Va bene! It won an Academy Award. So what does that have to do with the price of rice and eggs? In today's world that is a very pertinent question as people are starving in the hundreds of millions.
As a Cinderella story, the original fairy tale is far more believable.A beautiful orphaned girl works body and soul from morning till night seven days a week. Her abusers are her wicked step-mother and her equally malevolent three step-sisters. A kindly fairy Godmother appears out of nowhere so that she can go the the ball hosted by the Prince of their kingdom. He intends to select a bride on that very night.
Remember the Simply Red's memorable hit song, "You Can't Go to the Ball?" How many millions upon millions will never go to the ball? But I digress.
The fairy Godmother with a magic wand, but of course, fetes her with a breathtaking ballgown and gives her a makeover. Oh give me a break. After working among the dirt and cinders, that's how Cinderella got her name dahlings, she needed a long shower and bath and all the trimmings. You just know she is someone extraordinary because FGM ( fairy Godmother) shods her in crystal slippers. Those editions which say "glass slippers" are not credible. Trust me. A fairy god-mother had the magical power in her wand to transform Cinderella into the Beauty she truly was - inside AND out. Glass would have been too nouveau riche - tacky and dangerous. It shatters. So, crystal shoes then, that shimmered on her small feet. But, and there is always a but in Life, she is told clearly conditio sine qua non " You must leave the Prince's Palace before Midnight because everything will return as it was."
Cinderella and the Prince fall in love as we all know. Alas! Tempus fugit. She hears the first bell strike midnight. She literally rushes out of the arms of Prince Charming and dashes down the long majestic stairway. We are then told that she loses one of her slippers. Rubbish!. The poor girl went barefoot all the time. She would not know how to run down a path let alone stairs in crystal slippers. How many of us would? She did what any smart girl would do, she took off her shoes. That makes sense now doesn't it? She can really sprint away before the magic is up. Just a moment. How did the Prince end up with one slipper? I think she left it on the steps deliberately. How else could she prove it was truly her shoe? In those days ID's, fingerprints, retinal scans and video watchers did not exist.
Eventually Prince Charming finds her, thanks to the crystal slipper "and they lived happily ever after, "declared the fairy tale. I think that's when the real problems emerged but let's face it as a seven year old who had already seen my share of tragedies and massacres I sort of bought it because I wished it so.
Slum Dog Millionaire is not a fairy tale. It is a nightmare from which those who exist in it can never flee. Why? Because slums are created and abetted by the Malefactors and Corruptors of Lucre. Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. Paupers in the slums have no voice, I doubt they are even allowed to vote. They haven't the slightest possibility of an opinion in whatever occurs in their tortured existence. What's more, generations heaped upon generations live and die there.
If slums/inner cities/ghettoes/bad neighborhoods did not exist, and we can use euphemisms to mask the words, they would need to be invented. Slums have always been with us throughout the world and they will always be with us. The poor must always remain poor. They must have children because slave labor is good for business. It serves the organ industry well. The rich must not be allowed to die because they addled their kidneys with alcohol or stuffed their blood with heroin or cocaine and destroyed their livers with designer drugs.
It would be a sin for a Billionaire whose companies are stocked with 15, 30, or 100 thousand drones/employees/slaves, try calling them human beings or souls, to die because of his life style.
"Nothing personal," say the businessmen, "it's just a question of dollars and cents."
The slums of Mumbai are overflowing with such tragic amd pitiful men, women and children. More humanity enter every year. Dante's words before the gates of hell are prophetic "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
As usual, Hollywood shirked its awesome responsibility to show us true compassion and empathy. It opted instead for its more familiar Propaganda. It showed us a story that taxed the credibility of the viewers. Selim, Jamal and Latika are lost children. They were doomed the moment they were conceived.
In the story Jamal and his older brother Selim are left to fend for themselves when their Mother is brutally murdered by rampaging Hindu fanatics. In truth India has always been a far more tolerant country than the United States or Europe, particularly as regards its Muslim minorities which might be about 70 million. In the Arab world, the have not Muslims are discriminated against, mutilated, tortured and slaughtered in the wink of an eye. Those in power are brutal towards their fellow Muslim. There isn't even a shadow of anything remotely democratic in their governments. India, it must be said is the world's largest democracy. It is chaotic and confusing but it is democratic in concept if not in practice.
It's true that gangs of roving criminals feed and clothe these tragic children in order to exploit them by amputating a limb, an arm or by blinding them.Most Indians give the blind child beggars money because they know that if they do not come up with a quota for that day as set by the Indian Fagins, the child will be beaten.
We see this in other parts of the world as well. In Manila, Bogota, Lima, Quito, and Mexico City. More than beggars, Africa has street smart kids. They are con-artists. This is especially true in Kishasa, Congo and Lagos, Nigeria.
Some areas of Amsterdam are wall to wall beggars. No, they are not Muslims. They are white packs of wild young men and women that prey on anyone they chance upon. Warsaw is a grim place to be poor in. So is Detroit, the Bronx, Watts, parts of Los Angeles, Miami, Queens, Appalachia,and Cleveland. There's much more but I think I have made my point.
In London, poor adolescents join so called baby gangs and use flame throwers to destroy posh and high-powered motor bikes or cars. They vomit on people's luxurious doorsteps just out of sheer spite.
I cannot say I blame them. "How dare you be so rich.? That is what this acts of vandalism and rage tell us. We don't listen. That is to be expected. We are just indignant at their vulgarity and their ability to work the corrupt system by living on the dole.
There is no way in Hades Jamal could have survived without facial scars of some sort. The skin diseases which these slum dogs are subjected to are too fearsome to name them all. I'll cite just four. Leprosy is endemic if not pandemic. When I "walked the streets of Calcutta with Mother Teresa", now a Saint, almost every child we encountered was afflicted with leprosy.
The slum Alpha Criminals gash the children's faces deeply with symbols as a sign that they belong to this or that group. They make sure the scars are deep and ragged so that they are disfigured for life. It is also a good means of identification.
If a child is good looking, their faces and bodies are left intact. Pedophiles from the West as well as from the Middle East and that includes Israel, pay high prices for children on the grounds that they will not be infected with HIV-AIDS.
Pedophiles and Child Pornographers will sometimes scar and mutilate children during sado-maso films. It excites the degenerates who watch such filth and the DVD's cost more than the usual sort.
As with other critics I have a bone to pick with Jamal's flawless skin and his impeccable English.
No way! Even merchants, doctors, and professionals who have studied at English and American universities still have heavy traces of their Mahrati or Hindi cadenza.I know a tycoon who has never gotten rid of his slight Indian accent. Not that he has ever tried to or even cared about it. Lotsa lolly is a great equalizer.
I disagree with the critics who claimed that the blind boy was incapable of distinguishing the numbers on the dollar bills or if the paper money itself was genuine. I'm sure they mean well. They have just not been privileged enough or trusted enough to witness what I saw in Hong Kong. Who are the critics going to ask for verificaton today of what I am about to say? The Banker - Gangsters roaming our planet?
The world's biggest bank in tems of liquidity was then based in Hong Kong. The Masters of Lucre entrusted the task of authenticating British pounds, dollars U. S. and Hong Kong dollars etc. to blind experts. To be sure, they had very sophisticated machines but they made mistakes. The blind had a better record. They could also tell with unfailing precision between counterfeit or genuine bills or real ones with printing errors which rendered them valuable to numismatists.
'Who wants to be a Millionaire?" Chances are the game is conned from the start. It is all one massive lie fed to the desperate masses and middle classes. I doubt few win 20 million rupees without paying a percentage / percentages to the producers, the television host and more importantly, to someone on the telephone who procures their presence on the show in the first place.
If you think India might be the only culprit, think again. All or most of the countries that have featured "Who wants to be a Millionare" have at one time or another participated in this Deception.
The Italian journalist who went to the slums of Mumbai to interview the mother of the girl who plays the child Latika, said her daughter received the sum of 2,000 Euros for 10 hours a day for 40 days. She has eight children to feed and look after. Her debts to usurers alone surpass the 2,000. When this hullabaloo dies down, she will have nothing left.
The chid who played Selim has a father dying of tuberculosis. My Indian friends who have foundations and such to help the poor could not tell me if any of them would actually go out of their way and make provisions to place the families of the slum actors in better housing and health conditions.
So what is the morale of this fable? There is none. There never was. There never will be.
The producers made millions and will continue to make them. That is the morale. Is Honesty the best policy? I am loath to answer that. The children, the adolescents and the youths who portrayed Selim, Jamal and Latika will soon be forgotten and swallowed up by the monsters in the slums who love Money more than anything else in this life. They will be dead within a few years from hunger, disease, drugs, sexually transmitted horrors and murder by the criminals because they said or did something not to their whimsical liking.
Let us pray to the Prague Child Jesus for them. Let us direct our sorrowful incantations to Allah. May Krishna protect these helpless ones. May the Buddha guard them. We surely stand helpless and impotent before the vast millions of poor and disenfranchised.
This is the title of a book by an excellent journalist, George Crile that deals with Afghanistan and how American involvement escalated during the Russian Occupation of Afghanistan. I would have added a parenthesis – How The U.S. Got Shafted.
A motion picture is now making the rounds with Tom Hanks as the womanizing and party loving Congressman from Texas, Charlie Wilson. He enlists the aid of an attractive Southern belle Joanne Heeren played by Julia Roberts. Certain puppet masters in Hollywood are talking loudly about the film being Oscar nomination material.
What??? The film is pure kaka. Don’t actors ever read books? In particular, do they deign to read the original books from whence their scripts; changed, re-changed, drafted, re-drafted, censored, added on, subtracted, invented re-invented and censored some more originated?
Probably not. I always considered Ton Hanks a creative, courageous and innovative actor unafraid to tackle challenging roles. Well. Querido Tom, con esta pelicula te has ido al cuerno. Bien, beloved Tom, with this film you have perched on the horns of the devil - in plain English, you have gone to hell.
During the Conquest of India in the eighteenth century, Britain’s foremost spy, who remains unequaled to this day- Captain Richard Burton highly recommended leaving the Northwest Frontier of which Afghanistan comprises a large chunk. “To the fate to which Allah has destined for them whatever that may be.”
The soldiers of the British East India Company received such brutal defeats at the hands of the tribesmen, which then as now call Afghanistan their Homeland that the English turned their backs on the Northwest Frontier. Burton favored striking a rapprochement with Iran. One could sit down in a warm tent by the fire, enjoy pilaf and roast lamb, quaffed down with Shiraz limes and rosewater and palaver about doing business. Which is not to say that Burton did not return to the Khyber Pass, the Swat Valley, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Kandahar.
In my opinion, Richard Burrton’s exploits, his writings, books, essays, reports, and vast knowledge of the world and its peoples render him the best spy the world has ever known. As an explorer he would discover the source of the Nile. As an ethnologist his observations of various tribes and their traditions in India, Indonesia, Africa and the Middle East are unequaled to this day. He was fluent in over 26 languages. Most probably he was a Sufi. We owe the translation of the Kama Sutra as well as the Ananga Ranga to him. One of his greatest achievements was his superb A Thousand and One Nights’’ from the Alf Layla WA Layla, a collection of stories within stories often plagiarized into “The Arabian Nights.”
Sindabad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, The Thief of Baghdad, Aladdin and the Jhinn, The Rose and Pearl and countless others have been made into block busters . Disney has reaped billions out of Burton’s great literary works and guess what - they did not pay a farthing!
Burton made a pilgrimage – a Haj to Makah disguised as a Persian from Afghanistan. Do we realize what this means? He was perfect in dress, speech, demeanor, and attitude. His prayers and intonations so impressive that no one was any the wiser. Discovery would have signified instant death. But then, he was not a white man impersonating a Muslim. He was a Muslim.
One would venture to say that with the brilliant examples of Burton anyone venturing into Afghanistan would take the time to read his books. Even several biographies would bave been of great value. How does one quantify Hubris?
Afghanistan was tacitly a Soviet sphere of influence. The Bolsheviks did not suddenly discover it. They inherited this tres cordiale entente from the Czar. They doubtless knew of the horror stories vested upon the English. It happened to be true. The Czar’s Secret Service had all of Richard Burrton’s books on every topic. His accounts of the war in the Northwest Frontier was a must read. Even the women in their dazzling colored turquoise burkhas fought the invaders and occupiers. They abused the men sexually. This was done by repeated acts of fellatio on the men. At a certain point, blood instead of sperm would flow into their mouths. After much ululation, the women would flay the men alive and mount them. Curved daggers sliced off their penises and testicles piece by piece. The immediate cause of death would be suffocation. The women stuffed the soldier’s sexual parts into their trachea, impeding the flow of air. The men suffocated slowly and horribly to the sound of the women’s frenzied whoops. Therefore, the prudent Soviets kept out of the Northwest Frontier. Indeed, few Russians could be found lollygagging about.
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 because they had no other option. The heirs of Josef Stalin forgot that treaties and political entendre lasting centuries are meant to be broken at the right time. The United States broke “ the understanding”. They needed an “Arc of Instability” in Central Asia close to Iran, Pakistan, and Russia. They trained a group of fanatic religious thugs, zealots and fighters called Mujahiddin to overthrow the pro-Soviet regime of Babrak Karmal. They succeeded, but only if we view history as a brief spasm of time.
A dear friend of mine, one of the rare Gentlemen left in the world, Charles Fernley Fawcett, embarked on a personal series of journeys into Soviet occupied Afghanistan. The money he spent came from his own hard earned money. It’s true that the Fernleys and the Fawcetts were an old landed Anglo-American family antedating the American Revolution in which they played an important role in the Carolinas and in Virginia. Charles had a lucrative career as a fine character actor. I’ve never known him to be out of work in all the years I’ve known him. Amidst danger of every sort Charles made documentary film after documentary film. I reiterate, financed by him alone. Danger was ever present in Charles’s long life. He had served with the O.S.S. in Europe. In Lisbon, seventeen Ashkenazi Jewish women owe their lives directly to him. He married all of them without any thought of private gain. The documentation they presented to the authorities in Lisbon and in New York were proper and could not be challenged.
The valiant struggle the various tribesmen were putting up against the superior firepower of the Soviets was like a toy puddle’s piss in the ocean. I will not mention the tribe Charles admired the most because he has not authorized me to do so. Even if he had done so, the quicksand situation confronting everyone who has had anything at all to do with Afghanistan and I might add Pakistan would surely place Charles in more danger than he is already.
I must say that both Charles and April Fawcett (his wife) are relieved that the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” does not mention him by name. There is a scene where Joanne- Julia Roberts tells Congressman Wilson.” I would like you to see a documentary filmed in Afghanistan by a friend of mine.”
That scene is one of the few that is true. Charles Fawcett had given the video to Joanne since he had known her for quite a few years.
That was Charlie Wilson’s introduction into the Afghan war. Indeed, dear straight-arrow, ethical and idealistic Charles Fawcett had introduced Joanne to Wilson in the hope that he would be moved enough to stir up the House of Representatives and the Senate. Billions of U.S. dollars were appropriated. The Saudis saw more than a few golden opportunities handed to them. What an effortless way to spread Wahabism. Bring on the Taliban, and bring on the fanatics. Billions of dollars pelted down upon Afghanistan. Only a fraction of this largesse was ever bestowed on the honest and ethical leaders of the tribes. Those which Charles from first hand experience would the interests of their people before their own.
Iran shares a long border with Afghanistan. We would all have to be dumb oxen not to realize that they would have high stakes in the Mastership Game. One of the leaders on whom they had pinned so many of their hopes was Ahmed Shah Massoud, known as The Lion of the Panshir.
The movie makes much ado about Massoud - “The Lion of the Panshir”. Excuse me the CIA, the Saudis, the Secret Intelligence Service of Pakistan, the Soviets, and most of all the Mujahiddin: all wanted Ahmed Shah Massoud stone cold dead. There was a price on his well-formed head dead or alive. A short time before the 11th of September 2001, Massoud was brutally assassinated. Someone posing as a journalist had blown him to bits. There was still a price on his head. Significant? I would say so. Massoud, a Sunni was someone who could reflect, ruminate even ponder. No one wanted a reasonable man. The Intelligence reports could not have been more wrong. Massoud was not anyone’s man. In other words he could not be bought.
The film makes much ado about Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a Shiite thug and bandit. Hetmatyar is crafty and so ruthless he would not hesitate to gun down a brother or a sister if he thought they had betrayed him. He would not even stop to question whether the information/suspicion implanted in him could be true.
Today Hekmatyar reigns supreme in the opium business. Afghanistan supplies 80 % of the world’s consumption. The Taliban are back in full strength. Where once they burned the opium fields, they now actively encourage it. Wars cost money. Opium provides it. Wars make money. It is the best business in the world. Some might say the best racket. That too brings in cash, not commodity money, debt money or printed money – real money probably backed by gold and silver.
That is the reason why my friends Charles and April Fawcett are not going to waste their time to watch “Charlie Wilson’s War”. It mocks Untouchables like them. A few weeks ago, Charles celebrated his 90 some odd birthday. He was lucid and joyous, but nauseated and angry at how everything went so gruesomely awry in Afghanistan.
It makes a mockery of all of the men, women and children who have died so far in that tragic country. As I write this, the blood lust goes on unabated. Afghanistan has been blown back to the Stone Age.
I was in Afghanistan in 1979 a few weeks before the Soviet Union invaded. It used to be one of the most exquisitely beautiful countries in God’s creation. The Grand Canyon, the Sierra Nevada and the Himalayas paled before the kaleidoscope of colors that one witnessed in silent awe over its snowy mountain peaks, its jeweled rocks and its plains with its rarefied air.
As we near the end of 2007 and approach with hope and prudence 2008, the bombing continues. But there is nothing left to blast! Its majestic mountains, its snow which shown like diamonds, its turquoise dawn and its violet sunsets. Everything’s gone. Not even a hundred years will suffice to rebuild that once naturally dazzling country.
Boycott the movie. Why would anyone want to see lies, blood and more lies? Read Richard Burton’s accounts instead. Read James Michener’s book on Afghanistan “Caravans.” His imagery is superb. A few Sufi masters who fled to England have written masterful accounts of their country. Those works are the only ones, which will give you a view of the beauty.
Charles Fawcett has his memories of Afghanistan, as do I. They are indelibly imprinted on our hippocampus. The world could use more men like Charles Fernley Fawcett. May he live to be a century. I pray they are around somewhere but I have yet to meet them.
It’s time that God have mercy on Afghanistan and its entire people because no one else in the various governments seem to show any quality of mercy.
Author’s Note:
I have written a book on the circumstances which led to my invitation to visit Afghanistan and my experiences whilst there. The book is called "Turquoise Dawn, Purple Dusk and Velvet Nights.”
Please. Please. Please stay away from a “horror” movie called “The Mist”. My entire family was indignant at this insidious movie. A parent kills his five year old son because he ”promised“ he would do so if it looked like the man eating crabs would win the day. They did not. But what it teaches us is that we must not fight back. Resignation is good. Perseverance is not. It’s all right to give up easily. That is the toxic message of this movie.
I was brought up to believe that loving parents sacrificed themselves and their lives if necessary, for their offspring. That’s Christian, Taoist, Confucian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, True Torah Jews and so forth. In the battle of Thermopylae led by General Leonidas, only those men who had two or more sons could stay and fight the Persians to the death.
I won’t dignify the producers and the director by stooping to name them. I hope The Mist movie fails miserably. In our times, the sheeple are so dumbed down, mind controlled and brainwashed, how many will understand the venomous subliminal messages?
This is a courageous motion picture. Tom Cruise produced it for his new film company United Artists and directed by Robert Redford. It starred three film legends. Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise. The movie is heavy on intelligent dialogue. It deals with three conversations that take place more or less in real time in Washington D. C., Southern California and Afghanistan.The film is candidly political. It won’t please leftist intellectuals all the way; certainly the right will be more disturbed. In its entirety the film is really all about speaking and standing up. It’s about dissenting. “If you are against us, you are not patriotic. You don’t love your country.” This reminds of the two slogans of the Vietnam War: "America: Love it or Leave It", and "America: Change It or Lose It". The polarity unfortunately still exists.Lions For Lambs asks questions of the film-goers. It does not point fingers. It does not need to. I don’t know how well this motion picture will fare in the box office in the United States where people dislike taxing their brains to think. They particularly don’t want to think horrid things about what their country does/did. They like sitting on fences. A few are so good at denial that they don’t even see the need for fences. I wish Redford, Streep and Cruise every success. I would like to mention the excellent writing of Michael Carnahan, whom I have never met. There is a writer’s strike taking place in Hollywood at the moment. My sympathies lie with the strikers, needless to say.
Isabel Van Fechtmann
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