Film review: Songs of my motherland

Songs of my motherland/Marooned in Iraq (2002): Film review by Fraz Shafique (reprinted)
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Many years ago before our memories were clouded by the moments of heroic bravery at the hangman’s alter which will, for many Arabs, go on to posthumously defining Saddam Hussein, there were innumerable mass graves, gassed victims, orphaned children and menacing jet fighters roaring in the Kurd skies that reminded people of what Saddam stood for.

Bahman Ghobadi’s “Songs of my motherland” (also known as ‘Marooned in Iraq’) is not just a tale of Mirza the legendary Kurd singer but an epic of his people. As Mirza sets out to seek his rebellious ex-wife, Henareh, a belle who has captured the hearts of the people through her voice and her songs, we are introduced to the nuances and shades of the people of the region.

The Kurds are as rugged as their inhospitable landscape locked between the Arab, Turkish and
Iranian nationalists who are willing to forcefully suppress anyone that questions their territorial integrity with calls for a Kurdistan. Yet through the eccentric tribal mannerisms of the Kurdish people and their scant regard for authority the movie reveals the trait of natural defiance comfortably adjusted to a cruel fate that the Kurds have had.

The journey of Mirza with his two sons, the bachelor Barat and Oudeh with seven wives and counting (until one of them produces a son), is of the opposite direction to the flow of the refugees leaving the Iraqi side to avoid the devastating aerial shelling and chemical gas attacks. They meet caravans of distraught Kurds running for cover, others digging for mass graves to identify their massacred kin, and amidst the chaos an isolated school nestled in the mountains with hundreds of orphaned children. Yet Mirza treads on disregarding any advice in his mission to find out why Henareh, the symbolic voice of the Kurds, beckoned him.

Ghobadi’s use of non-actors for the roles may at times end up being disjointed, but the erratic and impetuous nature fluctuating between violent outbursts and an impulsive acceptance of songs, dance and love present a people who refuse to be defined by their misery. Women are symbolically shown as builders and constructors as well as the hope for survival resolute in their determination.

This movie is important as much for its frank introduction of the Kurdish people as it is for remembering the horrors unleashed upon them by a man whose name in the film is preferably attached with a curse (“God damn Saddam!” and “May God destroy Saddam and kill his sons!”) by the displaced Kurds, revealing a defiance that betrays their suppressed and exiled-from-life condition.

While the power of a mobile phone clip of Saddam’s hanging may potentially water down his image as a brutal dictator, the message of this movie will affirm to us that justice took a long time in coming. Such as for Henareh who loses her voice and beauty in the chemical gas attacks.

Religulous

"Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or any thing else; not a line of what is called the New Testament is of his own writing. The history of him is altogether the work of other people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension, it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. His historians having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground." 

- "The age of reason" by Thomas Paine

 

"I don't know." 

- Bill Maher in his film "Religulous" 

 

Bill Maher's movie keeps it real.  It's funny, thought provoking while straying clear of boredom as often happens in intellectually motivated films.  But then, the role of religion in contemporary politics prefers a rejection of intellectual debate.  Muslims refuse to question their faith and text, Christian Evangelicals are inspired by theirs and use it to 'spread righteousness' such as in Iraq, and the Jews, despite the community's contribution to reason and science, are hell bent on keeping Palestine burning no matter how many innocent humans are slaughtered. 

One of the points that came out in the movie was how contemporary mindsets shape the interpretation of old religious texts.  For example, the monk in Amsterdam was more interested in what the Bible 'meant' to say rather than its literal interpretation.  Thus according to him, God does not want homosexuals to change, rather they should be happy with who they are.  The Bible 'means' to say this!  

The female Muslim politician interviewed in Amsterdam rejects that the Quran calls for the slaughtering of infidels.  And the parts that do make such calls are 'time specific' and something of the past.  

It reminds me of Imam Ghazali, the most famous Sunnni Islamic scholar whose book 'Ihya-ul-Uloom' has a section titled 'Etiquette of Marriage'.  In it, the 'Proof of Islam' - a title Ghazali has been honored with by subsequent Sunni scholars - argues that the Quran considers the place of women almost equal to slaves.  Women should never leave their homes - unless absolutely necessary, and even then, only with an accompanying man, and they should always serve their husbands as their primary and most important duty.  There are other extremely mysogonistic arguments targetting women, but Imam Ghazali's inspiration for such statements is the Quran. 

However, a thousand years later, many scholars, using the same inspiration of the Quran, the same text, reject such ridiculous dehumanization of females.  

The same text was used to both degrade half the human population, and the same text is used to give women somewhat a sense of equality.  

Is this 'flexibility' seen in religious texts a virtue, a strength or something less noble?  That the same religious texts can take on completely different meanings based on time reveals the strength of time rather than anything else.  That religious doctrines are left to play 'keep up' with time reveals the gap between reason, science and faith.  

Faith insists it knows everything - how everything began and how it will end.  It uses this knowledge of the beginning and end to control everything that happens in between.  

Science only plays with what it know, in the gaps in between and doesn't much care for the beginning or the end.  

There may be many questions that emerge from science's lack of assurance on some critical metaphysical issues, but at least it strays clear of fabricated historical accounts such as those highlighted by Thomas Paine which require continuous fabrications to uphold.