The Magic of Kara - Director’s Cut

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I`m glad you enjoyed this, but I notice that there`s nobody protesting when Final Solutions is shown in Pakistan. Neither should there be.

apparently final soloutions was banned in india, why dont governments learn that by banning something you fuel even more curiousity about it. it was a well made documentary, ran a bit too long but dealing with a subject as heavy as gujrat riots i suppose you could cut the director some slack. its an unbiased portrayal, infact if there is some bias from the director rakesh shamram its towards the plight of the muslims and thier unfair treatment. he highlights the ingrained attitude of hindu politicians and then the brainwashed masses who beleive the lies and the inciteful -hatefeulling speeches made by politicians who want to see the divide between muslims and hindus deepen.
one politician (hindutva speaker) actually says in the film at a political rally that `` we need to show these muslims whose in power here, we need to take over them, in gujrat, in delhi and in islamabad``. so its insane that there is a huge lobby which to this day beleives that pakistan has to be subjugated. god protect us form hindutva ahd shiv sena.

Happy new year to Chowk readers, writers, inter-actors, and staff. May you see many more.

Mohammad Gill

# 3 Final Solutions wasn`t banned in India, but the censors took a long time to pass it without any cuts, as a result of which Anupam Kher lost his job as censor board chief, although he was the one who advocated showing it as it was.
nb can correct me here, but I think what was meant in that post (#2) was that Yousef Saeed in another article thought Khamosh Pani should not have been shown in India. By such standards Pakistan should have banned Final Solutions.
Censorship doesn`t help anything.

zainab:

Pakistan is passing through a refreshing mini-renaissance. It`s a pity that it is happening under a dictator and not democracy.

urbashi:
I dont think that Kher was dismissed for passing `Final Solution` without cut, but because his appointment by the BJP govt. was taken as a sign of his closeness to the saffronites.

#6 dost-mittar, you`re absolutely right that Kher was dismissed as part of the general ``detoxification`` of pro-BJP people in high places. But one of the reasons put forward to buttress the argument that he was pro-BJP was the delay in passing Final Solutions, which, as he later said, hurt him very much, because he was the one who pushed it through without the cuts.

#6 by dost-mittar on December 26, 2004 1:54pm PT

``zainab:
Pakistan is passing through a refreshing mini-renaissance. ``

nonsense, there is no renaissance .. its just some burger-wallahs watching a few flicks.
what the entire population wants to watch Swadesh on the big-screen, they are forced to do bay-ghairat stuff by watching pirated vcds. also, perhaps you missed the documentary on Mudrike called ``The Final Judgement``.

jang:

What is your point of comparison? It may be ``some burgerwallahs watching a few flicks`` but this is exactly how a renaissance begins. Never in the history of Pakistan was a film like Khamosh Pani produced; it is still probably seen only in art houses but at least it is seen. Throughout the history of Pakistan, nobody -with the possible exception of Jinnah- was able to say anything disapproved by the mullahs with impunity, even though pre-zia they were allowed to live their personal lives drinking, eating at restaurants during ramzan and doing other things that were considered unislamic. This is what is happening now. Fashion shows are being put, art exhibitions by Pakistani artists -even with naked breasts- are shown and private TV stations are pretty much discussing what they want to. This is a major change.

Dost

I agree. Something is happening.

Film festivals, theatre festivals, heritage shows, next year Gandhara festival, old heritage sites being renovated, TV talking about sex, showing Indian Stars interviews, regular flow of Sikh yatrees, Government officials comings & goings, First National Academy of Performing Arts in Hindu Gymkhana in Kaachi, Universities opening up Music & Dance departments etc etc. Christmass was widely covered on TV. New TV channels - Fashion, Punjabi etc.

Let us see how Mullas react to this year`s New Year Eve

the lid seems to be opening - slowly but surely.

nhk

Captured by the Taliban, rescued by Islam
By ALLAN KOAY

British journalist Yvonne Ridley made headlines when she was captured by the Taliban in 2001. She came out unscathed, and two years later, converted to Islam. ALLAN KOAY finds out how her life has changed since then.

Barely had the ashes of the World Trade Centre in New York settled when Sunday Express journalist Yvonne Ridley found herself captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan and held for 10 days. She was duly released unharmed, and two years later, in a remarkable twist, she converted to Islam.

Yvonne Ridley: ‘I see the shocking images of Guantanamo Bay and ... I thank Allah I was captured by the most evil and brutal regime in the world and not by the Americans.’
Ridley, who had gone to Afghanistan to report for the British paper, found herself becoming the news instead. And her story could not have been more full of surprises and irony.

Ridley, who was in Kuala Lumpur last Saturday to give a talk as part of a fund-raising effort for Islamic social service organisation Al-Khaadem, was a portrait of calm and grace as she spoke about her experiences and the changes in her life. It was a picture far removed from her pre-conversion, hard-drinking, firebrand journalist image as described by the media.

On Sept 28, 2001, Ridley, then 43, was trying to cross illegally into Afghanistan from Pakistan. At a Taliban checkpoint, her donkey bolted and her camera fell out of the burqa she was wearing. She was subsequently thrown into prison, and questioned every day.

But to her surprise, the so-called “evil regime” treated her with respect and courtesy, and the men with the electrodes and torture tools never appeared. Instead she was given three meals a day, despite her hunger strike, and her captors even came to wash her hands for her at mealtimes. They referred to her as their “guest” and “sister”.

“The whole experience had taught me a very valuable lesson, and that is not to believe propaganda that powerful people in powerful places want us to believe,” says Ridley.

“When I look back at my experience now, and I see the shocking images of Guantanamo Bay, and the horrendous images and stories emerging from the Abu Ghraib prison, I thank Allah I was captured by the most evil and brutal regime in the world and not by the Americans.”

During her time in the Taliban prison, a cleric came to her one day and asked if she would like to convert to Islam. Fearing any response would be taken as adverse, she made a promise to him that she would read the Quran if she were released.

She kept her promise, and what started out as a purely academic exercise turned into a spiritual one as Ridley discovered that the Quran was not about oppression or violence but about peace, tolerance and understanding. Most of all, she was surprised to find that Muslim women were not subjugated or oppressed but were afforded equality.

In August 2003, she embraced the faith.

Life-changing conversion

Today, Ridley, who admitted that she used to “work hard and play hard” and was a “prolific drinker”, finds herself healthier, happier, and more content and fulfilled.

“And my girlfriends can see this, and they ask: ‘What is this that has changed your life so much?’” she says. “And I say it’s Islam. And they say: ‘No, really, what is it?’”

Ridley has also become a fervent anti-war campaigner since her release. She has supported the Stop the War Coalition and travelled around the world addressing anti-war gatherings. She is a founding member of Women in Journalism and the patron of British organisation Stop Political Terror, which looks into the welfare of Muslims in Britain, especially those being held in the Belmarsh and Woodhill prisons.

She has written two books: In The Hands of the Taliban, about her experience as a captive; and a fictional thriller, Ticket to Paradise, which she says is banned in Israel because it features a Hamas fighter on the cover. She still writes for the Sunday Express, and also for Muslims Weekly in New York. She is currently involved with the Islam Channel, a satellite broadcast that started about a year ago in Britain.

Hurtful comments

One of the things that Ridley had to face when returning home from Afghanistan in 2001 was a media that accused her of being an irresponsible and selfish single mother (she has a daughter, Daisy, 12) and foolhardy to have entered Afghanistan at a volatile time. Others even claimed she did not enter Afghanistan at all but was picked up at the border in Pakistan.

She regarded the views that came from her colleagues and the British press as outrageous, and saw no difference between their opinions and views and those of the Taliban, with regards to a woman’s role in work.

“I was verbally ‘stoned’ by journalists who picked on me as a single parent going into a war zone,” she says. “And not one single male journalist I can think of has ever been questioned about his role as a parent. It made me realise then that we still have a long, long way to go to achieve any sort of equality. And what was most hurtful, because I am a founding member of Women in Journalism in Britain, was that most of these comments were from women columnists.

“I just thought they’ve set the women’s movement back two or three decades by questioning my integrity as a journalist ? to single me out and attack me as a mother. I thought that was a bit like shooting yourself in the foot.”

Political future

Ridley also discovered to her surprise that during her capture, someone had tried to get her killed by sending a dossier to the Taliban that made her out to be a spy, a “female equivalent of James Bond”.

She claims that with help from her contacts and fellow journalists, she found out that the dossier had been prepared by the American intelligence and Mossad. She believes it was an effort to silence the anti-war movement.

“Had I been shot or executed, this would have helped justify the bombing of Afghanistan. It would have further demonised the Taliban. I was told by one intelligence officer: ‘Don’t take this personally. It wasn’t against you,’” she laughs.

Putting all that behind her, Ridley has also made headway into the political realm. She is an active member of the RESPECT political party in Britain, a party born in January this year out of the anti-war movement that realised it had no political voice.

“I stood as a candidate in the European elections and we got a quarter of a million votes nationally,” says Ridley. “It didn’t translate into a seat but we are going to be fielding candidates in the general elections which may be held in May next year.

“What is particularly significant is if I am successful, I would become the first female Muslim politician to sit in Westminster and probably the first woman wearing a hijab to sit in the houses of parliament.

“It’s still a long way off, but there is a ground swell of support from people who feel as though they no longer have a voice in the party headed by a British prime minister who appears to prefer to take his orders from Washington rather than from the people who elected him.”

There is an interesting set of govts. in Pakistan, at the moment:

NWFP govt. is completely under the control of MMA - an alliance of religious parties (non-violent but very conservative) which have the financial lower class as their support base. Sind is in control of secular parties. The secular MQM, with a middle class urban base is in power, while the secular PPP with an upper class feudal base is in opposition. Baluchistan has a combination of a relgious MMA and a non-religious though non-secular PML in power, with a combined lower class and upper class base. With the secular tribal parties with a tribal upper class power base in opposition. Punjab has an mixed urban middle class and feudal upper class mildly secular PML in power, with a secular mixed urban middle class and feudal upper class secular PPP in opposition.

The Army currently is about as secular as it has ever been. Musharraf being pretty much a complete gora in his private life. Drinking, dancing, partying - the whole nine yards.

It will be interesting to see which province does the best. At the moment, going by press reports, the Punjab govt. is giving the best performance in administration. While the Sind govt. is giving the worst performance.

People need to keep in mind that a majority of the people in Pakistan are illiterate and probably less than 1% attend Kara film festivals (though a majority, including those in remote villages, take interest in Indian movies). So film festivals and plays cannot really be taken as a criteria for how much progress Pakistan is making. They only affect the upper class.

The real criteria is who is doing the most to uplift the poor economically. This is where this govt. deserves the most credit. Pakistan`s rate of economic growth is expected to hit 7% this year. Of course, for those of us who are already well-off (the Chowk crowd), plays, dramas, entertaining TV, spaghetti strap dresses, dance parties etc. carry the main attraction.........

The days of the Kanjarrs are fast coming to a close. What these fossilised Budhhaas and BuDDhees ( old hags) are trying is to avoid the shining, bright, glaring, in-their-face return to Islami values.

[The days of the pimps & prostitutes is OVER! When will the so-called self-deluded salaried-types understand this. The ghulaam ibn-re ghulams have always believed in baighairaty as their highest achievement.
``How come it is such kind who always die of miserable & lingering diseases?``
Because it is an Acquired Lifestyle. They asked for it.]

---

CNN and all other major TV Headline news report about the phenomenal success of Bridges TV. The first MUSLIM channel in America.

Bridges TV launched. What a SUCCESS story. Be proud. Be confident.
Of course those with Acquired Defficiencies will reek of charred flesh. GOOD!
watch
watch
watch
watch

#3 by xeneb on December 26, 2004 0:10am PT
``apparently final soloutions was banned in india, why dont governments learn that by banning something you fuel even more curiousity about it.``

xeneb, godhra, and gujrat riots were EXTENSIVELY covered by the print and televison media for a very long time. imagine Star news, Zee news, NDTV, Aaj Tak, BBC, DD news, vernacular channels, weekly magazines like outlook, india today, frontline, and 50 odd local naguage mags talking gujrat for a year.

final solution was khamosh pani in the media din. so your post #3 is a generalization which is not aplicable in this case.