Ok so we discussed the film in class today. It was great that each person brought in a new point of view, interpretation, or opinion to the different sequences and to September 11th itself. It was like we multiplied the number of scenes by 18 and then added 18 more because each of us has a different way of envisioning and representing that particular day. This weird snake scene still seems pretty abstract to me and while there were good explanations offered in class about fable, holy war not being unique to Islam, the everlasting effects of war, etc… I am still struggling to understand the film. It seems too detached and obscure for me. After our class discussion, I think that the major link between all of the different films is the question of humanity and I understand that connection (even in the Japanese film), but I’m still not drinking the kool-aid. There is even a connection between this and Fanon.
There are so many different events presented in the different films and there is a blurring in the lines of what it means to be portrayed as victims or as perpetrators or as innocent or guilty. The film, in its entirety, challenges people’s preconceived notions about 9/11. I think the film must have been even more powerful right when it came out since people felt so confident in who they thought was guilty and who they thought was suffering. Other than the scene from India that I discussed yesterday, we discussed the opening scene from Iran at length.
This scene takes place in Afghanistan and shows a group of school children as they go through an average school day. This was a really powerful scene in challenging the way that we think about other cultures. The Afghani children don’t think about the conflict in America at all and are only concerned about the well that caved in a few days ago in their town. Right after the war, nobody spoke for Afghanis and this was an attempt the producer made to expose Americans to their voices. The students have no concept of Holy War or to their terrorist attacks on September 11th. Many Americans want to paint all Afghanis as complicit or guilty but it is clear that the children are clueless and that their teacher is in no way linked to terrorism (or even the concept of jihad). This makes me wonder, should the US have invaded Afghanistan? Should little kids and their parents suffer for something they don’t have any connections with? This scene was passed over since it was the opening and since there was not a lot of action involved; however, the message is powerful and unsettling.
This made me reflect on the Rebecca Stein lectures in ICS 125 where the class examined the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a perspective that wasn’t as pro-Israel as we are used to in the United States.(One that I am particularly accustomed to due to where I live: a village with a majority population of Jews). It is always important and unsettling to understand the opinion and the humanity of a people against whom you are fighting, perhaps that will lead to the end to the fighting and to finding a solution.
Found this interview with Mohsin Hamid while browsing the internet trying to find out how to pronounce Changez's name properly. While I think the class was able to understand many of the points rasied by Hamid, he explains the ending of the book, the way that it is received in different cultures and countries based on their interactions with terrorism, and the "empty gaps of the American perspective" which is deliberately left vague.
