Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Article about Trial over Rachel Corrie's Death
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-israel-corrie-20101022,0,1110771.story
Truth and the Price of Onions
Truth becomes a scary word in the film Silent Waters. One must be a “true Muslim” in order to serve Pakistan, and Allah. Pakistan is the “true Islamic nation,” and Muslims the “true keepers of the soil.” True is a word loaded with such religious and political significance. From the mouths of those who believe in their own truth (a truth they themselves have defined), a black-and-white border extends. But what is true? The borderland that results from the ambiguity created by terms like “true” and “false” is cavernous and dangerous. Because, in the borderland, dwell the uncompromising leaders and the victimized. Hardly any in between.
I think we mistrust people who seem too certain of “Truth.” At least I do. The two Muslims from Lahore, in the movie, are callous and single-minded, certain that Islam is the only way (although, in the beginning, one of them does want to go about converting people more subtly-- get to know them first) and we know they bring trouble from the start. I think as outside observers, too, we are frightened by how quickly sheep find their shepherd. Crowds and groups of people will gravitate to anyone who sells something convincingly. The strongest, loudest voice ends up speaking the “Truth.”
Memories are influenced by this idea of Truth too. The stronger something is advocated, the more likely people are to remember it. The more convincingly something is delivered, the more people will CHOOSE to believe it. I think memory essentially becomes choice. Saleem chose his path, and how to remember/forget his mother. He will choose which part of her to remember- Veero or Ayesha? (I really liked what Dawn said about this in her post…) He chose to abandon what he knew of his mother’s past, to preserve nothing of her family’s memory. Yet that memory lives on with Zubeida (even though what exactly she knows is unclear) because she chose to keep Ayesha’s necklace. Who knows what will become truth when looking back? The “Truth” depends on the stories Zubeida and Saleem choose to tell.
Ayesha was stuck in a borderland, between places and times, between the past and the future. She chose not to tell Saleem about her past, to keep her Sikh identity hidden. That identity is hidden in her old name and possessions, and somewhere in her memory, and yet she chose not to tell her son until the very end of the movie. That choice affected the way Saleem’s whole life played out. New knowledge found out so late in his life couldn’t become “Truth” for him after being so indoctrinated in something else.
Silent Waters definitely builds on questions of memory and identity that we’ve raised with almost book we’ve read. Said’s memoir, in particular, raised the question of memory v. fiction. His story, and how we remember him, depends on his own memories, how he chooses to remember them, and how he chooses to include them in his book. Memory is story, story is memory, and both are choice.
Zubeida’s quote at the end of the movie sticks with me: “I remember Ayesha very well. But what’s the point of remembering her? Does it change the price of onions?” Truth and memory sometimes have little bearing on reality.
I think we mistrust people who seem too certain of “Truth.” At least I do. The two Muslims from Lahore, in the movie, are callous and single-minded, certain that Islam is the only way (although, in the beginning, one of them does want to go about converting people more subtly-- get to know them first) and we know they bring trouble from the start. I think as outside observers, too, we are frightened by how quickly sheep find their shepherd. Crowds and groups of people will gravitate to anyone who sells something convincingly. The strongest, loudest voice ends up speaking the “Truth.”
Memories are influenced by this idea of Truth too. The stronger something is advocated, the more likely people are to remember it. The more convincingly something is delivered, the more people will CHOOSE to believe it. I think memory essentially becomes choice. Saleem chose his path, and how to remember/forget his mother. He will choose which part of her to remember- Veero or Ayesha? (I really liked what Dawn said about this in her post…) He chose to abandon what he knew of his mother’s past, to preserve nothing of her family’s memory. Yet that memory lives on with Zubeida (even though what exactly she knows is unclear) because she chose to keep Ayesha’s necklace. Who knows what will become truth when looking back? The “Truth” depends on the stories Zubeida and Saleem choose to tell.
Ayesha was stuck in a borderland, between places and times, between the past and the future. She chose not to tell Saleem about her past, to keep her Sikh identity hidden. That identity is hidden in her old name and possessions, and somewhere in her memory, and yet she chose not to tell her son until the very end of the movie. That choice affected the way Saleem’s whole life played out. New knowledge found out so late in his life couldn’t become “Truth” for him after being so indoctrinated in something else.
Silent Waters definitely builds on questions of memory and identity that we’ve raised with almost book we’ve read. Said’s memoir, in particular, raised the question of memory v. fiction. His story, and how we remember him, depends on his own memories, how he chooses to remember them, and how he chooses to include them in his book. Memory is story, story is memory, and both are choice.
Zubeida’s quote at the end of the movie sticks with me: “I remember Ayesha very well. But what’s the point of remembering her? Does it change the price of onions?” Truth and memory sometimes have little bearing on reality.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Silent Waters
So where to begin with Silent Waters? As far as films go, this is a solid film. The well-drawn characters motivate the audience to take an interest in the coming of age stories of two Pakistani youths one generation after partition. Shot on location in a Pakistani village we get a “real” look at day-to-day Pakistani life 40 years after the nation’s creation. Although, most critics heaviest criticisms were applied to this section of the film, its meanderings through the daily life and customs of the people gave me time to invest in this “other” culture, so that when the film took a darker turn I was in it for the long haul.
And this film was bound to take a dark turn as it wasn’t really about Zubeida and Saleem’s young love affair. It was really about the pitfalls of religious fundamentalism and nationalism. This story was really about Ayesha.
We’ve seen this character before, only last time we were in India. And this, for me was where the movie fell short. If I made this connection than others surely did too, and given the message of the film — religious fundamentalism and nationalism is bad for society, and especially for women — then this film is a political statement. There is evidence to support this as it appears Silent Waters has only been shown in Pakistan through the will and means of the director herself. Thus, the film must be addressed to an international audience. However, for this to be a successful political statement (in my book) it must inspire at least feelings of wanting to take action in the viewer. The message is certainly pretty clear in this well crafted film and audiences will leave viewings feeling pretty negatively about Islamic nationalism, but that’s it. Where the book (not the movie) Cracking India succeeds as a political statement, Silent Waters fails. It offers no political prescription.
Cracking India delivered essentially the same message as Silent Waters, but it didn’t end there. In a “think globally, act locally” kind of a movement readers saw women banding together to provide aid to those victimized by partition. But in Silent Waters, there is none of that. In fact, we get the opposite. In order to cope with the particulars of his nation’s birth, Saleem becomes a leader of the oppressive Islamic nationalist movement and Zubeida goes on with her oppressive Islamic life. And what of the Sikh (or other minority) women living out their lives in Pakistan: there is no place for you in this idealized Muslim world and you will eventually be crushed by the weight of the façade.
And it is, after all, a façade. In Silent Waters Ayesha’s tragic fates shows that extremism requires that you ignore the reality of things. And the reality is that Pakistanis carry a muddled past into a confused present, but ignoring that fact does not make it go away. Distorting the truth to fit some idealized picture of what you are serves no one. But what is the audience suppose to do with that? Apparently nothing, because that’s exactly what Zubeida and Saleem do: nothing. Thus, the audience is left enlightened, but unaffected by the film as it affects no action.
It is interesting that the films we’ve watched have, overall, been extremely pessimistic about the present state and possible future of things, while the books we’ve read have, overall, been less so. The films Cracking India, Silent Waters, and The Wind that Shakes the Barley have portrayed a dismal and tragic state of affairs with little hope for peace. However, books such as Cracking India, Out of Place, and even The Shadow Lines may present a dismal view of the past they have an ounce of hope for the future with their ideas of acting locally, hybridity, and truth.
One thing I have taken from all the works we’ve discussed is how a few extremists can sway the many to violence and equally, how just a few with peaceful intent can help a nation heal.
And this film was bound to take a dark turn as it wasn’t really about Zubeida and Saleem’s young love affair. It was really about the pitfalls of religious fundamentalism and nationalism. This story was really about Ayesha.
We’ve seen this character before, only last time we were in India. And this, for me was where the movie fell short. If I made this connection than others surely did too, and given the message of the film — religious fundamentalism and nationalism is bad for society, and especially for women — then this film is a political statement. There is evidence to support this as it appears Silent Waters has only been shown in Pakistan through the will and means of the director herself. Thus, the film must be addressed to an international audience. However, for this to be a successful political statement (in my book) it must inspire at least feelings of wanting to take action in the viewer. The message is certainly pretty clear in this well crafted film and audiences will leave viewings feeling pretty negatively about Islamic nationalism, but that’s it. Where the book (not the movie) Cracking India succeeds as a political statement, Silent Waters fails. It offers no political prescription.
Cracking India delivered essentially the same message as Silent Waters, but it didn’t end there. In a “think globally, act locally” kind of a movement readers saw women banding together to provide aid to those victimized by partition. But in Silent Waters, there is none of that. In fact, we get the opposite. In order to cope with the particulars of his nation’s birth, Saleem becomes a leader of the oppressive Islamic nationalist movement and Zubeida goes on with her oppressive Islamic life. And what of the Sikh (or other minority) women living out their lives in Pakistan: there is no place for you in this idealized Muslim world and you will eventually be crushed by the weight of the façade.
And it is, after all, a façade. In Silent Waters Ayesha’s tragic fates shows that extremism requires that you ignore the reality of things. And the reality is that Pakistanis carry a muddled past into a confused present, but ignoring that fact does not make it go away. Distorting the truth to fit some idealized picture of what you are serves no one. But what is the audience suppose to do with that? Apparently nothing, because that’s exactly what Zubeida and Saleem do: nothing. Thus, the audience is left enlightened, but unaffected by the film as it affects no action.
It is interesting that the films we’ve watched have, overall, been extremely pessimistic about the present state and possible future of things, while the books we’ve read have, overall, been less so. The films Cracking India, Silent Waters, and The Wind that Shakes the Barley have portrayed a dismal and tragic state of affairs with little hope for peace. However, books such as Cracking India, Out of Place, and even The Shadow Lines may present a dismal view of the past they have an ounce of hope for the future with their ideas of acting locally, hybridity, and truth.
One thing I have taken from all the works we’ve discussed is how a few extremists can sway the many to violence and equally, how just a few with peaceful intent can help a nation heal.
Recurring post-colonial themes in Silent Waters
In Silent Waters we encountered some of the same themes we’ve seen in other partition literature, such borders, boundaries, and divisions. In the film’s opening, we get a look at normal life in Pakistan in the 1980s, including a traditional Muslim wedding. This scene alone is packed with boundaries and divisions, of people crossing those boundaries and even of borderlands.
In one clip a man leaves the group of married and unmarried men and crosses the red curtain to dance with his wife who is on the other side with the bride to be, married and other unmarried women. This seems to be an example of an acceptable form of border crossing, which will contrast with unacceptable crossings later.
Furthermore, one might even consider the sight of theses marital festivities as a borderland as the bride and bridegroom are not single, but not yet married, either. And borders are crossed on the men’s side of the curtain as a man rises to dance with the paid female entertainer.
In another example of borderlands, the two young lovers, Zubeida and Saleem, arrange a clandestine meeting while walking from school to home. They move from this borderland between their academic and their domestic lives to a graveyard, a borderland between life and death. This is where the young lovers meet to talk about their future together, so not only does the graveyard serve as a borderland, but it also foreshadows the fate of their romance, as Ayesha and Zubeida form an unspoken pact neither is able to uphold under the weight of Islamic nationalism.
And as far as divisions go we see that after the British divided up India, then Pakistan set about dividing up itself. Consider the raising of the wall around the girls’ school. Even time itself fell under the sway of partition. I was reading Wikipedia’s entry on partition and it said even partitioned time was partitioned in 1947. Pakistan adopted “New Standard Time,” which put the country 30 minutes behind India. Weird, to think that the two countries even divided time when they split. This is like a bad divorce on crack.
They even split up Heaven. When Ayesha is teaching the Koran to the little school girls both Sikhs and Muslims get a Heaven, but its not the same one. And finally, we get the division of Ayesha and Veero — one dies while the other lives on in the memory of Zubeida and Saleem: which one depends on your interpretation of the film.
In one clip a man leaves the group of married and unmarried men and crosses the red curtain to dance with his wife who is on the other side with the bride to be, married and other unmarried women. This seems to be an example of an acceptable form of border crossing, which will contrast with unacceptable crossings later.
Furthermore, one might even consider the sight of theses marital festivities as a borderland as the bride and bridegroom are not single, but not yet married, either. And borders are crossed on the men’s side of the curtain as a man rises to dance with the paid female entertainer.
In another example of borderlands, the two young lovers, Zubeida and Saleem, arrange a clandestine meeting while walking from school to home. They move from this borderland between their academic and their domestic lives to a graveyard, a borderland between life and death. This is where the young lovers meet to talk about their future together, so not only does the graveyard serve as a borderland, but it also foreshadows the fate of their romance, as Ayesha and Zubeida form an unspoken pact neither is able to uphold under the weight of Islamic nationalism.
And as far as divisions go we see that after the British divided up India, then Pakistan set about dividing up itself. Consider the raising of the wall around the girls’ school. Even time itself fell under the sway of partition. I was reading Wikipedia’s entry on partition and it said even partitioned time was partitioned in 1947. Pakistan adopted “New Standard Time,” which put the country 30 minutes behind India. Weird, to think that the two countries even divided time when they split. This is like a bad divorce on crack.
They even split up Heaven. When Ayesha is teaching the Koran to the little school girls both Sikhs and Muslims get a Heaven, but its not the same one. And finally, we get the division of Ayesha and Veero — one dies while the other lives on in the memory of Zubeida and Saleem: which one depends on your interpretation of the film.
Rachel Corrie and Said
Today’s readings made me reflect upon some of the themes we’ve encountered in our exploration of partition literature. My focus rested largely on this idea of an imagined space vs. the reality of a space, as it was presented in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines. Reading Rachel Corrie’s e-mails and Said’s essay forced me to confront how Americans imagine Arabs and how they actually are. It is important to remember in this hyper-mediaized age that everything we see and here does not reality make. We have to remember to hang onto our doubts and value our skeptical natures. We have to question those who deem “Arabs an underdeveloped, incompetent and doomed people, and that with all the failures in democracy and development, Arabs are alone in this world for being retarded, behind the times, unmodernized, and deeply reactionary” (Said). Everything we have read contradicts this racist idea, and in fact, portrays a portion of humanity caught in the political machinations of the world. Said strikes at the heart of matters when he asks that “dignity and critical historical thinking must be mobilized to see what is what and to disentangle truth from propaganda.”
That is what makes Corrie’s e-mails so provocative and powerful. An average, modern American is able to see through the convoluted political web to the families and communities being ripped apart over questions of borders and boundaries. One of the most powerful moments for me is when Corrie wrote, “just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I’m really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop” (56). Corrie wrote this from one woman to another, from one potential mother to another mother. I found myself tearing up at the thought. I would never want my daughter to come to know these things about the world we live in. And Corrie as much as said that exact thing when she wrote, “This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me” (56). But unfortunately that is exactly what we need to have happen — the average American has to wise up to the world.
That is what makes Corrie’s e-mails so provocative and powerful. An average, modern American is able to see through the convoluted political web to the families and communities being ripped apart over questions of borders and boundaries. One of the most powerful moments for me is when Corrie wrote, “just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I’m really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop” (56). Corrie wrote this from one woman to another, from one potential mother to another mother. I found myself tearing up at the thought. I would never want my daughter to come to know these things about the world we live in. And Corrie as much as said that exact thing when she wrote, “This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me” (56). But unfortunately that is exactly what we need to have happen — the average American has to wise up to the world.
Relics, Tangles, Partition
In "The Shadow Lines," the house the grandmother grew up in serves as an obvious metaphor: The house is partitioned between the two families with a wooden wall to the extent that the toilet is even split in half. (121) To me this sounded like a fable, and was intended to make partition look impractical and silly in its wishful thinking. The grandmother would then tell her younger sister stories about their mysterious aunts, uncles, and cousins and how they did everything upside down. I want to read this as a innocent child-like xenophobia, if this is possible. But the metaphor gets more complicated.
As a result of the partition of India, the house has become a home for several refugee families. The uncle, and I'm not sure if we should believe this, is still concerned that the other half of the family will come take it from him. How do we decipher this as a metaphor? I think the answer lies in the riots that surrounded Tridib's death and the disappearance of a relic in Kashmir. The disappearance caused both multi-national solidarity, but also was seen as an attack on Muslims.
Relics are influential in the novel. Tridib is an archeologist, and in one of the most memorable parts of the novel for me, was when the narrator recognizes Nick's uncle's house as both past and present: its existence articulated by both its missing staircase and the current travel agency.
The grandmother talks about living in the past, and doesn't seem to understand the result of partition in relation to visible borders. The reason I bring this up is because this novel best describes the lingering problems of partition (Reading in the Dark as well). The problems with partition extend beyond practicality and ethnic cleansing, in time and spectrum. I liked that I was taught to view a place as both its history and its contemporary.
When the narrator himself starts to figure some of this out he claims that previously, "I believed in the reality of space; I believed that distance separates, that it is a corporeal substance; I believed in the reality of nations and borders; I believed that across the border existed a different reality." (214)
This novel, in all its tangles between countries and continents, past and present, articulates through its form this idea: the world is connected--invented space, nationality, is...invented. Something to be believed in--mystic but not fact.
As a result of the partition of India, the house has become a home for several refugee families. The uncle, and I'm not sure if we should believe this, is still concerned that the other half of the family will come take it from him. How do we decipher this as a metaphor? I think the answer lies in the riots that surrounded Tridib's death and the disappearance of a relic in Kashmir. The disappearance caused both multi-national solidarity, but also was seen as an attack on Muslims.
Relics are influential in the novel. Tridib is an archeologist, and in one of the most memorable parts of the novel for me, was when the narrator recognizes Nick's uncle's house as both past and present: its existence articulated by both its missing staircase and the current travel agency.
The grandmother talks about living in the past, and doesn't seem to understand the result of partition in relation to visible borders. The reason I bring this up is because this novel best describes the lingering problems of partition (Reading in the Dark as well). The problems with partition extend beyond practicality and ethnic cleansing, in time and spectrum. I liked that I was taught to view a place as both its history and its contemporary.
When the narrator himself starts to figure some of this out he claims that previously, "I believed in the reality of space; I believed that distance separates, that it is a corporeal substance; I believed in the reality of nations and borders; I believed that across the border existed a different reality." (214)
This novel, in all its tangles between countries and continents, past and present, articulates through its form this idea: the world is connected--invented space, nationality, is...invented. Something to be believed in--mystic but not fact.
Great Expectations and The Shadow Lines
The question of the “Great Expectationesque” romance between Ila and the narrator In Amitav Ghosh’s Shadow Lines has plagued me and I have not been able to let it go. So central to the narrator’s story and so smacking of the famous British novel that I have to believe the connotations of this unrequited love affair were central to the writer’s intent and purpose. Ghosh must be deliberately subverting this idol of the English canon to his own purposes.
First off, there are strong similarities between the main characters. Pip and the narrator both see the world for what it is, good and bad. They absorb multiple perspectives and are able to see the truth in people and life and thus come to rest in equilibrium, in a borderland. Pip recognized the arbitrariness of class, which thus cannot predict the quality of a man and the narrator certainly perceived the illusory nature of nations. Furthermore, Ila, who rejects India, ends up in a troubled marriage and Estella, who embraced the culture of the British elite, also suffers severe marital discord. Perhaps the message is the same in both texts: the more we run from our pasts the more it comes back to haunt us.
In order to heal from such oppression as the class system and partition people must face the horror and then create from the ashes an improved breed of humanity that transcends such illusory categories as race, class, religion, and creed. We are not low or upper class, not Indian or Pakistani, not Hindu, Muslim or Sikh, we are “other” and that is all the classification we need.
First off, there are strong similarities between the main characters. Pip and the narrator both see the world for what it is, good and bad. They absorb multiple perspectives and are able to see the truth in people and life and thus come to rest in equilibrium, in a borderland. Pip recognized the arbitrariness of class, which thus cannot predict the quality of a man and the narrator certainly perceived the illusory nature of nations. Furthermore, Ila, who rejects India, ends up in a troubled marriage and Estella, who embraced the culture of the British elite, also suffers severe marital discord. Perhaps the message is the same in both texts: the more we run from our pasts the more it comes back to haunt us.
In order to heal from such oppression as the class system and partition people must face the horror and then create from the ashes an improved breed of humanity that transcends such illusory categories as race, class, religion, and creed. We are not low or upper class, not Indian or Pakistani, not Hindu, Muslim or Sikh, we are “other” and that is all the classification we need.
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