Three films and a play: Boston area events plus my notes on recent Sapan News features

Posted on September 29, 2024 by beenasarwar

Film screenings by Anand Patwardhan in Cambridge MA TODAY and tomorrow. My documentary at Tufts on Wednesday. The sublime musical play ‘Madho’ at Wellesley next weekend. The latest Sapan Alliance newsletter has more events and info about other events, including in Colombo. Scroll below for my conversation with Mayank Chhaya on the Sri Lanka elections, plus pix from ‘Democracy in Debt’ Global Community Screenings – some 40 events in 14 countries across 5 continents – and my notes on recent Sapan News features.

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What I’ve learned from Noam Chomsky

Posted on June 21, 2024 by beenasarwar

As news of Noam Chomsky’s failing health makes the rounds, I share some learnings from my interactions with a trailblazing public intellectual whose moral compass has impacted the world


PERSONAL POLITICAL
By Beena Sarwar

Noam Chomsky in Pakistan, 2001. Screenshot from VPRO news report by Beena Sarwar.

I once asked Noam Chomsky how he manages to remember so many facts and figures and hold audience attention. He replied that he didn’t convey any new information, that his talks are based on materials already in the public domain, and that he simply joins the dots – providing context – and repeats the information consistently and in different ways.

His response was typical of his humility as well as his courtesy towards a much younger person to whom he owed nothing.

Chomsky teaches us that it is not necessary to be loud and sensationalist in order to be heard. This, together with the clear and courageous moral compass he has provided over decades, is a most valuable lesson.

Noam Chomsky was already a legend when I first met him over two decades ago in December 2001 when he visited Pakistan for the inaugural Eqbal Ahmad Memorial lecture series.

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‘Chittagong’: ordinary people, extraordinary courage

Posted on December 5, 2013 by beenasarwar

chittagong My column ‘Personal Political’  in The News, Pakistan last week, also for monthly Hard News, India 

“Chitta-kya?” A masterly tribute to Master-Da

By Beena Sarwar         

I want to thank the Indian scientist-turned-filmmaker Bedabrata Pain for his powerful feature film about the 1930 uprising against the British in Chittagong in the part of Bengal that is now Bangladesh.

Beautifully shot and filmed, with stellar acting by a largely amateur cast, and music by Shankar Ehsan Loy, “Chittagong” (2012) has a gripping, non-linear narrative (with nary an item number). Unlike most accounts of the time, Pain’s film does not end with the 1934 execution of Surya Sen (“Master-da”) the schoolteacher who planned the daring raid on Chittagong armory with an army of mostly schoolboys. Their Indian Revolutionary Army (IRA) took over the town for a day as the British fled. Continue reading →

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US visa weirdness

Posted on November 12, 2011 by beenasarwar

Visa delayed was visa (virtually) denied, in the case of Dr Umar Saif, who missed the conference at MIT where he was being honoured as a TR35 winner

Not that other countries don’t have increasingly stringent visa laws, but as Jason Pontin said “I’m not looking to those countries for standards and openness but to the US”. The quote ended up not being used in the final version of the report I did for the new web publication Latitude News, Visa void perplexes Pakistanis, which could have been titled ‘Visa delayed is visa (virtually) denied’, which is the case when you can’t make it to a meeting or a conference because of the delay, as in the case of Dr Umar Saif… Of course, there are security concerns, and things are getting better, thanks to the efforts of many organisations working with the State Department, but the uncertainty continues. Read more

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