Izzy Mo’s Blog

Here are some short reviews of all of the little films I’ve seen for the last two months. Because of time constraints and my feeling kinda icky, I’ll try to make this short.

It’s My Country, Too:  Muslim Americans

This program was on LINK TV.  It was a British program hosted by the famous Pakistani Junoon lead singer and guitarist Salman Ahmad.  The program featured two Pakistani families…mostly.  One family suffered the lost of their son in the 9-11 attacks and the mother was fighting against unfair measures in the Patriot Act.  The other family was…the Muslims for Bush.  Now, my main criticism of this program was that for a documentary that’s supposed to be about Muslim Americans, as a viewer, I saw such a small fraction of the American Muslim community.  I think it’s pretty obvious that if you’re going to do a documentary about American Muslims, you have to include many different races.  No other American religious community is as ethnically diverse as ours. 

While Salman Ahmad interviewed an Arab American lawyer fighting for the rights of those who were imprisoned in Abu Ghraib, the bulk of the program was dedicated to the Muslims for Bush.  Why?  Well, it turns out that the Muslims for Bush crew and Salman Ahmad are related as you will read in the linked Wikipedia entry.  Plus they have started a new project since Salman Ahmad has gone solo and the website for it I Sufi Rock.  Okay, we got that cleared up.  By the by, Umm Zaid, two of your posts about the Muslims for Bush and Asma Gull Hasan’s lawsuit are linked on Wikipedia under her name. 

Anyway, and maybe this was just me but I got the feeling that Salman Ahmad, being the concerned peaceful artist that he is, was just a little curious about the Muslims for George Bush.  You never know with documentaries.  And while there’s nothing wrong with being Republican, I just have to wonder if it was wise to showcase a group that is heavily despised in the American Muslim community.  I mean, in the program, comedians Azeem and Preacher Moss get about two minutes.  Azhar Usman gets about 5 but the M4B get almost 20 or 25?  Then they showed this crazy campaign commercial for Bush were they stated that, brace yourselves, “A vote for Bush means more F16s for Pakistan.”  What?!  No wait, read these parts of the transcript from the show. 

>>>Personally I wanted to invade Iraq, because I think if there is a country that
will not allow us into its borders and has the money and the reasoning to attack United States, then we have to go in, because-

>>>With force?

>>>Yes.  Absolutely, because – look what one 9/11 did to us American Muslims. I don’t want a repeat.

>>>You know, you, you cannot believe that, I mean you can, knowing you,
and -

>>>I totally believe it. 

>>>I’m not saying anything!  I need you as a manager.

>>>I keep a pretty good eye on your career.

*******

And here’s more.

>>>And I, I thought to myself now wait a minute – I’m (inaudible), this is the holy
month, should I be reading a book that’s talking about sex?  But then I said but it’s the Koran, you know, and so you know, I, I mean the religion is very….

>>>It celebrates sex, I mean you know, I’m sick of Muslims coming up on
the television, you know, whether it’s CNN or BBC or whatever, Islam is a very peaceful religion, okay.  I will much rather, you know, Islam’s a really sexy religion, you know? 

******

And the Muslims for Bush commercial…

George Bush, a vote for George Bush is $3 billion for Pakistan.  A vote for George Bush is F16s to Pakistan.  A vote for George Bush is getting to be a non-NATO ally of United States.  It’s all plus, plus, plus.  It’s our choice.  We can either have Senator Kerry, who doesn’t want Muslims to do well, or we can have President Bush, who’s trying to promote Muslims.  Vote for President Bush.

It was all just very bizarre and you have to read the whole show’s transcript to see what I’m talking about.  Everyone has a right to their own politics but as a Muslim, please don’t try to tell me that Bush is just oh-so-good for us when he’s not.  In fact, he’s not good for a lot of people, even for many of his supporters.  Tell me you like his values, tell me you like his Texan style, tell me you like his good-ole boy swagger or his unexplainable Spanish fluency in light of his daily butchering of the English language but…no Muslim in his or her right mind thinks this guy loves us, m’kay?  I think Katrina evacuees, and the people of Lebanon and Palestine and just about every one else outside the U.S. has a different opinion. 

Me and the Mosque

This was a Zarqa Nawaz piece.  I’ll avoid getting into the women-in-the-mosque debate because it’s late and it’s been talked about ad naseum with little to no changes in our community.  What I did find refreshing about the film was that Nawaz talks about how her mosque was a great place to be while growing up Muslim in Canada.  How many people who were raised Muslim can say that?  She had such great memories of her mosque and I hope one day all Muslims can have the joy of going to the masjid.  But then they put up that blasted partition and everything changed.  What was also refreshing was to see brothers and sisters addressing the issue without it being a male vs. female kind of thing. The film featured male and female scholars and activists and it was very good to see Muslim women finally speaking for themselves and being quite spunky.  Now, it hit a sour note when they started talking about embarrassing the men in order to change things.  As we have seen, the whole “taking back the masjid” stunt has lead to a backlash.  Some masajid have become more restrictive and the issue can’t even be discussed from the perspective of the Sunnah because it’s already been branded as some feminist-Western-outside attempt to change Islam.  So we know that embarrassing people does not work.  The Nomani family was featured in the film and I doubt the director knew all about the shady things that went down with PMUNA folk and all the things they did.  She didn’t know about their ties to the RAND corporation and such neo-cons as Paul Wolfowitz and Cheryl Bernard (remember Civil Democratic Islam?).  She didn’t know about how the members of this group frequently slammed other Muslim organizations, slammed other Muslim scholars (shayukh and shaykhat), screamed their zina and details about their sex life that no one asked to ask them to do, wrote porn about long dead shayukh and called anyone who didn’t agree with them a bunch of repressed, closeted-homosexual, Wahhabi-Salafi Islamo-fascists.  So, in not knowing these facts, the Nomani family is depicted as being shunned because of their bravery to speak out against gender apartheid in the masjid.  But for those of you who read these two blogs, you and I both know there was more to it than that. It would be nice to see if this documentary would change people’s minds about women’s role in the masjid but after that whole debacle, it’s going to take a silent movement of slow reform to make things better.   By the by, I’ve heard very little from this corner of the web about the latest slaughter in Palestine and Lebanon.  But don’t worry, there’s tons about hijab and how they hate it. @@

Women of Hezbollah

Insufficient.  That’s all I can say.  The women of Hezbollah is only two women–the only two women the director focused on.  The director is a Lebanese Christian who wants to know why and how did these women abandoned the progressive goals of Arab nationalism and subscribed to the teachings of this group.  It just didn’t address any of the issues in a significant way and I lost interest about 20 minutes into the film.  I guess I was expecting him to talk about the role they play in the political or social structure of Hezbollah but…nada. 

Class of 2006:  The Frontline Documentary on the Murshidat of Morocco

Umm Zaid touched on this a little bit.  They could have left out the interview with Dennis Ross.  The last thing Muslimas need is some foreign policy dude talking to us about what’s good for women in Islam.  Please, O great “enlightened” American man, spare us.  Other than that joke of an interview, the film was okay.  I think the idea of the murshidat is great.  One of the murshidat was interviewed by Abu Dhabi TV and they asked her if she thought the whole “women preachers” program was just some political ploy by the Moroccan government.  My answer is, “So what.”  It probably is a political scheme but if this can get more women educated in Islam AND combat this false religious extremism then what’s the problem?  Just because the Minister of Religious Affairs’ intentions are questionable does not mean that the murshidat’s intentions are.  I hope that despite their plans, these sisters will meet with success and that people will rediscover the middle path of Islam–the Sunnah of our Messenger (alayhi salatu wa salaam).  But of course, no documentary on women in Islam is complete without the obligatory comparisons between hijabi and non-hijabi women.  The hijabi woman is almost always portrayed as stupid, radical, oppressed and bound by unnecessary traditional mores.  The non-hijabi is almost always portrayed as liberal, educated, moderate, feminist, always friendly to Western foreign policy, somewhat hateful and ashamed of her own culture–basically a RAND corp. Muslim.  I find both portraits inadequate and insulting.  Wearing hijab does not mean radicalism anymore than being bare-headed means a lack of faith or having reformist leanings. 

And as far as the popularity of Islamist groups in Morocco, the film didn’t delve into why they are popular and how they are created.  They never talk about the scholarships, the food drives, the presents to children on the Eids and Christmas (yep, Hamas did that for Palestinian Christian children) and all the other charitable things that they do.  These films never talk about the fact that in some of these countries, there are monarchs who live in palaces and take long expensive vacations around the world while a quarter or half of the population lives in poverty (especially if these monarchs are our allies).  Now if you live in a shanty, broken down neighborhood where there are these guys who give you food for free, give classes and clothing for free and are saying all those things about that government and the U.S. that you wanna hear, wouldn’t it be hard not to agree with them?  Wouldn’t it hard not to support them, especially since the government’s not doing anything to improve your situation but these guys are.  Just read about this sister’s scholarship from Hezbollah.  I don’t agree with a lot of things these groups do or believe but when you’re poor and living in a war zone with an uncaring, unconcerned government, it’s hard to resist the message. 

Ummah Films

But if you’re tired of all this stuff, please, please, PLEEEZ see this brother’s films.  They are excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!