Connecticut school shooting: America gets a taste of its own medicine - By Yamin Zakaria

Connecticut school shooting: America gets a taste of its own medicine

Driven by hate, another homegrown terrorist goes on the rampage – this would have been the headline if Adam Lanza had been called Mohammed Lanza. Similar headlines were seen after the Oklahoma bombings; the media spared not time in tarnishing the Muslims even before the basic facts were known. Like Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik, Adam Lanza is also white with Christian heritage. Will the media now scrutinise the link between the ethnicity and religion of these men and the acts of gratuitous violence? 

There is no apparent political motive; the targets were innocent children who could not have caused any harm to Adam Lanza. The only possible ‘justification’ Adam Lanza could have argued is - these children posed a threat to him in the future; hence, he took some sort of pre-emptive strike by killing them. This is the same argument employed by the Zionists when they deliberately target women and children in Palestine, and the US has done the same to some extent after 9/11; shoot first then ask questions.

Of course, everyone sympathises with the parents of those innocent children, however, non-Americans will point out the international dimension to this issue. It reeks of hypocrisy for Obama to come on TV and shed tears, when the US has been doing the same in foreign countries since the Spanish-American wars at the turn of the 20^th century. Only few weeks back, the US President ignored the dead children in Gaza and continued to defend the Israelis dropping bombs over civilian populated areas. The Pakistanis and the Afghanis will point out the awful killer drones that have consumed so many innocent children. Now America should understand how the parents in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and occupied Palestine feel. One man’s collateral damage is another man’s child!

The list below highlights major atrocities like the Connecticut school shooting that have captured national and international headlines; many more incidents do not. For example, from 2002 to 2006, single cases of shootings have occurred each year and in 2007, 7 cases of shootings were reported.  

• 1984: James Oliver Huberty shoots dead 21 people at a McDonald's in California
• 1986: Postal worker Pat Sherrill kills 14 people at a post office in Oklahoma
• 1991: George Hennard kills 23 people at a cafeteria in Texas
• 1999: Two students at Columbine high school kill 13 and injure 20, before killing themselves
• 2007: A student kills 32 and injures dozens more at Virginia Tech university
• 2009: 13 people are killed in a mass shooting at Ford Hood military base in Texas
• 2012: James Holmes kills 12 people and injures 58 at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado

President Obama correctly reflected on the empirical data and said: “As a country we have been through this too many times”. Why is America producing these violent angry young men? Instead of addressing this pertinent point, he suggests the need for tighter gun control.  For sure the reduction in the supply of weapons will contribute to reducing gun related crimes, but not the crime itself, because the perpetrator will find other ways to bring harm; it’s not the gun that kills but the person pulling the trigger. The primary cause is the motive.

Accordingly, American needs to ask what motivates such individuals to commit massacres. What ideas and values have been injected in their minds? There is no Al-Qaeda here, no radical Imams, there is no foreign influence. Therefore, America needs to look in the mirror for answers which may pose a degree of challenge for a society that has a culture of blaming outsiders.   

Any impartial observer will point out that American history is soaked in the blood of innocents, and its popular culture espouses violence. The superficial paradigm of the good guys hunting the bad guys that is often seen in the movies and has shaped the mindset of the nation was invented not to promote right and wrong, but to glorify violence. America as a society profits from violence and bloodshed, it continues to develop, stockpile and trade with lethal weapons whilst lecturing about peace.

Internally, US public opinion and the media are dominated by Zionist-Christian militancy where the interest of Israel is put before the US itself, and then you have religious fanaticism and xenophobia emanating from the right-wing Christians including the radical Republicans. All these factors have contributed to creating a sadistic mindset that is often visible in the actions of it soldiers, on and off the battle field. 

Here is a bitter pill for the American establishment. Instead of demonising Muslims and Islam, maybe they can learn something from them, as can Muslims learn from the American success. Do you ever hear of a young man going into a school in Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Pakistan and commit such atrocities? Do you ever hear of serial killers in the Islamic world? This is not an issue of genetics, it is one of values. Islam teaches that ultimately we will be held accountable for our deeds, and our freedom in terms of freewill should be exercised within those parameters. And such values need to be enforced through tough penal codes, where crimes are not rewarded but punished.  Although Christianity professes the same values, however it has been diluted and marginalised in society.

Instead of allowing the Zionists promote hate through the media, and create a rift with the Islamic world to serve Israeli foreign policy, and keep the ordinary Americans ignorant, confined to the trash culture of Jerry Springer, Fox ‘News’, and stop bigots like O’Reilly and Pam Geller, it should look to liberate itself and re-examine the values promoted through the media and popular culture.

Yamin Zakaria (yamin@radicalviews.org, #yaminzakaria)

Published on 16/12/2012

London, UK

www.radicalviews.org

http://yaminzakaria.blogspot.com

The 'Method Actor', decades ahead of his time, preceded America's 'Method Acting School' - Dilip Kumar, the legend lives - V. Gangadhar, Free Press Journal

The 'Method Actor', decades ahead of his time, preceded America's 'Method Acting School'

http://freepressjournal.in/dilip-kumar-the-legend-lives/



Edit    December 18, 2012 02:27:08 AM |






By V Gangadhar

 

Dilip Kumar, the legend lives

He was the first Indian actor to adopt what came to be known as ‘method acting’. In the years to come some of the finest exponents of this kind of acting were Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and James Dean, who had studied acting under experts, but the thespian, without any such assets, was pitchforked straightway before the arc lights.

 

Strange but true, our greatest actor, Dilip Kumar(91), had not seen a film till he was 14. Coming from the rugged hills of Peshawar, the twists and turns of life brought him to Bombay, Pune and Deolali and it was one such twist which brought him face to face with one of the immortals of our cinema, Devika Rani. She found something special in this shy young man and introduced him to films after providing him with a new name, Dilip Kumar. ‘Jwar Bhata’ was the film and it flopped to be followed by another flop. But some of the producers were prepared to take chances with the young actor and finally his ‘Milan’ clicked in a big way.

     Serious and sensitive, young Dilip Kumar was keen to find out why his earlier films failed. He read the scripts and watched the films again and again. He became a regular at theatres screening Hollywood films where James Stewart and Ingrid Bergman were his early favourites. Of course, Hindi cinema was different in content and presentation but the young actor arrived at the conclusion there was a niche for the kind of acting he wanted to do and was capable of doing it.

     Dilip Kumar was the first Indian actor to adopt what came to be known as ‘method acting’. In the years to come some of the finest exponents of this kind of acting were Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and James Dean. They had studied acting under experts and also appeared on theatre. But Dilip Kumar, without any such assets, was pitchforked straightway before the arc lights. Ashok Kumar was the most famous young actor, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand were yet to arrive. The Dilip Kumar style of acting began to attract attention. Cinema was no doubt entertainment but then life had its share of tragedy. Millions of people lost out in their struggles in love, making money and human relationships and Dilip Kumar excelled in portraying such characters. In a way, he was Hindi cinema’s version of the Greek tragic hero or those created by Shakespeare in his great tragedies. ‘Taqdeer’ (destiny) played a major role in shaping his movie roles.

     His was the brooding presence. He seldom spoke aloud but with greet intensity. In role after role in films like ‘Andaz’, ‘Jogan’, ‘Mela’, ‘Arzoo’, ‘Shikast’, ‘Shaheed’, ‘Tarana’, ‘Daag’ and ‘Deedar’, Dilip Kumar enacted gut-wrenching roles, always losing his beloved or mother or other close ones. He was exploited, took to drinks or suffered physical disabilities. Many of these roles resulted in inspired performances by Dilip Kumar. The drunken Shankar in ‘Daag’ mourning his dead mother, the frustrated romance with a widow in ‘Shikast’, the cruel memories of a past which separated him from a childhood sweetheart in ‘Deedar’ .the blind lover haunted by the presence of a dangerously insane wife in ‘Sangdil” (adapted from Jane Eyre) broke new paths in Hindi cinema.

     In the newly-independent India, many of these films had a special social significance. Even Raj Kapoor with a flair for comedy and imitation of Charlie Chaplin understood the theme of his age and with the help of writers like K A Abbas made socially relevant films like ‘Awara’, ‘Shri 420′, ‘Boot Polish’ and ‘Jish Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hain’. Unlike Dilp Kumar., Raj Kapoor successfully clowned his way into the hearts of fans even while conveying the fims’ message. But the Dilip Kumar films were more personal. ‘Footpath’ in 1953 was such a brooding, dark film on the evils of black marketeering that many people found it difficult to sit through it. Shot entirely in the slums, it had a bold scene showing heroine Meena Kumari bathing under a public tap. This was unusual realism for the early 1950s though Meena Kumari was fully covered. Gemini films’ S S Vasan elicited an outstanding performance from Dilip Kumar in his ‘Paigam’ which dealt with trade unionism. Years later, Dilip Kumar played another role on the same subject in ‘Mazdoor’ but it had more melodrama.

      Even today, automation was a touchy issue in India because of its unemployment problem. B R Chopra’s 1957 film ‘Naya Daur’ pitted man against machine, with Dilip Kumar playing a tongawala pitted against a mean machine, the bus. The kind of patriotism shown in the film was a bit exaggerated but the message was brilliantly delivered. After the release of Bimal Roy’s ‘Devdas’ dealing with the immortal, drunken lover, Dilip Kumar was mentally devastated that he reportedly turned down the plum role of the poet-hero in ‘Pyassa’. It was time to flaunt his versatility and flair for comedy in films like ‘Azad’, ‘Kohinoor’ and ‘Ram Aur Shyam’. They became huge hits and helped to build up the legend that was Dilip Kumar.

     Very often, the media focused mainly on the later films of Dilip Kumar where he was forced to play characters who were a bit loud (‘Gopi’, “Aadmi’, ‘Bairaag’, ”Sagina’ and even Manoj Kumar’s ‘Kranti’ where noise emerged stronger than patriotism). By that time, Dilip Kumar had become ‘Dilip Saab’ and produced his own film, ‘Ganga Jumna’, the tale of a dacoit, pitting him against his own brother, a police officer, played by his real life brother Nasir Khan. The film, along with Bimal Roy’s ‘Madhumati’ was a huge hit and confirmed that Dilip saab was the unchallenged number one in the world of Hindi cinema. Ramesh Sippy brought together Dilip Saab and Amitabh Bachchan and one need not mention who was the winner.

     In  many ways Dilip Saab was more than an actor. He was an intelligent spokesman of his age, utterly secular and not afraid of petty tyrants like Balasaheb Thackeray who faulted him for accepting an award from Pakistan. Dilip Saab was a believer in international brotherhood, like Jawaharlal Nehru, he was a citizen of the world.  I interviewed him three or four times, once in the company of his good friend J K Kapur, producer of ‘Sagina’. We had lunch, biriyani and salad, Dilip Saab was the perfect host and later brilliantly expounding on the dangers of communal propaganda during elections. Fond of sports, he played football and badminton and started the football club ‘Bombay Dynamos’ along with fellow actor Pran.

     Dilip Saab was a true representative of his age, as an actor and  a human being. Never interested in rat race, he acted only in about 60 films, but these were enough to stamp his greatness. Here is belated birthday greetings for the one and only genuine ‘Saab’ of Hindi cinema.

V Gangadhar