Author Archives: Mo Muzammal

An Insurgency of Interconnectedness: Bridging Gaps in Jamil Dehlavi’s The Blood of Hussain

One of the most common themes this semester and the 21^st century world, has been interconnectedness. Whether it’s the interconnectivity of the global climate project with local grassroots efforts, or the ways in which time is reworked through weather patterns shifting the lengths of days, for example or how the duality of two worlds – East and West – can converge through the channels of Capitalism and the effects of Climate Change, interconnectedness seems to be at the core of understanding Climate Change in the contemporary period. This sense of disparate spaces – the global, the local, yesterday (the past), today (the present), East and West – becoming increasingly interconnected lies at the heart of my analysis of Jamil Dehlavi’s 1980 Pakistani film, The Blood of Hussain.

The film is about the insurgency of farmers and villagers against the local tyrannical and shrewd army. Taking place in the Punjab region of Pakistan, the film follows two brothers – Salim, the Western educated banker who acts as a power broker for the newly established tyrannical government and Hussain, the sympathetic farmer who becomes inspired by a holy soothsayer to hold an uprising against the same government for whom his brother works. Along with the obvious themes of fratricide and the East and West dialectic, Dehlavi’s choice of the farmer as the central figure and the materialistic neoliberal as the brother invites an analysis of the film from a contemporary environmental perspective, with a refined definition of “eco-cosmopolitanism” at the crux of the analysis.

Though a debated term, I conceptualize “eco-cosmopolitanism” in Pakistani terms, as a tool that can be used to study the ways in which characters with nationalistic tendencies (Hussain and his followers) and imperialistic characteristics (Salim and the army) are exposed as such through their relationship with their local environment. With their connection to the local environment, such relationships inevitably relate to the greater, global project of Climate Change.

This conceptualization of “eco-cosmopolitanism” is grounded by Shazia Rahman’s paper on eco-cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s novel Trespassing, “Karachi, Turtles, and the Materiality of Place: Pakistani Eco-cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing.” In the paper, Rahman explains that Ursula K. Heise’s idea of eco-cosmopolitanism as an “attempt to envision individuals and groups as part of a planetary ‘imagined communities’ of both humans nonhuman kinds” (Heise 61) is a “way of extending nationalism to include the planet and nonhumans” (Rahman 261). Rahman offers an alternative conception of eco-cosmopolitanism, using Khan’s novel as the site through which her definition is presented, for “Khan posits an eco-cosmopolitanism that is rooted in the local in such a way that it implicated the planet globally. This local rootedness is not nationalism but a materiality of place, and the global thinking not necessarily imperialist cosmopolitanism but rather a kind of planetarity” (262).

Ursula Heise’s Sense of Place and Sense of Planet

Similarly, in this analysis, I highlight how Jamil Dehlavi’s film showcases such a brand of “eco-cosmopolitanism” through the filmmaker’s depiction of the ways in which the unseen, marginalized class in society associates with nature through agrarianism and a conservative lifestyle and the ruling, tyrannical class relates to nature through their use of modern weaponry and advanced technology.

Shazia Rahman’s Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism

In addition to eco-cosmopolitanism being used to show how the local connects to the global, the story of Hussain leading a rebellion against the dominant classes while protecting his own kin is a modern rendition of Imam Hussain’s demise from the Quran (the holy soothsayer makes reference to this tale when speaking with the film’s Hussain about his destiny) and like eco-cosmopolitanism threads the line between the local and global, the film’s reference to and manifestation of an older Islamic story mitigates the distance between the past and the present, mirroring the interconnectivity of different fields of time in a Climate Change-ridden world. Here, I use anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner’s conceptualization of the temporal reality of Australian Aboriginals, “everywhen.” In Stanner’s essay from 1953, “The Dreaming,” the anthropologist writes of “The Dreaming” as conjuring “up the notion of a sacred, heroic time of the indefinitely remote past” which is, “in a sense, still part of the present” (58). For Stanner, one “cannot ‘fix’ The Dreaming in time; it was, and is, everywhen” (58). With “everywhen” defined as the ontological marker of the temporal character of Aboriginal reality, it is important then to use it to describe the temporal interconnectedness of the climax in The Blood of Hussain as the parameters of time collapse, with the past of Islam standing with the present conflict of the Hussain’s group of insurgents.

In addition to the interconnectedness of different parameters of time and the global and local, this analysis of The Blood of Hussain gives rise to studying the East/West dialectic of the film’s characters, most specifically the brothers and their respective insurgencies, with Salim representing Western imperialism and Hussain, religious nationalism. Such a tension and dialectic between Western imperialism and religious nationalism is a Pakistani motif, with Dehlavi contending with the presence of “both religious nationalism” and “imperialism” for “anti-imperialism has historically been linked with religious nationalism in the region” (Rahman 263). As mentioned, this East/West dialectic is captured in the background of Dehlavi himself, who is both French and Pakistani, raised in Pakistan but educated in both America and Britain.

A Bloodied Horse in the middle of a Muharram ceremony, in commemoration of prophet Hussain

As mentioned in the opening paragraphs, interconnectedness is the most apparent theme of Jamil Dehlavi’s film. This evidenced by the characters who are connected to the environment in an eco-cosmopolitan sense to the life of the filmmaker himself, whose East/West life story can be projected and connected to the political battle at the heart of Pakistan, where Pakistani nationalism coexists with Western imperialism, mirroring the internal conflicts of Salim and Hussain to the Imam Hussain story, which the film manifests, connecting the present moment to the “sacred, heroic past.” With this, it can be observed that the film’s interconnectedness demonstrates the kind of interconnectedness central to the project of Climate Change, where the local and global converge and spatial and temporal gaps are mitigated.

Astoundingly enough, Dehlavi’s chosen artform is film and considering the film is not directly about environmentalism nor does it lay bare its environmentalism, in this essay, it is looked at as an environmentalist film, a form of allegory that can help shed light on the most important environmental project of the contemporary world.

Soldiers of the local army face the valleys of Punjab

Main Sources:

Ahmad, Ali Nobil. “Meeting Jamil Dehlavi – Pakistan’s Most Intriguing Filmmaker.” The National, The National, 9 Aug. 2018, www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/film/meeting-jamil-dehlavi-pakistan-s-most-intriguing-filmmaker-1.758505#2.

Bhutto, Fatima. “Jamil Dehlavi: ‘In Pakistan, There Is Always Something in the Offing’.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 Aug. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/09/jamil-dehlavi-pakistan-film-maker-blood-hussain-interview.

Crossette, Barbara. “Mahbub Ul Haq, 64, Analyst And Critic of Global Poverty.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 July 1998, www.nytimes.com/1998/07/17/world/mahbub-ul-haq-64-analyst-and-critic-of-global-poverty.html.

Dehlavi, Jamil, director. The Blood of Hussain. Dehlavi Films, 1980.

Haq, Mahbub ul. Human Development in South Asia: 1997. Oxford University Press, 1997.

Heise, Ursula K. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

Rahman, S. “Karachi, Turtles, and the Materiality of Place: Pakistani Eco-Cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 18, no. 2, 2011, pp. 261–282., doi:10.1093/isle/isr040.

Ruddiman, W.F. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era Began Thousands of Years Ago. Climatic Change 61, 261–293 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:CLIM.0000004577.17928.fa

Sayeed, Raza Ali. “Weekly Classics: The Blood of Hussain.” DAWN.COM, DAWN, 7 Sept. 2012, www.dawn.com/news/747719/weekly-classics-the-blood-of-hussain.

Talpur, Mustafa, et al. “The World Bank in Pakistan: See No Suffering, Hear No Cries, Speak No Truth.” The Reality of Aid 2008: Aid Effectiveness: “Democratic Ownership and Human Rights”, IBON Books, 2008, pp. 86–94.

“The Blood of Hussain (Dual Format Edition).” BFI Shop, British Film Institute, 2018, shop.bfi.org.uk/the-blood-of-hussain-dual-format-edition.html.

“The Dreaming.” The Dreaming and Other Essays, by W. E. H. Stanner, Black Inc. Agenda, 2009, pp. 57–72.

FYI: I have included a link to the film below (it is available ad free on YouTube):

Sense of Place and Sense of Planet by Ursula K. Heise

Heise, Ursula K. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

Summary:

Introducing “eco-cosmopolitanism” and its connection to different forms of artistic, philosophical and practical expressions, the Introduction and Part 1 of Ursula K. Heise’s A Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global provides an approach to environmentalism that transcends place and is interconnected to different locales and regions, mirroring the interconnectedness of a globalized world.

In her meaty introduction which provides a broad overview of the conflicting opinions and thoughts on the subject of localism as place as an environmentalist strategy, Heise writes, “With this wave of countercritiques, the theoretical debate has arrived at a conceptual impasse: while some theorists criticize nationally based forms of identity and hold out cosmopolitan identifications as a plausible and politically preferable alternative, other scholars emphasize the importance of holding on to national and local modes of belonging as a way of resisting the imperialism of some forms of globalization” (12). Heise then presents one of the central ideas of this text, “eco-cosmopolitanism” which she defines as an “environmental world citizenship,” arguing that “ecologically oriented thinking has yet to come to terms with one of the central insights of current theorists of globalization: namely, that the increasing connectedness of societies around the globe entails the emergence of new forms of culture that are no longer anchored in place…”(13).

Exploring the ways in which the Earth’s inhabitants, regardless of cultural differences, can be tied by a borderless ecosystem, Heise strongly argues against a sense of place tied exclusively to the local writing “…what is crucial for ecological awareness and environmental ethics is arguably not so much a sense of place as a sense of planet – a sense of how political, economics, technological, social, cultural and ecological networks shape daily routines” (55). Heise projects this “sense of planet” on her conceptualization of “eco-cosmopolitanism,” which acknowledges “varieties of environmentalism,” “preservation of natural ecosystems and their sustainable human use” and the awareness of an interconnected world where the “‘more-than-human world’” is connected to the human world through “animate and inanimate networks of influence and exchange” (59-61).

By recontextualizing the greater environmental project in this globalized sense, Heise believes it being a more viable strategy for handling all things environmental in a world already marked and situated around the forces of globalization.

Recommended Reading:

Le Guin, Ursula K. Vaster than Empires and More Slow: A Story (A Wind’s Twelve Quarters Story). Harper Perennial , 2017.

In Guin’s short story, a group of human space travelers find a Earth-like planet, with one of the explorers sacrificing himself to the humanless nature of the planet. Heise decorates Part 1 of her book with an excellent climate analysis of Guin’s short story, writing “The idea that all the planet’s life forms are linked in such a way that they come to form one world encompassing, sentient superorganism echoes James Lovelock’s well-known Gaia hypothesis, according to which Planet Earth constitutes a single overarching feedback system that sustains itself” (19). Heise then writes on the importance of “allegory,” specifically the challenge of artists to create “a vision of the global that integrates allegory – still a mode that is hard to avoid in representations of the whole planet – into a more complex formal framework able to accommodate social and cultural multiplicity.” In this work and her overall art, Guin demonstrates Heise’s conceptualizations of eco-cosmopolitanism and allegory through metaphorical and symbolic representations of a world that is interconnected to a world both familiar and foreign to us, a manifestation of the network that connects the “animate to the inanimate.”

Rahman, S. “Karachi, Turtles, and the Materiality of Place: Pakistani Eco Cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 18, no. 2, 2011, pp. 261–282., doi:10.1093/isle/isr040.

Rahman, Shazia. Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism: Pakistani Women’s Literary and Cinematic Fictions. University of Nebraska Press, 2019.

In Shazia Rahman’s paper on eco-cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s novel Trespassing, “Karachi, Turtles, and the Materiality of Place: Pakistani Eco-cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing,” Rahman identifies Ursula K. Heise’s idea of eco-cosmopolitanism as an “attempt to envision individuals and groups as part of a planetary ‘imagined communities’ of both humans nonhuman kinds” (Heise 61). For Rahman, Heise’s eco-cosmopolitanism is a “way of extending nationalism to include the planet and nonhumans” (261). The writer then offers an alternative conception of eco-cosmopolitanism, using Khan’s novel as the site through which her definition is presented, for “Khan posits an eco-cosmopolitanism that is rooted in the local in such a way that it implicates the planet globally. This local rootedness is not nationalism but a materiality of place, and the global thinking not necessarily imperialist cosmopolitanism but rather a kind of planetarity” (262). In reading this essay, along with her book on eco-feminism which has chapters in eco-cosmopolitanism in Pakistan Punjab, the reader receives two differing perspectives on an idea that seems to connect the world through an awareness of modern environmentalism. “eco-cosmopolitanism.”

“The Dreaming.” The Dreaming and Other Essays, by W. E. H. Stanner, Black Inc. Agenda, 2009, pp. 57–72.

At the center of this essay from 1953 is anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner’s expression, “Everywhen” which borrows from approaches to temporality from Aboriginal Australians, highlighting how interconnected the past, present and future is for Australia’s indigenous population. Though Heise doesn’t make an explicit connection to Stanner in this portion of her book, Stanner’s methodology of bridging the gaps of understanding nature and the environment between different cultures and locales (The Modern West against the Aboriginals) as well as the Aboriginals’ sense of temporal interconnectivity exemplifies Heise’s structure of a “sense of planetarity” and make Stanner’s essay a prescient, important work in climate literature.

Discussion Questions:

Given Heise’s insistence that her mode of “eco-cosmopolitanism” is influenced by the work of postcolonial scholars’ work on cosmopolitan (I.e. Homi Bhaba) and how separated it is from imperialism, to what degree are Rahman’s arguments justified? Are these arguments reactionary or is there perhaps something substantial in Rahman’s writing when it comes to developing a unique perspective to Heise’s “eco-cosmopolitanism”?
Given Heise’s consistency in holding globalization as a harbinger of contemporary life, is she too much of an idealist who may not fully appreciate and recognize the detrimental effects of the current capitalist framework and how tied it is to globalization and instead, see globalization’s potential for environmental thought?
One of the most provocative elements in Stanner’s essay is the research itself; considering that Stanner is a white, Westernized man performing research on indigenous tribes, when may Stanner become too problematic in his research and could that expose flaws in Heise’s eco-cosmopolitanism? Meaning, if an outsider is to connect himself or herself to another locale in the name of eco-cosmopolitanism, how can we “check” the West to ensure cultures of other locales do not become further eliminated and acclimated to a globalized, less localized world?

Kintsugi: Repairing Our Damages (Art)

In attempting to post a creative segment for my “blog post” this week, I was reminded of the cost of giving into the charms of contemporary technology, specifically the ways in which artists, especially those working with more technologically advanced mediums (such as film or photography) can lose sight of the overall damage left behind by the remnants of such a technology. In chapter four of T.J. Demos’ book, Against the Anthropocene, Edward Burtynsky’s Oil Fields #27, Bakersfield, California, USA is described as a photograph wherein “technology merges with nature, unified aesthetically, composing a picture that is, monstrously, not only visually pleasurable…” (65).

Though Burtynsky acknowledges the dangers of Climate Change, he does not see the full repercussions of the moment. Despite this, Burtynsky’s art is beautiful and tends to evoke strong feelings from the viewer. However, Burtynsky’s photographs “naturalize petro capitalism” with their framing choices and editing.

Therefore, I found it liberating to work on my art pieces with the desire to perhaps open the door to more pressing discussions and questions about Modern Art and Climate Change. In these works, I use super imposition along with other photo editing techniques to try and make sense of the paradox of working with advanced technology, of having to give in to different media platforms upon which capitalism has made its mark, to ultimately critique the system by showing the ways in which it fractures the world. In this series of photographs, I seek to find a balance between our world and the one outside of us, hoping the worlds can be reconciled through the “putting together” of disparate parts (in this sense, Art is contrary to Capitalism which, despite appearing to also “put together” the world’s disparate parts through the global supply chain, only further fractures and divides the world through growing inequality and growth models which exploit the environment).

Influenced by “Kintsugi,” the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending broken areas with various materials (lacquer, gold, silver, platinum), this artwork is aesthetically fractured, but whole, desiring to repair our world through the stitching of its various broken and damaged parts. In this sense, photographic superimposition is a symbolic reification of a harmonious repair of what is left and what is damaged.

I hope everyone enjoys this “Climate Change/Art” post and ponders interesting questions and thoughts on the project.

A Tutor and its Pupil: An Overhaul of Market Economics

A comparison of two economic models to address Climate Change (from Bina and La Camera’s paper)

In the realm of market economics, though there are several schools of thought, one common denominator remains: the market should be optimized for sufficient gains and growth. As a former economics student, I recognize the importance of governments to balance the desire to sustain economic growth with that of other variables. From Brady Bonds to the market/controlled economy of China to carbon tax initiatives, different economic strategies have been deployed to deal with a host of problematic scenarios from developing countries embroiled in debt to a Communist country wanting to reap the benefits of market economics without succumbing completely to its free enterprise model to the ongoing and existential threat of Climate Change, which, taken to its most logical extreme, represents the most severe threat to our world (not that debt riddled countries and countries desiring to hold onto their customs aren’t important).

Such logic pervades Olivia Bina and Francesco La Camera’s research paper, “Promise and shortcomings of a green turn in recent policy response to the ‘double crisis,’’ which brings into question the efficacy of market economics as an economic system to address the ongoing environmental crisis and a framework to handle contemporary and future economic issues. Bina and La Camera consistently cite “Ecological economics,” drawing on the work of the subfield’s founder, Georgescu-Roegen, whose pioneering work demonstrated the limiting factor of a market economic world is natural capital, for “Historically, the limiting factor that focused attention was that of manmade capital, but as humanity’s impact on resources and the biosphere move us closer to the so-called Anthropocene (Schellnhuber et al., 2005) and to growing scarcity of natural resources (MEA, 2005; Rockström et al., 2009), the limiting factor shifts to natural capital” (2311).

The idea that growth is unsustainable and cannot be endless is central to ecological economics and with that, Bina and La Camera offer an alternative model to modern economies privy to both environmental and economic crises (during a ravaging pandemic, a global recession and unrelenting environmental catastrophes, this article feels far too familiar). In their model (see above), aptly labeled “An Alternative Turn,” “Distributive aspects” replaces “equality of opportunities” in the “mainstream economics perspective” of a system of economics centered around bettering both environmental and economic crises, “Eco-efficient Capitalism.” On this model, the researchers explicate that “justice becomes the expected outcome of a redistribution of wealth through the initial equality of opportunities and, at global level, the ‘trickle down’ effect, whilst sustainability is secured as a result of eco-efficient capitalism” (2314). In contrast, Bina and La Camera’s proposed model “requires that the environment be considered an ultimate means (i.e. not substitutable)” for it “envisages the ‘Ultimate End’ linked to a development that embraces the moral and ethical dimensions of the relationship between humanity and the environment” (2314).

In essence, if there is not a significant recall of the market economics model, the current trajectory of the Climate Change crisis may result in a “Green” economy, but, as Bina and La Camera show, if the overarching goal of the model is to sustain economic growth, treating environmental sustainability as an added benefit of the model, the type of systemic overhaul needed to mitigate the damage of Climate Change won’t come from such a model.

In the article, Bina and La Camera keep referencing “Robert Skidelsky’s (2009) observation that economics is the ‘tutor of governments,’” underlining the importance of alternative economic models mainly focused on fighting the Climate Change crisis. Skidelsky’s classification of the role of economics in government is on point and though this paper was published in 2011, a wealth of literature has since been published on economic modeling centered on Climate Change. If economics is indeed the tutor of governments, then we should continue to act as facilitators of education for the pupils that are our governments, bridging gaps between disparate fields and disciplines as we work to better the gap between our present and future.

Petro-masculinity: History Recycled, Reified

At first glance, the relationship between fossil fuels and white male patriarchy may be difficult to evince, but if captured through the prism of the cultural history of the West, especially of America, the relationship becomes anything but unclear. This is one of the more sobering points of Cara Daggett’s essay, “Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire” wherein the linkage between authoritarianism impulses and white male patriarchy is contextualized around the usage of fossil fuels, hence the provocative term “petro-masculinity.”

Though the paper veers too deep into psychoanalytic territory and at times reads more like a rant than a journal article, simplistically accounting the “shared frustration among white men who have struggled to find a housewife willing to receive their veneration” for one of the reasons how the psychology of Trump supporters worked to elect the current president, the essay nonetheless engages provocatively with the Climate Change crisis. The paper connects masculinity with the usage of fossil fuels and the practice’s pointed, destructive tendencies. Whether it be a clever display of environmentally-focused analysis of semantics (Daggett deconstructs the word “petro” by presenting the diametrically opposed forces within, those of dead/rigidity (fossils) and those of life/flow (energy brought about through death)), a socio-historical reading of white male cultural bonding with fossil fuels (a leitmotif is the link between the boom of cars and the stable jobs and social positioning that American white man procured after World War II) or a psychologically engaged approach to defining authoritarianism (studies of Nazi psychology is keenly used) as an unrelenting entity hellbent on violently spreading its order and influence, Daggett’s paper impressively covers the paper’s complex topic in a rich, interdisciplinary way.

The essay leaves the reader with enough meat to chew on for days. What’s especially striking is grounding the fossil fuel-American masculinity dialectic as a response to World War II gender dynamics:

Instead of sturdy husbands and firm fathers controlling their wives and children, lisping bureaucrats and social workers were now running the show. World War II exacerbated the problem; with so many men away at the front, and women working in the factories, male authority was further eroded (37).

Though this isn’t Daggett’s words (she references Corey Rubin here), the essay is filled with this sentiment. Daggett’s arguments tend to connect the response of American white men to the World War II “re-gendering” of society (which consisted of fossil fuels usage ala energy consumption) to the present moment when American white voters, as an aggregate, have channeled their masculinity through damning global warming movements by doubling down on fossil fuel usage (i.e. the support of bringing back coal power despite the industry’s economic impotency) in their unbridled support of Trump and his dangerous climate politics. Such connections lead us to ponder interesting questions about the effect of culture on one’s politics and consider how the refusal to let go of power is manifested in one’s political stances. Trump’s detrimental positions on Climate Change aren’t just based in an anti-science ideology, but also a politics rooted in a nostalgia for a past for which a certain group can feel; the idea that this nostalgia is inherently related to fossil fuel usage is both a disturbing but vital thought in perhaps understanding the Trump phenomenon.

It is disturbing in that, like the flow/rigidity dynamic that Daggett professes as the bizarre dialectic within the fossil fuels-American masculinity model (with “rigidity” representing the blockade of culture destruction and “flow” representing the perpetuation of a dominant culture and its systemic rule), nostalgia, normally attributed to preciousness and innocence, is juxtaposed with ecosystem destruction and violence. However, it’s essential to recognize this “destructive nostalgia” since “The novelty and freedoms enabled by fossil-fuelled civilization are entangled with horrific violence, such that to embark upon fossil-fuelled life is to spark off mass species extinction just as much as it is to make possible the internet or global social movements” (31).

Accepting this allows us to see the rubric of Daggett’s thesis as re-contextualizing the simultaneous “creation-destruction” element of the industrialization-natural environment dynamic around white male masculinity, authoritarianism and fossil fuels. Despite its engrossing angle regarding the stabilization of patriarchy in relation to the destructive usage of fossil fuels, the essay is built on a point with which many readers may be too familiar; that is, our treasures and freedoms are predicated on the evaporation of our planet. If climate deniers are to accept this, we could all be one step closer to ending the recycling of a culture and identity that preserves ecological demolition and gross exploitation of natural resources.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Climate Change

MALS 78500 Summer 2020 Dr. Kaitlin Mondello