(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Among the Believers
Directed by: Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Ali Naqvi
We first meet them with potash covers, like gangsters, seen in sliding camera movements drawn from a low-budget action movie inspired by Martin Scorsese. A group of holy warriors, led by Abdul Aziz Ghazi, are recruiting young children (all the way down to the age of four) to strengthen their opposition to the Pakistani government. They want to introduce sharia laws in Pakistan and beyond into the global world, and are prepared to do so by violent means. In some schools (or so-called madrassa) in the capital, Islamabad, they get children to cram the Qur'an, dedicate themselves to the faith and prepare for religious agitation. In exchange, the children get food on the table, clothes, a roof to sleep under and cover health expenses.
Directors Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Ali Naqvi create a relatively nuanced picture of this situation in the documentary Among the Believers (2015). Rather than being a mere condemnation of Ghazi's project, the film is a critical illumination of the social conditions that have made his progress possible.
Let the children come to me. Ghazi even says in the film, with a small smile on his mouth, that he fills a vacuum – the government is unable to meet the basic needs of its inhabitants, he believes. In slums, where many of the thousands of Ghazi students come from, people lack water, electricity and food.
The filmmakers have come very close to this leadership figure. He sits and talks calmly, restrained and charismatic in an environment that seems almost inviting (had it not been for the barbed wire fenders on the outside, which the directors are quick to introduce to us). He looks comfortable in front of the movie crew. The dean of the main school in the city of Lal Masjid (The Red Mosque) also talks openly about how they exploit the "formability" of the young children. And a young student reveals that they are beaten if they decide to watch TV.
Next to Ghazi and the Red Mosque as an institution, the film chooses to follow two children aged 12: A boy named Talha, who has been recruited and already after a short time of indoctrination shines with rock-hard fundamentalism (his face is totally devoid of joy, only determined will). Also a girl named Zarina, who has escaped from one of Ghazi's mattresses and now goes to an ordinary school. She still seems to have a harder life than the boy. Zarina lives in shocking conditions as one of eight siblings, the Taliban can attack the school she attends at any time, and on the horizon she has forced marriages to look forward to. The girl's situation shows in practice what Ghazi is talking about, and helps us understand how so many children can end up in his militant arms.
Another person we follow is an academic who fights against the fundamentalist forces. Together, these five personal portraits shed different light on the situation. The film is perceived in part as a lament over the conditions, but is primarily characterized by a listening tone.
Harmless extremism. In order for director Naqvi to have access to film and spend time with Ghazi, it was important not to enter the project with a judgmental look. He himself says in a TV interview that he had to find a way to meet Ghazi – and he found it in the religious faith.
Repeated, insistent close-ups of aggressive automatic weapons undermine the otherwise peaceful atmosphere of the mattresses.
This non-hateful attitude to fundamentalism characterizes the film and creates a certain serene space for reflection, even though the feeling of suffering and fighting spirit is still in the pictures – not least thanks to the warm-blooded drum sounds and whistle tones of Milind Date. Repeated, insistent close-ups of aggressive automatic weapons also undermine the otherwise peaceful atmosphere in the mattresses. These elements, along with the use of archival material from two violent incidents (respectively, the Pakistani government's storming of the Red Mosque in 2007, and the horrific school massacre in Peshewar in 2014, in which Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan killed over 100 children), highlight the warlike and ruthless in an extremism that Ghazi likes to defuse with euphemisms and low voice.
There are also other powerful images in Among the Believers, pictures that testify to forms of freedom also outside the mattresses. When the young girl Zarina is forcibly married and we see pictures from the wedding party, she looks like a corpse buried in glitter.
Zarina does not seem to have a place where she can feel free, happy or worthy. If it is not forced marriage, Ghazi or the Taliban, it is the harsh conditions in the home. The desperation in the situation she lives in cannot be expressed stronger or more cruelly than when she tells about her thoughts after learning that her mother was pregnant with a new child. Zarina looks innocent to a naive viewer while she tells that she wanted to cut the baby into many small pieces.
Among the Believers will appear during the film festival Human Rights Human Wrongs, which is held in Oslo from 16 to 21 February.
endreeid@gmail.com
