Shilpa Shetty and scandal

Funnily enough it's not the biggest Bollywood stars like Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan or Aishwarya Rai who make international headlines because of scandal. It's Shilpa Shetty - a girl who goes with her mother almost everywhere and seems to be one of the most politically correct stars in Bollywood *grin*
For those of you who have been talked into watching some Bollywood movies, you may remember Shilpa from Baazigar. Baazigar (which was made in 1993 and was her debut film) is in fact her biggest hit to date ;-P The trailer for this film is here if any of you want to see it :) (she's the first lady Shahrukh is romancing, the other leading lady as many of you will know is Kajol).

So firstly, as you may or may not know, Shilpa won the UK celebrity Big Brother not too long ago, but what happened to her in the house caused an international incident. Major British politicians such as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown felt it necessary to speak up and the incident provoked a huge discussion about racism in the UK (as well as discussion about whether what happened to Shilpa was racism or just bullying). Perhaps the best way to give you more of an idea about what happened is this video (go forward to the part when she's interviewed and shown clips from what happened if you're bored with the beginning bit):

Part two of the video is here, but I imagine the first clip will be quite enough information.

But now, Shilpa has become part of another international incident. This time it involves Richard Gere, public kissing (on the cheek!) and I guess further food for thought on how different people from different cultures feel about what's appropriate and what's not (which was the topic of this post). Here's a news report on the incident:

The incident has now gone even farther with talk that Richard Gere might be sentenced to prison for "public obscenity".

Islam and the West

This is a difficult topic for me to write about (although at the same time one I really want to write about). I've never been around Muslims or their culture, so there are many things that I might not understand about Islam and therefore also about its conflict with the West (if there even is one - there are those who say it is a purely political conflict and has nothing to do with culture or religion). But I guess that's why I want to write this (as I explained in my first post on this blog, this blog is a Pensieve ;-P so it's supposed to help me put random thoughts in order).
Before I get to the point, I want to underline very, very clearly that I'm writing this from a Westerner's point of view, which means this post is a mix of news tidbits from Western media, some stereotypes and then a few tibits I've come across which seem to go against what I've been made to believe about Islam.
I'm not going to write about terrorism - I don't think I have anything worth saying that hasn't been said a million times over by others. And anyway, I don't really understand what Jihad is and I don't believe an encyclopedic definition will help, but for all it's worth you can check out the explanation on wikipedia here. Clearly, it has a very wide meaning and many in the Islamic community think it's being misinterpreted by the likes of al-Qaeda and other such organizations, so lets leave it at that.

I've written a long disclaimer, so I guess I can start with the nasty stuff now... Here's an article which upholds all the worst things we hear about Islam. It's about honour killings in Germany - Muslim women (Turkish in this case) get killed by their own families because they adopt a Western style of life.
I've also come across some articles about women's rights (and rape in particular) in Pakistan. This is an article about Mukhtar Mai - a woman from a small Pakistani village who was gang-raped, but has chosen to speak out about it and has become an important figure in the fight for women's rights. To read more on what Pakistani women think about this issue, try this link - there's a wide scope of opinions presented.
Other than this (well maybe apart from all the recent stories about whether Muslim women in Western countries should be allowed to wear veils - but perhaps I'll write about that at some different time), the rest of the stories showing Islam in bad light are terrorist related I think and while one can't fully discuss the matter without mentioning terrorism, I really don't feel like going into detail on it. We all know the issue exists and we all have very strong feelings against it and that I think is as much as I'm going to write.

Of course the West has done some very horrible things as well. While Bush's war on terror needs no comment I think, there are other things that have happened on the West/Middle-East front since the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq that speak very badly of the West. One of the first scandals was when the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was revealed. It was a loud case, so most of you probably remember it. If you don't then here's an article from May 2004 that covers the issue in quite a lot of detail.
While that was curbed, there are still Human Right issues that to this day have not been resolved and in fact the present state of affairs seems to have support from the US government (there seem to be slow changes made for the better, so lets keep our fingers crossed). I'm talking about Guantanamo of course. Check out what Amnesty International has to say. I still ought to read up more on their site, but I think the Case-sheets are particularly chilling reads. Also check out the short interview with Moazzam Begg - while not as descriptive on the torture as the case-sheets, what he has to say is still very shocking and very much worth knowing in the global scale of things. He was one of the people who spent a few years in Guantanamo and then was released without charges.
And this is not the end of things either. Things like this are happening all the time, but perhaps not as loudly as the two above (although frankly, Guantanamo is probably receiving a lot less attention from the media than it should!). A recent story which I found quite shocking is this - a 14 year old Iraq girl raped and killed by US soldiers (not to mention her whole family being killed by them as well).
Then there's the Arab-Israeli conflict, which many say is a major culprit in the tensions in the world now.

If you're Polish (I think most of the very few people reading this blog are) and perhaps thinking that Poland is responsible only for supporting the USA in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, well think again. If there is or was a secret detention centre in Poland then for all we know similar horrors could have been going on there. Check out this article about a recent EU investigation into the matter. There is no proof of such a place existing, but there are certainly very fishy aspects to this story. It is about these sorts of places that Moazzam Begg talked of in the interview I linked to. Here's the relevant quote:
And I think that one of the lessons, if we can call it a lesson, that the USA has learnt from Guantánamo is that there places that you don't tell people about.
Guantánamo now is almost this place that is becoming acceptable because these other places are so much worse and so much sinister.

There is this opinion in the West that Islamic culture is more aggresive and less democratic than Western culture. And yes, it wasn't people from the West who killed 3000 people in the World Trade Centre attacks. We also don't have honour killings (or at least I haven't heard of any) and women have more rights. But is there not enough evidence in the articles I linked to that show our culture is also very brutal and agressive?
You might say that the people who have inflicted such abuses on Muslims are in the minority, but that is what Muslims say about their extremists, no? I think the reason that we see our culture as less aggressive is that we know so many other aspects of it. What other aspects of Muslim culture does an average Westerner know?

I recently stumbled across a Muslim prayer on-line and I was very surprised with it. Believe it or not, it's actually very much in line with what I keep writing on this blog (I mean the values in it). Here it is (copied and pasted from this site):

Muslim Prayer for Peace

In the name of Allah,
the beneficent, the merciful.
Praise be to the Lord of the
Universe who has created us and
made us into tribes and nations
That we may know each other, not that
we may despise each other.
If the enemy incline towards peace, do
thou also incline towards peace, and
trust God, for the Lord is the one that
heareth and knoweth all things.
And the servants of God,
Most gracious are those who walk on
the Earth in humility, and when we
address them, we say "PEACE."

One of the major reasons why I even started thinking about this and wondering if I'm missing something in how Islam has been potrayed to me is Bollywood :D (yes, even though this blog is becoming a lot more political than I had intended it, Bollywood and Harry Potter will keep getting inserted into it until everyone but me is totally bored of hearing about them ;-P)
When I started getting fascinated with Bollywood I quickly realized that a lot of the major stars in the film industry are Muslim. And because I find it very easy to connect to the films, this made me think. These Muslim actors were showing a sense of humour that is no different than what we have in the West, often promoting values which I agree with (and I think the West generally agrees with) and in general there was just so little of it that was truly foreign to me.
Just to illustrate what I'm saying (and because I can't resist the opportunity to show people yet another clip of Shah Rukh Khan), below are two clips from an interview with Shahrukh on a program called "Devil's Advocate". The part which is relevant to this post (where he talks about Islam) starts at about 4:10 on the first clip and then continues into the second one (anyone wishing to watch the interview in full should start with this clip and then continue to the two below).



Shah Rukh is very proudly Muslim (he mentions it so much in interviews that some accuse him of flaunting it, the other Muslim stars are mostly much more reserved about it), but at the same time he does some things that I wouldn't associate with Islam based on the information that comes my way from Western sources.
Firstly, he is married to a Hindu and they are bringing up their children in both religions. Secondly, he is actually very feminist (there are many examples, but for some reason the following one particularly amuses me ;-P). There's an interview about one of his films, Paheli which he also produced. He's clearly very proud of the film (it's a very female centered film, telling the story of a woman's loneliness) and he seemed to be genuinely excited about being the supporting actor for a woman rather than the other way round lol:
What makes Paheli so special?

Everything about Paheli is special. See, I am sounding like a doting father! First of all, it is for the first time that I have attempted a totally women-centric movie not only as a filmmaker but also as an actor.

For the first time and probably not the last time, Shahrukh Khan will be entirely dominated by a heroine.

While I kind of feel that I should give a meaninful end to such a long and rambling post, I don't think I have anything more to say ;) This post is very heavy, long and political so instead of giving a summary of my views (which are hopefully fairly clear by now), I'll just leave you on a light note. Here's the trailer for Paheli:

The trailer of course has absolutely nothing to do with Islam other than Muslims being amongst those who made the film (the main characters are Hindu not Muslim), but this is my blog, so I think I am entitled to finishing my posts in a totally ridiculous manner if I so please, so there ;-P

The Philippines and its film industry

Ok, here's a case of cultural isolation which I think is very strange. People in the West are now getting more aware that India is the most prolific industry in the world, but how many people know that the Philippines produce more feature films annually than the majority of countries in our part of the world?
I'm not sure exactly where they fit in on the world stage, but they are certainly among the top10 or even top5 most prolific film industries in the world (I'm told that in the 1970s they were 3rd after India and the USA). I am a person who watches more cinema than most and do you know how many films from the Philippines I've seen? Answer: One.
The film I saw was a big hit in the Philippines (it was apparently no.1 at the box office there beating many American films) and while very low budget, it is a really great film. It dealt with homosexuality which is an all together different topic in the Philippines than it is here. And contrary to what you might think, it is us who have the much more conservative attitude. The story is that of Maxi, a 12-year old gay boy who is brought up by his father and brothers and falls in love with an adult man - an idealistic policeman (and according to the Warsaw Film Festival catalogue idealistic policemen are much more rare in the Philippines than 12 year old gay boys). Anyway, the English title is The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, if you have the chance (which you probably won't ;-P ) then check it out! Here's a trailer I found on youtube:


We had a Q&A with the director after the film and some of the things he said were fascinating (well at least for me - this is the first bit of Philippine culture that I've ever come across).

So the thing is that the Philippines like Poland are a very Catholic country - so we found it quite odd that homosexuality is so much more in the open there than here. The director told us that perhaps it is to do with the traditions that were in place in the Philippines before christianity came there. Apparently shamans would usually be gay because it was believed that somebody who has both male and female "particles" is closer to God.
Another thing which I found weird and amusing is that unlike in Poland it's the lower classes that are tolerant about homosexuality, most of the intolerance is in the upper classes.
When asked about how it is that boys declare their orientation in the Philippines so early he said he doesn't know, but that he thinks it's because the society in general is more open about it.

Something else that the director told us which I thought was great was about the showing of his film at the Berlin festival where his film was shown in the children's section. He thought the children would find it quite boring and that there would be a lot of walkouts, but on the contrary - it was very well received. He did however get verbally attacked by a woman who was offended that such a film would be shown to children, so he asked the children if they felt shocked or offended by the film and the children said no and that they thought the film was very cool :D
Just to clarify - the film doesn't actually have any sex in it. There is a sort of strange romance between the boy and the policeman, but it's not physical.

On the making of the film, the director told us that the boy who played Maxi was actually straight. He did audition lots of gay boys (there is apparently a whole gang of queens on his street where he shot the film :) ), but apparently they all exaggerated it too much, lol. The boy he chose really was excellent by the way :)

Nigeria

Right, so I'm starting one of the themes that might be reoccurring in this blog - cultural interchange. I do feel that people (me very much included!) don't have enough of an awareness of culture across the globe and my belief is that it is one of the reasons for the tensions we have in the world right now. Our cultures are just too isolated from each other.
For me not knowing much about African culture is a reason for caring maybe less about Africa's problems than I should. Some of the things that happen there, if they were happening in Europe or North America they would leave me feeling shaken, but because they're happening in Africa I have little or no emotional reaction to them.
Anyway, the point is I think I have finally got the first seeds of developping some sort of reaction to whatever happens in Nigeria now :D And I want to share that.

I found this article on BBC about Nigeria.
I thought it was great in that it gave a lot of insight into what life there is like. The theme is Nigerian sense of humour and trying to fly out to somewhere from Lagos. Here's my favourite fragment (near the end of the article):

"The replacement aircraft is being serviced" said a cheery voice. "You'll be on your way just as soon as we've put the plane back together again."

Ibim and I - and the other passengers - collapsed in fits of thigh-grabbing, shoulder-thumping laughter.

We did get there in the end.


Of all the African countries, Nigeria seems to be the one that's been "following me around" the most in the last year or so.
Apart from meeting a Nigerian studying medicine in Poland about a year ago, during the summer I watched a documentary film entitled Workingman's Death which showed 5 very unpleasant jobs that are done in undevelopped places of the world. One of these jobs was that of butcher in Nigeria and something that caught my eye immediately was that of all the jobs the director showed, the Nigerians were the only ones who weren't depressed about doing it. They were just thanking God for having a job in the first place and totally satisfied with this sort of life (and mind you - the Nigerian part was the one which people couldn't stand so much that they started leaving the cinema - the way they were butchering animals up was really quite horrible, I think most people would absolutely hate to do that for a living in those conditions).
If you're interested, the official site for this film is here. As far as I know this film will be distributed in Poland by GutekFilm, so it probably will be shown in quite a few other countries as well.

Something else that my cousin drew my attention to is that Nigeria has a huge video film industry which is nicknamed Nollywood. It would be interesting to see something of their films one day (even though I expect the production values are probably bad, but I've been surprised before sometimes, so who knows? :) ). Of course at the moment in my part of the world seeing these films is pretty much impossible :(
Anyway, here's a trailer for a documentary about Nollywood: