Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is the coolest Pakistani this week. Hands down, no competition. Officially earning the perpetual right to be known by all three names like an Inca goddess, Obaid-Chonoy won her second Oscar for Best Documentary Short this past Sunday for her film on honour killings in Pakistan called “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness.” I don’t know about you, but that title alone makes me want to reach for the tissues, about as much as when I saw her confidently walk onto the stage at the Academy Awards (wearing an embroidered kimono-type thing). Again. The whole time she was giving her speech I kept thinking to myself “Well, paint my face and call me Mammy! That’s a Pakistani on stage! A Pakistani! On stage! At the Oscars!”
The subject of her film allowed her speech to be grounded, thoughtful and serious. In an Oscar ceremony otherwise overshadowed by America’s racial tensions, her speech cut through the frivolity of dresses and acting paychecks to demonstrate the true power of the medium of film to affect real global change. Just so you know, SOC now has more Academy Awards than Colin Firth, Whoopi Goldberg, Julianne Moore, Kate Winslet, Leonardo Di Caprio, Johnny Depp, Jennifer Lawrence, Grace Kelley, Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Martin Scorcese. I’ll say it again, more than Scorcese. Put another way, she has the same number of Oscars as Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Russel Crowe but not Meryl Streep because, you know, it’s Meryl. If you, like me, have no Oscars but a lot of enthusiasm, please know that you have the same number of Oscars as Brad Pitt, and that should keep you going for a while.
Young men brought gifts for Mumtaz Qadri on Valentines' Day, as he awaited execution
In that time since her first Oscar, SOC has spoken multiple times at home and abroad about filmmaking in Pakistan, and her latest (and one hopes not the last) award is testament to the fact that, quite simply, it can be done. That world stage that for so long seemed “over there” when I was growing up is now very much over here. I can go on and on about it really, because it has deeply affected me. Above all, I know and trust that her success will serve as a catalyst for more kids to take up the creative arts which are among the noblest callings in the world.
I saw the Oscars at a restaurant viewing party with my friend Athena, a very militant lesbian who dresses like a 12-year old boy from the late 80s and says things like “herstory” (instead of “history”). She doesn’t shave her legs but loves the red carpet so we get along just fine. She and I met when I worked at a human rights organisation back in the day, and she was my immediate superior. She hugged me when SOC won and we both got a little teary-eyed. Later at dinner she and I were talking about her work now which involved campaigning against the death penalty in the US, the same sort of work she did at the organisation back then, and the conversation eventually turned to Pakistan. At one point she asked me what I thought about the fact that Mumtaz Qadri had been put to death this week. I didn’t know, and the news caught me off guard.
I felt relieved when I heard about Qadri, a primal, ungenerous relief
When we worked together, I had helped her on things related to the abolition of the death penalty but my own views on the matter were muddled. They still are. On the one had I recognise that the practice is barbaric and deeply flawed. And to work for its abolishment, you are often asked to justify why you want to rescue the worst abusers, as if it were for them and not the innocent victims of the law for whom you were fighting. It’s not an easy debate at all. But I confess here that I felt relieved when I heard about Qadri, a primal, ungenerous relief. It came from anger, from a sense of getting “an eye for an eye”, though of course no crime can truly be undone. I know many people feel the same way. Putting aside my ill ease with the death penalty (research shows it is not a deterrent), I suppose the biggest reason for my relief was that in the years since Qadri murdered Governor Taseer, there have been people who have repeatedly and vocally proclaimed it a crime to be emulated if not celebrated. There were posters of the man in public and even protestors that took to the streets of Lahore to demand his freedom. That the state categorically demonstrated otherwise eased something within me. For how long, I am not sure. Just as I am not sure why the LLF could be shut down a day before it opened but these hateful protests go on with impunity in the same city. As you and I both know, things won’t really change until we undo Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
But let us not end on this conflicted note. Instead, I want to draw your attention to the arrival of Diplo. Despite the fact that the name sounds like that of a jolly, overweight worker from a seedy Calcutta brothel (“Diplo! Array oooo Diplo! Tum se koi milne aya hai!”), Diplo is in fact a world famous DJ. Islamabad’s home grown rapper Adil Omar managed to arrange his visit to the capital and he played a sold out and emotionally charged concert for the city. That someone like him plays a concert is not something that happens in our hood much anymore and is therefore both newsworthy and laudatory. I heard wonderful things about it and it’s always great when we have an international celebrity come to Pakistan on work that doesn’t involve shooting scenes for a Homeland-meets-Zero Dark Thirty-type terror movie.
Honestly, there hasn’t been so much good news to come out of Pakistan for years, and I am so grateful for it. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Academy, the filmmakers, my editors, my costumer, the wonderful music of Diplo and…
