Yunus Emre Centre in London on Ottoman Sci-fi.
He covered its history and historiography, as well as featuring a few utopic and dystopic examples. Towards the Tanzimat and late Ottoman periods such literature of the future gave writers and scholars access to a space to explore the technological and political reconfiguration of the world. Current sci-fi aficionados in Modern Turkey are cut off from pre Romanisation-of-alphabet literature of the genre they cultivate today.
Following humiliating defeat of the Balkans war in 1912-3 writers went into reflective mode, and sci fi used in a very Surah Kahfian way, with folks falling asleep and waking up later to worlds where political preoccupations had been resolved (Islamic World Bank, National Industrialisation et al.).
There's even a Maulana, Davudzadeh Mustafa Nazim, penning a novel where there comes into being an anti-western (speakers characterisation/translation not mine) anti-western union of Asian and African states, where 3d animated photos and snooping tech are pervasive.
One volume which I would dearly love to read is Jelan Nuri's 'History of the Future', where the land and seas are teeming with factories and smoke billows everywhere, and humans robotised until they are barely distinguishable from machines, and crucially nature lost, along with spirituality.
It is this spiritual territorialisation that I suppose Begum Rokeyya's Ladyland, Iqbal's Javid Nama, Khurram Ali Shafique's Republic of Rumi speak to.
Su-Fi already exists in the guise of teaching stories and self-serving hagiographies of pirs. Maybe the infamous RAND report is a work of Su-fi? Perhaps its all about Surah Kahf?
Su-Fi asserts a world in which the soul, its work and refinement are at centre stage, through politics, technological, conceptual or other transformations.
In these days of hOpening, embodiment and ensoulment, cultivating a few channels in this direction seems like a good idea from where I'm sitting.
9.3.12
New Word - Jannahcide
When we, en mass, act disgracefully, we draw away from His pleasure and the garden.
The term accesses structural flaws in the jamarchitexture for uloomination.
29.2.12
[New Word] Lojjic
Lojja, in Bangla denotes shame.
Lojjic is to understand the dynamic, layered manifestations of shame. We can use it to release eachother from needless suffering and mutual guidance.
Lojjic is to understand the dynamic, layered manifestations of shame. We can use it to release eachother from needless suffering and mutual guidance.
11.2.12
6.2.12
[New Word] Epistemystique
def: Our strange ways of knowing.
The term is used to understand eachother's different acquired filters and antennae of coming to know.
Think about it in an intra-ummahtic setting, around Maulid / MiladunNabi. I want textual evidence/ I don't need it, it's a beneficial innovation/ It's an established embodied practice/ Birthdays are stupid, even for the Beloved.
Or in an encounter with a newspaper reporter, where you want to say what's going through your head, but he only wants to fit you into a cartoon.Or with dream seeing or the more experiential Sufis.
Its a mystique, because it does not declare itself and considers itself inherent a lot of the time and beyond renovation. Whether in a court of law, a combat scenario, academic peer-review or any other consensus, established wisdom and produced common senses regularly commit epistemicide in their disregard of knowledge that they choose not to fathom
We the bearers of song should get our heads around Epistemystique, not simply as a pretentious marketing tool but for feeling and being.
The term is used to understand eachother's different acquired filters and antennae of coming to know.
Think about it in an intra-ummahtic setting, around Maulid / MiladunNabi. I want textual evidence/ I don't need it, it's a beneficial innovation/ It's an established embodied practice/ Birthdays are stupid, even for the Beloved.
Or in an encounter with a newspaper reporter, where you want to say what's going through your head, but he only wants to fit you into a cartoon.Or with dream seeing or the more experiential Sufis.
Its a mystique, because it does not declare itself and considers itself inherent a lot of the time and beyond renovation. Whether in a court of law, a combat scenario, academic peer-review or any other consensus, established wisdom and produced common senses regularly commit epistemicide in their disregard of knowledge that they choose not to fathom
We the bearers of song should get our heads around Epistemystique, not simply as a pretentious marketing tool but for feeling and being.
5.2.12
War Crimes Trial Update in the key of our mean, inept, control freaks
As the War Crimes Trials stumble on, we learn more about each other. Perhaps we do not share that which we learn on authorised platforms for want of receiving that favourite slur of the Progressives 'tui razakar'.
We tend to ride along with the dominant school of fish, no matter how dubious their foundations and capabilities. this regularly gets us into stupid pickles that we should have learnt to avoid. Peeling away once emotionally invested is a difficult thing to do, but becomes necessary for integrity. I'm interested in hearing changed minds as events unfold and multifold truths become apparent.
The Bangladesh State has taken the elderly Prof Ghulam Azam into custody and is proceeding to neglect his health and well being. I find it very cruel that a group who pride themselves of secular and liberal virtue cannot find it in themselves to act according to their very own principles. I pray that he keeps strong and is able to deliver his truth with directness and clarity when the time comes.
The prosecution side is mislaying witnesses and holding up proceedings, much to the presiding judicial panel's annoyance. Even Shahriar Kabir, a key mover in the War Crimes Push is exasperated. For those of us interested in a spot of epistemic disobedience and scratching the surface, I recommend a deep investigation of the Nirmul Commission, which raised the political currency of Trials during the first post-Ershad BNP government.
Some of the more well-read web-based proponents of the trials have established an archive project, in an attempt to better inform the ineptitude of their legal representation and the government. The International Crimes Strategy Forum is a coalition of some usual suspects, but others less usual.
Their stated objective is :
... to promote the cause of justice and at the same time to facilitate fair trials of all the perpetrators of 1971 war irrespective of their present abode, political connections or status in the society. We welcome any moral, intellectual, financial or personal support from you. Together we can strengthen this movement by instilling aspirations for justice, independence and freedom in the hearts of our generations.
Allahumma guide us to Truth.
Ever on the look out for white laurels, the Kangaroo Court's PR wing was played theatre with the European Parliament's South Asia subcommittee the other day. Ansar Ahmed Ullah, of the rather fruity Shadhinota Trust (London), Nirmul Committee organiser and the Daily Star's London correspondent wrote it up here .
A glowing vote of confidence, they wet themselves in awe. Clearly.
Toby Cadman, part of the legal team defending the Jamaat accused, saw things quite differently here.
The Daily Star's website seems to have lost my comment on the article, I am not surprised. 'The people's right to know'. My foot.
BDNews24 seems just as intolerance of difference of opinions on key political dogmas. Of the electronic media I can get a hold off, the only one that dissents on occasion is The Weekly Holiday. There is some kind of fortnight length time delay on David Bergman's Bangladesh War Crimes Blog, which provide rich court transcripts. This could be logistical, legal or otherwise.
The inequitable apparatus of enunciation, reception, justice and mass communication is problematic. Consider the struggle of truth out of a black hole, that's the struggle of a fair trial in a setting that's already decided upon the guilt of the accused.
Meanwhile Salahudin Quader Choudhury, the BNP MP and Parliamentary Adviser to Khaleda Zia is having a turbulent time, apparently being forced to sign things and agree to legal representations that he does not desire. I have less inherent sympathy here, but I shouldn't, I am eager to know more about how his father was tortured to death by his opponents. The regime in power is enjoying beating the crap out him and abusing his person. I suspect the BNP is unable to operate without him.
In our political death engine, this state of affairs is a stroke of genius. Jamaat isn't in the best of shape, especially without its elders who at least have experience on their side, they aren't structured to supersede themselves. Countless activists of theirs have been taken in, locked up or disappeared since the Awami League got into power. Without Sayeedi's powerful ability to command an audience and fire it up they seem quite scuppered. Meanwhile the BNP just limps around with little strategy or big idea of how it might, oh dear, offer an alternative line of flight.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)