Badshah Khan, a Torch for Peace
Los Angeles Time, Wednesday, 22 October 2008:
The devout Muslim leader preached passive resistance and opposed violence
NEW YORK BLOOD DRENCHED stories about suicide bombings, armed clashes and assassinations that pour from Pakistan´s tribal belt these days, while stressing the eruption of Taliban Al Qaeda related conflict, often also define the regional culture as one steeped in violence for centuries. But what rarely gets told is how the people of the wild west of Pakistan also share the modern history of radical nonviolence.
Little known in the West is a figure named Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who argued that religiously justified violence was not God´s religion. Known as Badshah also spelled Baacha Khan to his followers, the devoutly Muslim leader was called The Frontier Gandhi and built an Islamic parallel to Gandhi´s violence eschewing ideals of compassion for one´s enemies and peaceful resistance to oppression as a means of overcoming it.
Khan, a Pashtun tribal leader who died at 98 in 1988 in Peshawar, also founded the Awami National Party, which today fights against enormous odds to organize tribal aspirations in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan and nearby areas away from the Taliban. The ANP website awaminationalparty.org carries an image of Khan´s long nosed, serene face at the top. On Oct. 2, Asfandyar Wali Khan, Khan´s grandson and the president of the ANP, survived a suicide bomb attack outside Peshawar that killed four others.
On Nov. 8, the first full filmic account of Badshah Khan´s exceptional life will get its American premiere in New York at the Mahindra Indo American Arts Council Film Festival, an art film showcase mounted by a group that includes novelist Salman Rushdie on its advisory board. The documentary, titled ´The Frontier Gandhi Badshah Khan, a Torch for Peace,´ is the work of filmmaker and writer T.C. McLuhan, daughter of the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who spent 21years to bring the story to the screen.
A restless, determined woman, McLuhan she´s called Teri made numerous trips to Afghanistan and other places where the Badshah Khan story unfolded, even as American bombs fell in Taliban held Afghanistan after 9.11 and through the dangerous times that followed. She shot the film in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the North West Frontier Province, giving this story of filmmaking persistence a geopolitical dimension not many can match. Just her tale of transporting two canisters of film stock from Los Angeles across several South Asian borders becomes a saga.
She says she made six trips over the winding Khyber Pass. She dug into archives Afghan film officials sheltered from the Taliban. She managed impossibly smooth tracking shots on rutted streets using a makeshift dolly her Indian cinematographer built with skateboard wheels. A warlord became her guide and appears with her in production stills, standing in a rugged Afghan gully. She had her equipment thrown into the street by police. And she kept going back, using her Canadian citizenship and a widening network of connections to make her account of South Asia´s least known great man.
How, one wonders, can Khan be so little known? In the film, M.J. Akbar, one of India´s best known journalists, gives McLuhan an answer: ´The market for nonviolence was so used up by Mahatma Gandhi there was no space left for an alternative Gandhi, for a second Gandhi. You know, this is one of the problems of media that even history becomes an exercise in brand building. So the brand was built around Gandhi, and not on Badshah Khan.´
For McLuhan, 62, the finished film completes a journey that started in September 1987 in Berkeley, when an acquaintance gave her ´Nonviolent Soldier of Islam,´ a book by the late Eknath Easwaran, who knew Khan.
McLuhan says her long commitment to her project grew from her feeling about Khan´s ´uncommon greatness. And that was accompanied by, certainly, uncommon courage. I felt a depth of spirit that I simply wanted to know more about.´
She´s sitting in her Manhattan editing studio with a poster of Woody Allen´s ´Annie Hall´ (her father made a memorable cameo in the movie) on a wall. The slightly built McLuhan speaks of her filmmaking adventure as if it was all somehow fated. She says that, upon receiving Easwaran´s book, ´I looked at it God.´
Khan, offered the leadership of the Indian National Congress during India´s independence fight, rejected it to avoid becoming a purely political figure. It was a larger focus shared by Khan and Gandhi, who were personally close.
Unlike Gandhi, Khan did not leave a large written record or become a media sensation. But McLuhan found photos of them together that are surprising for their glow of mutual warmth. The petite Gandhi is joined by an Islamic sage who stands towering and sinewy in simple cotton clothing, his gentle fierce aura something like Gandhi´s only different.
بېرته شاته
د فخر افغان (باچا خان) په اړه جوړ شوی فیلم به د نومبر په ۸مه خپرېږي
ټول افغان: یوې کاناډایي فیلم جوړونکې ټي سي ماکلوهان د افغان مشر او د سولې د باني خان عبدالغفار خان چې په باچا خان او فخر افغان هم شهرت لري یو مستند فیلم جوړ کړی دی. فیلم د فخر افغان د ژوند، سولییزو هلوځلو او مبارزې په اړه دی.
فیلم به د راروان نومبر په ۸ نېټه په نیویارک ښار کې په یو فیلمي فیستوال کې د لومړي ځل دپاره ښودل کېږي او بیا به بازار ته راوځي.
دا فیلم په داسې حال کې بازار ته راوځي او د باچا خان د سولییزو هڅو او مفکورې قدرداني کوي چې په افغانستان کې نوی نسل هم د باچا خان په قدر پوه شوی. څه موده مخکې په هېواد کې د ویښ ځوانانو ټولنې په ټول هېواد کې د سولې ورځ ونمانځله او د سولې دپاره یې د باچا خان د مبارزې او لارښوونو ملاتړ وکړ. ويښ ځوانانو له نړۍ څخه وغوښتل چې ۲۰۱۰ ز کال د باچا خان په نوم ونوموي.
۶۲ کلنه ماکلوهان د یوویشت کاله کوښښونو څخه وروسته په دې بریالۍ شوې ده چې د ۹۸ کالو په عمر له دنیا تللي باچاخان د ژوند په اړه فیلم جوړ کړي. ماکلوهان وایي چې د فیلم د جوړولو په اړه ورسره هغه وخت فکر پیدا شو چې یو ملګري ورته په ۱۹۸۷ز کال کې د باچا خان په اړه د ایکنات ایسواران کتاب ((د اسلام سولییز پوځي)) ورکړ او نوموړې ولوست.
په فیلم کې افغان ولسمشر حامد کرزي په کوچنیوالي کې د باچا خان سره خپله لیدنه بیانوي او د پاکستان پخوانی دیکتاتور پروېز مشرف په کې وایي چې د نوموړي په باور باچاخان د پاکستان ملي [شخصیت] یا پاکستان خوښونکی کس نه و.
په فیلم کې د باچا خان ریښتیني اسلامي شخصیت روښانه شوی او د ځینې هغو کسانو سره چې د باچاخان په خدایي خدمتګار غورځنګ کې شامل و مرکې شوي دي. یو کس په کې د خدایي خدمتګارانو یونیفارم یا جامې چې له ځان سره یې ساتلي ښايي.
باچا خان په دیانت مشهور و. د شپې تهجد لمونځ ته به پاڅېده او د خپل ولس د ازادۍ او سوکالۍ دپاره به یې دعاګانې کولې.
په فیلم کې د باچا خان د ژوند له درې څخه په دوه برخو چې د پیرنګي او پاکستان په زندانونو کې یې تېر کړی هم رڼا اچول شوې ده.
دپښتنو قامی سنګر
- بېرته شاته