SACW | 18 Aug. 2003
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Mon Aug 18 05:04:58 CDT 2003
South Asia Citizens Wire | 18 August, 2003
[1.] Bangladesh: Threat of religious extremism Let's not be blinkered
(edit., The Daily Star)
[2.] Looking Back at India Pakistan and 1947 and moving on:
- Teach-In on Thirty Years of Indian and Pakistani History: A Tryst
with Destiny ( Aamir Mufti and Gyan Pandey speaking)
- Pakistan and India: independent but not free (Muqtedar Khan)
- A Land with no Borders (Ehtasham Khan)
[3.] India's Milosevic in the UK:
- UK rights group seeks Modi's arrest
- Cozying Up To A Fascist? (I.K.Shukla)
- Slogans raised against Modi in London (Hasan Suroor)
[4.] India: Minister Attacks Gandhian Institute in Varanasi (Anand Tiwari)
[5.] India: This Hindu family pledges to fight saffron agenda (K. A. Shaji)
[6.] British scientists burst horoscope bubble
[7.] "Khamosh Pani" (Silent Water) by Sabiha Sumar's is a valuable
film Islamisation...
[8.] Book Review: In Another Life - Ethnic tensions, romantic
collisions and bitter-sweet memories trespass on Uzma Aslam Khan's
creative canvas. (Razeshta Sethna)
--------------
[1.]
The Daily Star [ Bangladesh]
August 18, 2003
Editorial
Threat of religious extremism
Let's not be blinkered
The happenings in Joypurhat strongly suggest that some fundamentalist
militant outfits are not only present in the country but are also
working secretly to push forward their agenda.
Police arrested 21 members of the Jamaatul Mujahideen after a
gunfight and recovered arms and ammunition from their possession.
This was clearly not an encounter between ordinary outlaws and the
members of a law enforcement agency. The Mujahideen members stood
their ground and engaged the police in a firefight and that alone was
indicative of their preparations, training and capability to fight
against the police. So they were not run-of-the-mill kind of
terrorists. They are organised and seem to have been indoctrinated by
their leaders for launching a particular type of campaign which the
members of the group claim, as per the information gathered from
printed materials recovered from a house, to be a 'holy war'.
They were also prepared for any eventuality with a high level of
motivation and some specific mission to fulfil. The Joypurhat
incidents also indicate that the militants might be working in league
with others of their ilk. The recent arms haul in Bogra was a pointer
to trafficking in lethal weapons. The circumstantial evidences
suggest that they could be part of a wider network of ideologically
charged zealots working to attain their long-term goals in a very
organised manner.
All these point to the dangers that the nation may have to face
unless such activities are nipped before they assume intractable
proportions. But the government's initial reaction appears to be one
of shying away from decisive action that is needed to check the
growth of such militant organisations. It does not appear to be
willing to dip its feet in troubled water. And political finger
pointing, the sole purpose of which is to undermine rivals, often
blurs the picture to a great extent.
There is reason to believe that the incidents have a regional and
global dimension, particularly because the surge in terrorist
activities is far too manifest in many countries these days. So the
government should think in terms of seeking help from international
intelligence networks to get to the bottom of the phenomenon and
unearth the links, if any, between the militants and international
extremist groups.
o o o
[For more information see report on the Joypurhat incident:
http://www.thedailystar.net/2003/08/18/d3081801033.htm ]
_____
[2.]
[Looking Back at India Pakistan and 1947 and moving on]
Midnight's Children Humanities Festival
Teach-In on Thirty Years of Indian and Pakistani History: A Tryst with Destiny
March 6 , 2003
Speaker: Aamir Mufti
http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/broadcast/ramfiles/mchf2003/03_06_a.ram
Speaker: Gyan Pandey
"On the same day, Earl Mountbatten of Burma held a press conference
at which he announced the Partition of India, and hung his countdown
calendar on the wall: seventy days to go to the transfer of
power...sixty-nine...sixty-eight...tick, tock."
http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/broadcast/ramfiles/mchf2003/03_06_b.ram
o o o
The Daily Star [Lebanon]
Pakistan and India: independent but not free
Muqtedar Khan
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/16_08_03_c.asp
o o o
Rediff.com [India]
August 15, 2003
A Land with no Borders
The Rediff Special/Ehtasham Khan
[...]
Ashraf, Alam and Suri look forward to the day when people visiting
the other side of the border will not require visas. "I hope a day
will come," says Alam, "when you go to the border, show your passport
and the other side will say, 'Please come in.' "
Full Text at: http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/aug/15spec.htm
_____
[3.]
The Times of India
AUGUST 17, 2003
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=134779
UK rights group seeks Modi's arrest
RASHMEE Z AHMED
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 2003 10:51:55 PM ]
LONDON: Narendra Modi began on Sunday a whistle-stop tour through
Europe to re-brand Gujarat internationally, but the chief minister
may have to shout to make himself heard above the massed protestors
pleading for justice.
In particular, Modi's lawyers may have to prove to a British
magistrate that he is not Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean
military leader who was uniquely arrested in the UK in 1998 and
detained for 17 months on charges of crimes against humanity.
Just hours before Modi began his first visit to the UK since the
Gujarat violence, members of a South Asian human rights organisation
claimed they would seek Modi's arrest on Tuesday through the court of
a Bow Street magistrate, where public interest cases are heard. It
was at a Bow Street magistrate's court that the whole
headline-grabbing saga of the Pinochet arrest began but observers
said the Modi affidavit may turn out to be no more than a 'gimmick'.
But, Modi's London visit began with an altogether sunnier 'community
event' near Wembley stadium, attended by 2,400 Gujaratis. The chief
minister's main message, said organiser Anil Pota, general secretary
of the Overseas Friends of the BJP, is to seek the help of Gujaratis
everywhere for his '—Vibrant Gujarat' initiative.
Modi is to meet representatives of oil company Shell in the UK and
several leading business groups during his next stop in Zurich and
Geneva. The European tour will culminate in a 'global investors
meeting' late next month in Ahmedabad, where Fortune 500 companies
will be invited to invest in a state that is peaceful and prosperous.
Prominent Gujarati poet Praful Amin in Birmingham, said non-resident
Gujaratis 'are backing Modi' and it was time for reconciliation even
with some of the angrier groups of British Gujarati Muslims calling
Modi a 'fascist'.
On Sunday, relatives of two British Gujaratis from Yorkshire, who
lost their lives in the Gujarat violence, publicly endorsed the mass
protests and calls for justice for their loved ones.
Bilal Dawood, whose brothers Saeed and Shakil Dawood were killed
while on holiday in Gujarat, went public on BBC domestic radio with
what he called a message to Modi.
"We just want a proper investigation or a reinvestigation to
happen... We just want to know what's happened, who's done it, and
why it's happened, and the right justice process to be followed. Modi
is in charge of Gujurat state, so... he is ultimately liable for
(these deaths)..."
o o o
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 18:19:10 +0000
COZYING UP TO A FASCIST?
I.K.Shukla
It is dismaying that some Muslim organisations/individuals in England
are extending a welcome/reception to the Butcher of Gujarat Muslims.
[SEE: Hindustan Times - Muslim leaders welcome Narendra Modi in
London - http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_341696,000900040003.htm
]
Nothing can be more ignoble and abject than this appeasement of a RSS
Hitler. Like Hitler, appeased by the West in general, and Chamberlain
in particular, he will carry on more massacres, more pogroms in
consonance with the Hindutva project of extermination of the
minorities, endorsed and encouraged, alas, by such Muslims.
He is being propitiated in Chamberlain's UK! Apt. He is being hailed
in the England of Diana Mosley, the fascist who recently died.
Apposite.
Whose spokesmen these Muslims are? Certainly, not of those massacred,
robbed, raped, dishonored, and destroyed in Gujarat.
Expecting in Modi a "Change of heart"? It is a Gandhian concept. Modi
is an enemy of Gandhi and all Gandhian values.
This ignominious perfidy of a Welcome for a mass murderer, a
genocidal brute, a subhuman beast, now on his triumphalist tour and
fundraising for his murder machine in Gujarat, amounts to giving him
a Certificate of Merit and Medal of Honor for having Muslims burnt
alive, Muslim children toasted, Muslim women dishonored, Muslim
properties razed and robbed in Gujarat, and thousands of Muslims
rendered homeless refugees overnight. Rewarding the planner of a
pogrom! Celebrating the slaughter of 2000!
It would be an additional insult to Muslims flayed alive, to Muslim
infants speared, to Muslim women gangraped and torn into shreds, to
Muslim men hacked into pieces. All because they were Muslims. Because
they were no vote bank for the Hindu Terrorists. Because, as voters,
as "foreigners" they were expendable. Because they were competitors
in the job market and more acutely, more intolerably, in the economic
sphere, even as street vendors, humble hawkers and journeymen.
Any such Welcome amounts to validating Modi's crimes against
humanity. He has as yet not been punished, nor ostracised.
He has not apologised, made no restitution to those affected,
expressed no interest in having the hired rapists and Hindu assassins
and arsonists brought to justice, he has obstructed all efforts at
seeking justice, he has suborned the machinery of law and order, and
subverted all canons of morality and statecraft, sedulously,
seditiously.
He and his cohort deserve a hangman's noose, not a garland of flowers.
He disgraced India, he shamed democracy, he soiled Gujarat with the
blood of innocents. He should be avoided in any civilised society, he
should be barred from any civilised nation as a criminal, he should
be tried as a demon in human garb. He should be exorcised as evil,
not embraced as a feral freak.
Those honoring him are dishonoring and desecrating India, Gandhi,
civilisation, and millions upon millions of human beings who are
votaries of peace and amity, of democracy and pluralism, of
secularsim and egalitarianism.
It is they now who are on trial too, besides the Monster. END.
o o o
The Hindu. August 18, 2003
Slogans raised against Modi in London
By Hasan Suroor
LONDON AUG. 17. The Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, who
arrived here this morning on a four-day private visit, was booed by
protesters as they picketed the venue of his first public engagement,
a meeting with "friends of Gujarat" in Wembley, west London.
As he addressed a large gathering of BJP supporters inside the
Wembley Conference Centre, outside civil rights campaigners and
Muslim activists waved banners and raised slogans denouncing his
alleged role in what they described as "genocide'' in Gujarat in
which several British Muslims were killed.
There was also talk of filing a case against him in British courts on
charges of alleged "crimes against humanity", but some Muslims called
for "reconciliation" saying that "confrontation" was not the answer.
This is his first visit to the United Kingdom after the Gujarat
killings which were condemned by the British Government.
The Foreign Office made it clear that Mr. Modi was not here at the
invitation of the British Government and repeated its concern that
the Indian Government did not do enough to prevent or stop the
violence.
Today's protests followed calls for a ban on the plea that his
presence posed a "danger to race relations" in Britain.
Demonstrators, representing Muslim as well as cross-community groups,
came from as far as Leicester, Birmingham and Bolton.
The Indian Muslim Federation and the Council of Indian Muslims urged
the British Government to revoke his visa saying that such action had
been taken in the past against people who were seen as posing a
threat to communal harmony in the country.
A spokesperson for the South Asia Solidarity Group said Mr. Modi's
election victory was a "victory for fascism'' and said that the
victims of the Gujarat violence still lived in "fear".
"Ostensibly his visit is aimed at attracting investment in Gujarat
but we fear that he will also be raising funds which might be used to
fuel communal passions," she said.
Mr. Modi's programme is crammed with meetings with BJP supporters and
visits to temples.
______
[4.]
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003
Subject: MHRD Minister in Varanasi
Friends,
I have received the following note from a friend in Varanasi where
Dr. Murali Manohar Joshi made a speech attacking secular and liberal
forces.
Best regards
Vipin
MHRD Minister Attacks Gandhian Institute in Varanasi
Dr. Joshi on two day visit to Varanasi, on 11-12th August 2003 utilised
all the platforms and occasions to attack the Socialists, Marxists and the
Gandhian Institute's efforts to maintain its freedom. The financial
support for the Institue has been stopped at his instance for over two
years and a suspended professor has been illegally announced to be the
director, while MHRD has no jurisdiction over it at all. He bolstered the
communal gangsters, who had stopped the making of water film by attacking
Shabana Azmi, Nabdita Das and Deepa Mehta a few years ago. The organizers
of the meeting at BHU ridiculed Nehru for his symbolic gesture of
releasing ëPigeonsí for peace and attacked the entire foundation of
secular Nehruvian state and ideology. The Minister attacked objective
historians and asserted that the history needs to be rewritten on dotted
lines, distorted and communalized. His speeches had all ingradients of
fomenting communal trouble in Varanasi. We request all the secular
parties, leaders, intellectuals, activists and member of parliaments to
resist these designs and demand resignation of HRD Minister whose sole
occupation at the moment is to foment communal troubles and bolster
spirits of communal thugs by misusing his position. He has disturbed
the peaceful academic atmosphere of a major University like BANARAS
HINDU UNIVERSITY.
Dr. Anand Tiwari
Vice President
All India Peace & Solidarity Organisation
_____
[5.]
The Indian Express
August 18, 2003
This Hindu family pledges to fight saffron agenda
K. A. Shaji
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=29833
_____
[6.]
The Telegraph [India]
August 18, 2003
British scientists burst horoscope bubble
Good news for rational, level-headed Virgoans everywhere: just as you
might have predicted, scientists have found astrology to be rubbish.
Its central claim - that our human characteristics are moulded by the
influence of the sun, moon and planets at the time of our birth -
appears to have been debunked once and for all and beyond doubt by
the most thorough scientific study ever made into it.
For several decades, researchers tracked more than 2,000 people -
most of them born within minutes of each other. According to
astrology, the subject should have had very similar traits.
The babies were originally recruited as part of a medical study begun
in London in 1958 into how the circumstances of birth can affect
future health. More than 2,000 babies born in early March that year
were registered and their development monitored at regular intervals.
Researchers looked at more than 100 different characteristics,
including occupation, anxiety levels, marital status, aggressiveness,
sociability, IQ levels and ability in art, sport, mathematics and
reading - all of which astrologers claim can be gauged from birth
charts.
The scientists failed to find any evidence of similarities between
the "time twins", however. They reported in the current issue of the
Journal of Consciousness Studies: "The test conditions could hardly
have been more conducive to successŠ but the results are uniformly
negative."
Analysis of the research was carried out by Geoffrey Dean, a
scientist and former astrologer based in Perth, Australia, and Ivan
Kelly, a psychologist at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Dean said the results undermined the claims of astrologers, who
typically work with birth data far less precise than that used in the
study. "They sometimes argue that times of birth just a minute apart
can make all the difference by altering what they call the 'house
cusps'," he said. "But in their work, they are happy to take whatever
time they can get from a client."
The findings caused alarm and anger in astrological circles
yesterday. Roy Gillett, the president of the Astrological Association
of Great Britain, said the study's findings should be treated "with
extreme caution" and accused Dean of seeking to "discredit astrology".
Frank McGillion, a consultant to the Southampton-based Research Group
for the Critical Study of Astrology, said of the newly published
work: "It is simplistic and highly selective and does not cover all
of the research." He added that he would lodge a complaint with the
editors of the journal.
Astrologers have for centuries claimed to be able to extract deep
insights into the personality and destiny of people using nothing
more than the details of the time and place of birth.
Astrology has been growing in popularity. Surveys suggest that a
majority of people in Britain believe in it, compared with only 13
per cent 50 years ago.
The Association of Professional Astrologers claims that 80 per cent
of Britons read star columns, and psychological studies have found
that 60 per cent regularly read their horoscopes.
Despite the scepticism of scientists, astrology has grown to be a
huge worldwide business, spawning thousands of telephone lines,
Internet sites and horoscope columns in newspapers and magazines.
It seems that no sector of society is immune to its attraction. A
recent survey found that a third of science students subscribed to
some aspects of astrology, while some supposedly hard-headed
businessmen now support a thriving market in "financial astrology" -
paying for predictions of trends such as the rise and fall of the
stock market.
Astrology supplements have been known to increase newspaper
circulation figures and papers are prepared to pay huge sums to the
most popular stargazers.
The time-twins study is only the start of the bad news for
astrologers, however. Dean and professor Kelly also sought to
determine whether stargazers could match a birth chart to the
personality profile of a person among a random selection.
They reviewed the evidence from more than 40 studies involving over
700 astrologers, but found the results turned out no better than
guesswork.
The success rate did not improve even when astrologers were given all
the information they asked for and were confident they had made the
right choice.
Dean said the consistency of the findings weighed heavily against astrology.
"It has no acceptable mechanism, its principles are invalid and it
has failed hundreds of tests," he said.
o o o
[SEE DETAILS OF THE ARTICLE CITED IN THE TELEGRAPH REPORT]
Journal of Consciousness Studies
Volume 10, No. 6-7, June-July 2003
Special Double Issue:
PSI WARS:
Getting to Grips with the Paranormal
Edited by James Alcock, Jean Burns and Anthony Freeman
IS ASTROLOGY RELEVANT TO CONSCIOUSNESS AND PSI?
by Geoffrey Dean and Ivan W. Kelly
Abstract:
Abstract: Many astrologers attribute a successful birth-chart reading
to what they call intuition or psychic ability, where the birth chart
actslike a crystal ball. As in shamanism, they relate consciousness
to a transcendent reality that, if true, might require a
re-assessment of present biological theories of consciousness. In
Western countries roughly 1 person in 10,000 is practising or
seriously studying astrology, so their total number is substantial.
Many tests of astrologers have been made since the 1950s but only
recently has a coherent review been possible. A large-scale test of
persons born less than five minutes apart found no hint of the
similarities predicted by astrology. Meta-analysis of more than forty
controlled studies suggests that astrologers are unable to perform
significantly better than chance even on the more basic tasks such as
predicting extraversion. More specifically, astrologers who claim to
use psychic ability perform no better than those who do not. The
possibility that astrology might be relevant to consciousness and psi
is not denied, but such influences, if they exist in astrology, would
seem to be very weak or very rare.
Professor I.W. Kelly, Department of Educational Psychology, 28 Campus
Drive, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada S7N 0X1. Email:
ivan.kelly at usask.ca
_____
[7.]
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
August 17, 2003, 13:45
Pakistani film takes top honours at Locarno
"Khamosh Pani" (Silent Water) by the Pakistani director, Sabiha
Sumar, has won this year's Golden Leopard for best film at the
Locarno festival.
[...]
The 56th Locarno film festival reached its climax on Saturday with an
awards ceremony on the Piazza Grande and resounding applause for
Sumar's movie - her debut feature film.
"This is the first film of its kind to be entirely made in Pakistan,"
Sumar said after scooping her award. "It's a miracle of a film, it
really is."
[...]
"Locarno gives us the opportunity to show our work and to discuss it
and for it to go places from here," she told swissinfo.
"It's really a starting point for a film, and the measure of success
is how the film is received here, so I think it's a good springboard
to take off into the world," she added.
Sumar's sensitive tale of the fate of a woman and the political
developments in Pakistan over the last 20 years beat off some strong
rivals in a competition that included 19 films from 17 different
countries.
[...].
swissinfo, Jonathan Summerton in Locarno
Copyright © Swissinfo / Neue Zürcher Zeitung AG
o o o
[Posted are below are technical info. and contact details on the film
compiled for SACW readers; Feel free to write an e-mail message to
Sabiha Sumar congratulating her this striking film against the perils
of fundamentalist politics]
Kamosh Pani * (English Title: Silent Waters)
by Sabiha Sumar, 2003, 35mm, 99'
( The working title of the film was Veeru* )
Pakistani Producer:
Viddhi Films
Tel.: + 92 214545764
Fax: + 92 215011607
E-mail: ssumar at khi.compol.com
E-mail: vidhif at del6.vsnl.net.in
French Producer:
Les Films de l'Observatoire
Philippe Avril
Tel.: + 33 (0) 3 88 19 42 02
Fax: + 33 (0) 3 88 19 42 04
Portable: + 33 (0) 6 08 49 01 52
E-mail: filmobs at tpgnet.net
E-mail: avril at ision.fr
German Producers:
1 - Flying Moon
Helge Albers
Tel.: +49 302407030
Fax: +49 3024070311
E-mail: fmf at berlin.snafu.de
2 - ZDF Arte
Claudia Tronnier
Tel.: + 49 6131704911
Fax: + 49 6131704911
E-mail: Tronnier.Claudia at zdf.de
International Sales/Distribution France:
Films du Losange
22, avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie
75116 Paris (France)
Tel.: 33 (0) 1 44 43 87 10
Fax: 33 (0) 1 49 52 06 40
Formats 35 mm - 1.85
Cast: Kirron Kher, Aamir Malik
Scenario: Paromita Vohra
Directeur photo : Ralph Netzer
Sound: Uve Haubig
Montage: Bettina Boehler
Mixage: Matthias Lempert
Costumes: Heike Schultz-Fademrecht
Decors : Olivier Meidinger
Music: Arjun Sen, Madam Gopal Singh, Arshad Mahmud
_____
[8.]
Newsline [Pakistan]
August 2003
Books
In Another Life
Ethnic tensions, romantic collisions and bitter-sweet memories
trespass on Uzma Aslam Khan's creative canvas.
By Razeshta Sethna
When Uzma Aslam Khan's first novel failed to find a publisher for
four years after its completion, she persisted. Not succumbing to
demands to alter her female character to suit literary demands of the
time, Khan was satisfied when in 2000, Penguin India published The
Story of Noble Rot which took four years to write and saw its
inception whilst she was in college in America. At the time Noble Rot
was launched in Karachi, Uzma was all grit and resolve about her
writing career but said she had a tumultuous struggle before she
could finish her second novel (of which she spoke excitedly - how
characters swam in her head and how their lives would merge), after
which she would have to go through the even more perilous job of
agent hunting.
Trespassing, Khan's second novel, published in the UK by
Flamingo as its top title for the summer and also in India to huge
critical acclaim, finally roots her as a novelist with a panache for
storytelling and character painting but also as a woman who never
loses her grip on the unsavoury realities that she has lived through.
That's what's overwhelming, almost disturbing in her second novel.
Firmly rooted in the city of strife and kidnapping that was Karachi
of the eighties, and strewn with troubled relationships between
characters and their moments of quelled passion, one can immediately
determine why Flamingo lapped up this novel.
It's a riveting read as it follows the two young lovers,
Dia and Daanish, trying desperately to cavort privately in a hot,
humid city rocked with political unrest, amidst convoluted family
history, lack of private time and places to cuddle. This is more than
a novel promising a summer romance between the Amreeka-returned-boy
and the quick-witted, independent, young college girl waiting to
flutter her eyelids.
Dia and Daanish are not Khan's only social concern: in
fact she is, surprisingly, rather quick to dismiss the rebel in Dia
and is more sympathetic towards the silent suffering of Riffat, Dia's
mother. Khan's narrative does much more than simply traverse back and
forth from the '60s in bohemian London and a tiny flat with two young
intellectual lovers to the '80s in violence ridden Karachi with two
young lovers doomed never to stay together. It manages to weave
together other voices of dissent, victims of emotional cruelty and
perpetrators of carnage that lend emotional weight and parallel plots.
The wealthy industrialist's unloved wife, Riffat, who
marries to cultivate her silk farm in Sindh, must spend the rest of
her life lying in bed with a man she chooses to abhor. The suffering,
yet bitter wife hates it when her husband, Dr. Shafqat, comes home
with stupid gifts. Salaamat is a bus body painter turned mercenary
killer turned driver to an arms dealer who loves his silk-worm
feeding sister and fantasises each night about the Ranis he paints on
buses. These are individuals whose self-awareness of life and fate
makes them real enough to be felt on each page.
When Dia thinks of Riffat's words, she loves each bone
in Daanish's body even more. 'Only her mother believed otherwise. She
said the elders wanted to saturate the world in indifference, to wrap
a bandage around it that would hold back all the things that could
move the country forward. It was a ploy to keep things working in
their own favour. Take marriage, for instance. They wanted it to
remain a union that suited them, not the couple. She told Dia the
worst things she could do was listen to that, and perhaps was the
only mother in the country to repeatedly warn her to marry only out
of love, not obligation.'
We are allowed a glimpse into Riffat's external and
internal life: she set up a silkworm farm when women were supposed to
bear children and cook at home and when travelling up and down the
length of Karachi's Superhighway posed a crazy risk and you only did
it if you wanted to encounter the mercenary kidnapping gangs.
Then, there's Khan's main man: Daanish comes across as
hugely vocal as he analytically comments on the Gulf War whilst
studying for a journalism major at an American university. He is
viewed as a disillusioned, third world student by his professor who
shoots down his opinion on the subject of war.
Daanish's experiences at university - women enticed by
his Asian skin and apparently inexperienced ways with the opposite
sex - are definitely first-hand experiences observed and narrated as
the novel swims through past and present. Daanish is a young man who
mirrors his roots: Asian to the core in that he meets the carefree,
tomboyish but sensuous Dia but compartmentalises her as he does all
his other liaisons. She comes from the 'other' world and she could
wait: 'She wasn't going anywhere.'
Dia becomes almost symbolic of all those women who end
up worshipping and crying for their men: despite the selfish
treatment they know they will receive. Khan's relationships are
painful, almost dark and doomed. Men and women are divided between
the east and west: longing for freedom in love, freedom from hatred,
bitterness and poverty.
Their relationship is clearly difficult, as are most
through this novel.
Khan insists she is no political commentator, but given
her lucid journalistic efforts on the present Iraq war and her
obvious research on the Gulf War, she does pose complex political
dilemmas through her narrative.
The connection between local and influential arms
dealers who supply to the northern regions of the country and then to
Afghanistan, the civil strife and unrest and the role of the global
policeman - America - as friend or foe to Pakistan are all themes
that are expertly woven as the reader is taken through general strike
days in Karachi, a violent and fatal kidnapping orchestrated by a
violent gangland boss and his debauched cronies, a scorching summer
without electricity and water and general chaos.
Old family secrets, loveless marriages and hatreds
emerge from the woodwork that is Trespassing, as new emotions of
another generation are sown, leaving the reader caught up in a maze
of mixes: the most prominent being the collision between tradition
and freedom manifest in people and places. 'Don't you half expect the
silkworms to form a guerrilla alliance and revolt?' muses Dia at her
mother's silk farm 'standing in a room with eight thousand tiny
creatures, witnessing them perform a dance that few humans even knew
occurred; this was life.'
As the novel is bought to catastrophe, with Daanish and
Dia, Riffat and Anu, Salaamat and his ghosts, we dramatically witness
these wondrous characters tell each other the truth - or at least
some truths..
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace
and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent &
non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia
Citizens Web (www.mnet.fr/aiindex).
The complete SACW archive is available at: http://sacw.insaf.net
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necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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