Something about Pakistan

[merijan 0]

Pakistan you dont hear about

On CNN, Fox, MSNBC you see the raging, flag burning, crazy people marching in the streets. You see the Taliban types, Osama followers, etc...... But have you seen this..

[b4byd09 0]

Watch the documentary:

Or

The Son Of Lion

Son of a Lion is an illegally made film from the world's most dangerous frontier. But the people are really nice, writes Michael Dwyer.

SOME cultures are just backward. Misogynistic, violent, morally bereft.

At least, Australia must have seemed that way to 15-year-old Niaz Shinwari, the star of Son of a Lion, when he attended opening night of the Melbourne International Film Festival last month.

He and his father, Hayat, are Pashtun Muslims from the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan.

Their exotic cultural background was obvious enough to warrant hastily staged photographs with John Brumby and Peter Garrett on the red carpet.

But nobody thought to warn them about the movie they'd be watching at the end of it. Not Quite Hollywood is a documentary about the Australian underground film industry of the late 1970s and early '80s. Copious nudity, sex acts and affiliated parental warnings apply."

When I came there I was not expecting such things," Niaz says, still wide-eyed with disbelief. "I was expecting some pleasant and good movies but when I saw that, I was just completely shocked! And the most shocking thing was I was sitting with my dad!" His father smiles.

"I was closing my eyes, sleeping," he says. "I said to him, 'it's OK, you go ahead and enjoy'." Such is the stuff of cross-cultural goodwill.

From an Australian perspective, Niaz's and Hayat's film is much more shocking than Alvin Purple or Fantasm Comes Again. Son of a Lion is the debut feature by Australian Benjamin Gilmour, a coming-of-age drama filmed in secret, under dangerous circumstances, in the forbidding tribal region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This, according to a popular 21st century bedtime story, is the hostile region where the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and possibly Hannibal Lecter are even now plotting against our freedom-loving ways.

Caught in the crossfire between covert military operations and a global appetite for stereotypical villains are people like Hayat and Niaz Shinwari.

"I kept reading in the papers about the Pashtuns, and the whole image of that ethnic group was being lumped in the same basket as the Taliban," says Gilmour, who first visited the region as a tourist a month before the 9/11 attacks. "It really disturbed me because I was overwhelmed by the hospitality and kindness of these people."

In the absence of official permission of any kind, it was only Hayat's role as "fixer" that made Son of a Lion viable. "I have a great love for film and I'm very much emotional about my people and our land," he says. "So I saw a chance to show the world. Let's see if our voice can be heard in this way."

Hayat quickly saw the mad Australian as his personal responsibility when Gilmour arrived in his home town of Kohat in 2005, with a firstdraft script titled The Bullet Boy in his luggage.

"Melmastia is the Pashtun code of conduct regarding guests," Hayat explains. "How to behave, how to protect, how to feed. That's very basic. If you have guests with you then it becomes a matter of honour with you to look after him."

It's partly this code that led to the Pashtuns' vilification, by the Pakistani mainstream and western witchhunters alike. Ask Hayat Shinwari where Osama bin Laden is staying and he smilingly attests, "not with me". But would he tell us if he knew? "Not at any cost. Never. I would live with that shame all my life."

This is not the only troublesome impasse one encounters on this journey of cultural understanding. Hayat says he feels undressed without the loaded Smith & Wesson pistol he wears every day in Kohat.

The Pashtuns' insistence on bearing arms is bizarrely reminiscent of a certain western culture that also pays dearly for the privilege in the eyes of foreigners.

Darra Adam Khel, the dusty tribal outpost where Son of a Lion is set, looks remarkably like an American wild west movie, except with hashish stores instead of saloons and 20 times as many cowboys firing guns in the air.

Munitions manufacturing is this town's lifeblood, which is largely why it has become so dangerous as the militarised world continues to converge in search of terrorists, conspiracy and other secret men's business. Gilmour lived in disguise for the duration of the shoot, dressed and bearded like the locals in villages crawling with tribal guards, Pakistani military and secret service agents.

Foreigners are routinely told they will be shot on sight by the tribesfolk beyond Peshawar, he says. Small wonder that another filmmaker, Morgan "Supersize Me" Spurlock, turned back at this very spot when making his new film, Where In the World Is Osama bin Laden?

"Big girl's blouse," Gilmour mutters, though he concedes that Spurlock's reticence "may have had something to do with the fact that he's American"."

I was told exactly the same thing and I ignored it," he says. "I'm quite stubborn. People were worried for me, understandably but fear is largely irrational. I totally believe fear is our worst enemy these days.

[Teacher Mark 53]

It's an impressive number, but the fact remains that Bin Laden is in that region.

[merijan 0]

It's an impressive number, but the fact remains that Bin Laden is in that region.

You have personal knowledge of this? Try to see outside the box. That what the Us govt tells us is aboout 2 percent true. And That they need Bin Laden to be the "infamous terroist" that he is. And that you can make someone to be more than they every where ..

[Teacher Mark 53]

It's an impressive number, but the fact remains that Bin Laden is in that region.

You have personal knowledge of this? Try to see outside the box. That what the Us govt tells us is aboout 2 percent true. And That they need Bin Laden to be the "infamous terroist" that he is. And that you can make someone to be more than they every where ..

2%? Do you have personal knowledge of that?

[Pooky 3,841]

It is a well-known fact that 68% of all statistics are complete fabrications made up by bored statisticians.

P

[sara..... 371]

there is a side to pakistan that most never see it is not reported in the news u hear all kind of things that are bad but nothing about how beautiful, kind and loving most of the people of pakistan are they for the most part are very innocent people with kind open hearts.........

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

That's nice.

[merijan 0]

there is a side to pakistan that most never see it is not reported in the news u hear all kind of things that are bad but nothing about how beautiful, kind and loving most of the people of pakistan are they for the most part are very innocent people with kind open hearts.........

that was what I wanted to show. Because when we watch the media we only see raging angry mobs etc. but there is so much to Pakistan, good people, beautifull places, and different culture in each area, good foods too..yummm. but no body wants to see that. And yet so many are just innocent people not like we invision from fox news..thanks for ur comments.