Amir Khan: Terror Apologist
(Via rediff)
Aamir Khan rips the media apart
"On the issue of terrorism too, the star was equally outspoken: 'What I'd like to say as a Muslim here is that any person claiming to be a Muslim who indulges in killing innocent people, in my opinion, is not a Muslim.' But he criticised the media, who 'conveniently take it (the government version) on face value and say that phalana dhimka from phalana dhimka group has in fact done this (terrorist act).'
'The job of the authorities is to find out who's behind it and the job of the press I feel is to investigate whether the authorities are telling the truth,' he added."
I find this sad and ironical. Sad because his films were part of my growing up. One of my first films (first on VCR) was QSQT.
Although I do not claim to be a movie connosieur (my preference being "latke" and "jhatke" than "hatke"), I enjoyed his movies.
However since he became an activist his leanings and his statesments have made me uncomfortable.
The political statement that "Mangal Pandey: The Rising" made was ridiculous at best.
But the interview takes the cake.
Now Amir Khan who was searching for his "Muslim identity" has become an amateur conspiracy theorist. According to him the media coverage of Varanasi blasts was shoddy.
Actually it was, but the other way.
His grouse is that an Islamic terrorist group was identified by the administration and media did not investigate it. I can understand if he feels embarassed by actions of fellow Muslims (hell I sometimes feel embarassed by actions of fellow Hindus), but that doesn't mean that he get rid of sanity for paranoid delusions.
He can be rest assured that "secular" government (both in UP and Delhi) were not trying to indict Muslims and that there was a Islamic terrorist group behind attack is expected.
He should also watch some other channel other Doordarshan he would have realized that the attack by terrorist groups is a fairly known fact.
There are three morals
1) There is a good reason that actors should not become activists. They are dolts.
2) That Aamir Khan, who by all account is a moderate Muslim is inventing excuses, instead of confronting the truth should be a reality check to the secularist who expect moderate Muslims to reform Islam on their own. Ofcourse ultimately it is up to Muslims to steer their religion, but it is a common human failing to cop out unfortunately this is something India can not afford now.
3) The whole issue of identity is a pretty complicated business. Partition can be redeuced to problem of identity. That and clashes of personality.
7 comments:
I think all he was trying to say is that a criminal should be just that, A CRIMINAL. Why further instigate and say he is a muslim, hindu or sikh or christian.
There are enough prejudices in the world, why make it worse?
he is just telling his views..he has the right and so do you.
Anonymous : That is not what he said. In fact that has nothing to do with what he said.
Anon,
You are suggesting that a terrorist is same as a pick pocket.
Their motivations are completely different,and so is nature of their crime, hence it makes sense to be concerned about it.
Jaffna,
You are correct. But will secularist understand this is the question. I read your posts, as usual informative.
Regards
Yes
I commented before and to prove my point here is the full quote from the interview...please read as he says exactly what i explained before...for complete interview text, please visit
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main17.asp?filename=hub040106Mainstream_CS.asp&id=3
"What I’d like to say as a Muslim here is that any person claiming to be a Muslim who indulges in killing innocent people, in my opinion, is not a Muslim — is not a person of faith at all. This is true of a person of a different religion, be it Hindu or Christian or Sikh or Jew. If you kill innocent people, you are not a person of faith, not a person of god, certainly not a religious person. I do not think the mainstream and all of us should recognise that person as a Muslim, Hindu or Christian. We should recognise him simply as a criminal and his religion thereafter should be completely unimportant one way or the other. He should be treated as a criminal not only by the authorities but even by the public. Things like this only serve to propagate a lack of trust and ill feelings towards another community whichever that community maybe. An act by one Hindu or Muslim or Christian should not be read as what the community feels.
Having said that, I would also like to say that we really should find out who is behind it. And I find it a little surprising that irrespective of which blast it is or of what magnitude, I realise that somehow authorities very conveniently find one or two people within two hours or within one or two days of the incident and kill that person in a shootout or something like that. What I want to know is why can’t they do that before. Is it so easy to find a criminal? If it is so easy, why can’t we nab them before the act? And in this, I want to comment on the role of the media, where they conveniently take it on face value and say that phalana dhimka from phalana dhimka group has in fact done this. We know that somebody has been killed. We can see a dead body there, but we don’t know who that person is. Nobody knows who actually planted a bomb in the temple. Today it’s a temple, tomorrow it could be a mosque, day after a church or market place. The job of the authorities is to find out who’s behind it and the job of the press I feel is to investigate whether the authorities are telling the truth.
In fact, even the story we are discussing just now should be what all channels and papers are also discussing. What is happening to the media? It’s a matter of national concern.
THANK YOU SIR and enjoy
At 5:24 PM, doubtinggaurav said…
Anon,
You are suggesting that a terrorist is same as a pick pocket.
Their motivations are completely different,and so is nature of their crime, hence it makes sense to be concerned about it.
Jaffna,
You are correct. But will secularist understand this is the question. I read your posts, as usual informative.
Regards
Yes
ahh i dont where you got that from what i said
I just said that a terrorist or a criminal's religion is irrerelevant. And thats what i understood from aamir's interview.
Anon,
I have read the interview (infact I have linked to it in the post itself).
First he was not saying that religion is irrelevant. He was saying that he did not believe that terrorist group was Islamist and that it was a cover up job by governement and media was supporting it.
Second, Pardon my being P-In-C, but I think it is normal to investigate the motivation behind any crime (the much bandied and worn out "root -causes " thingy).
What is the motivation behind blowing up innocent humans (including babies)? Work it out yourself ! (Hint : It is not poverty or oppression)
Regards
I was just wondering just which way his political views leaned. I can't really tell from your entry, and it'd be great if you could let me know. Thanks.
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