Obama tributes from India’s most acclaimed women in films
November 6th, 2008 - 2:13 pm ICT by IANS ( 1 comment )
New York, Nov 6 (IANS) Barack Obama’s election as US president is historic not just for Americans but for people the world over, say three of Indian cinema’s best known women - Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair and Shabana Azmi. Tributes to the president-elect who will be the first African American in the White House poured in Wednesday at the the opening of the five-day MIAAC Film Festival of Indian Independent and Diaspora films.
“It is an amazing, amazing victory for people of all colour, for people who have been disenfranchised,” said Indian Canadian director Mehta, who was in New York for the screening of her newest film “Heaven on Earth”.
“Obama as (US) president is the best news of the century,” Mehta told IANS.
India-born New York-based Mira Nair, who campaigned for Obama, said emphatically: “Anything is possible”.
Last month, Nair had organised a literary meet in support of Obama. It was attended by literary giants of Indian origin like Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri, Suketu Mehta and Manil Suri.
The Mumbai-based actor-activist Azmi also termed it a historic occasion.
“I consider myself extremely privileged to have witnessed America creating history in the election of Obama as the president of the United States,” Azmi, who partied all night in celebration, told the audience.
“As an artiste I feel and recognise that the only atmosphere in which art can survive is that of freedom, liberal values and democracy,” she said.
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Tags: deepa mehta, film heaven, jhumpa lahiri, kiran desai, literary giants, manil suri, mira nair, salman rushdie, shabana azmi, suketu mehta
November 7th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Barack Obama’s election is indeed a momentous event and most welcome as a breach with the disastrous Bush era.
However, I would like to underline the following:
1) The “American dream” Obama refers to was never designed for the African slaves brought over by hook or by crook to develop the US; They were only part of the “means’ to be used for that end. Further this dream was meant to be built at the expense of the original inhabitants (who incidentally came to be called “Indians”) of what came to be dubbed “America” by the European conquerors.
Obama needs to restate the specifics of this American dream to indicate how it is going to do justice to all US citizens, (no second or third class citizens, for example) how it will cater for the conservation of the habitat, life style and social setup of specific segments of what is now the American nation. (The silent, slow destruction of the Eskimos in Alaska continues to be the order of the day, for example - cf. the works of Jean Malaurie with the Eskimos}.
2) On the international front, the Bush era was characterised by the will do do it all the US way (bypass the United Nations where it did not endorse US desiderata and initiating military action buttressed by the preemptive strike principle as it chose). Now that Obama is in control, will he break away with such precedents and when he talks of pulling out of Irak, can he guarantee that the US won’t install one or more military bases to make sure that the US still has a heavy hand in Iraqi matters?
3) Again as far as Iraq is concerned, how long will US firms be the main beneficiaries of the economic wealth of which the Iraqis have been deprived for so long. What arrangements, if any, does the new administration contemplate to hand over economic power back to the Iraqis? …
I can go on … and on.
For the time being, I will just adopt the “wait and see” stance.
Cheers to all.
Chafeekh