International Guerillas

Satanic Verses, the fourth novel by Salman Rushdie, a Pakistani origin British writer was banned in the Islamic world because of what was perceived as an irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad SAWW (PBUH). The title refers to a disputed Muslim tradition that is related in the book. According to this tradition, Muhammad referred to as Mahound (Mahound is a despicable name for Mohammad the prophet of Islam (PBUH), found in Medieval and later European literature. This version of the name, or variants of it, came to be strongly associated with anti-Muslim attitudes in Western Christendom. It was especially connected to the belief that Muhammad was a god worshipped by Muslims, or that he was a demon who inspired a false religion) in the book added verses to the Quran accepting three goddesses who used to be worshipped in Mecca as divine beings. According to the legend, Muhammad later revoked the verses, saying the devil tempted him to utter these lines to appease the Meccans hence the “Satanic” verses. However, the narrator reveals to the reader that these disputed verses were actually from the mouth of the Archangel Gabriel. The book has been banned in many countries primarily Islamic or with large Muslim communities.

On 14 February 1989, a fatwa requiring Rushdie’s execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran at the time, calling the book “blasphemous against Islam” chapter IV of the book depicts the character of an Imam in exile who returns to incite revolt from the people of his country with no regard for their safety. A bounty was offered for Rushdie’s death, and he was thus forced to live under police protection for years afterwards. On 7 March 1989, the United Kingdom and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy. The publication of the book and the fatwa sparked violence around the world, with bookstores firebombed. Muslim communities in several nations in the West held public rallies in which copies of the book were burned. Several people associated with translating or publishing the book were attacked, seriously injured, and even killed. Many more people died in riots in Third World countries. On 24 September 1998, as a precondition to the restoration of diplomatic relations with Britain, the Iranian government, then headed by Mohammad Khatami, gave a public commitment that it would “neither support nor hinder assassination operations on Rushdie.” However, hardliners in Iran have continued to reaffirm the death sentence. In early 2005, Khomeini’s fatwa was reaffirmed by Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to Muslim pilgrims making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Additionally, the Revolutionary Guards have declared that the death sentence on him is still valid. Iran has rejected requests to withdraw the fatwa on the basis that only the person who issued it may withdraw it, and the person who issued it – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – has been dead since 1989.

In 1990, soon after the publication of The Satanic Verses, a Pakistani film entitled International Gorillay (International Guerillas) was released in which Rushdie was depicted plotting to cause the downfall of Pakistan by opening a chain of casinos and discos in the country. The film was popular with Pakistani audiences, and it “presents Rushdie as a Rambo-like figure pursued by four Pakistani guerrillas”. The British Board of Film Classification refused to allow it a certificate then, as for it was felt that the portrayal of Rushdie might qualify as criminal libel, causing a breach of the peace as opposed to merely tarnishing his reputation. This move effectively banned the film in Britain outright. However, later, Rushdie himself wrote to the board, saying that while he thought the film “a distorted, incompetent piece of trash”, he would not sue if it were released. He later said, “If that film had been banned, it would have become the hottest video in town, everyone would have seen it”. While the film was a great hit in Pakistan, it went to all intents and purposes without being seen in the West. He has said that there was one legitimately funny part of the movie, his character torturing a Muslim character with an audio recording of his book The Satanic Verses.

I clearly remember it was September of the year 1996; I was accompanying my sister for a commercial shoot as her university project. I was extremely excited because it was being executed by none other than the legendry director Late Jan Muhammad. As a kid, I was of the sort who had decided early in tender years that I would join the film industry in some capacity I had started idolizing some legendry filmmakers and Late Jan Muhammad was one of them. It was my height of excitement to see him execute things for this petty fake commercial rather it would not be wrong if called a university project. However, Late Jan Muhammad’s worked and finished even such a university project commercial with great zeal and utter professionalism. I was mesmerised by this legend. The day was over and I found some video cassettes of Pakistani films directed by the star himself, and I requested to borrow them. Being a family friend, he was polite enough to oblige me and lend them to me to be watched at home in my leisure time, which I enjoyed most, but the best was International Gorillay. Little did I knew then about the controversy it had heralded until very recently when I read that of late a British ban on distributing of a Pakistani film that depicts the novelist Salman Rushdie as a ruthless and drunken playboy who tortures and kills Muslims was lifted after an appeal by Mr. Rushdie against censorship in any form. Britain’s Video Appeals Committee ruled that the Board of Film Classification erred in denying a certificate for release of ”International Guerrillas,” a popular Pakistani-produced feature film. Pirated video copies of the film, however, were sold for $200 on the black market in Britain’s Muslim neighbourhoods. The decision to lift the ban on distribution came at the end of a four-hour hearing by the five-member appeals committee of the classification board.

The classification board denied ”International Gorillay” a certificate that would allow people over 18 for viewing because, it said, the film constituted criminal libel against Mr. Rushdie. The author, who still lives under a death threat delivered by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini over his novel ”The Satanic Verses,” wrote an appeal on behalf of allowing distribution of the film. Iran has maintained the threat since Ayatollah Khomeini’s death in June 1989.

Richard DuCann, a lawyer representing the film board, said the board had to consider the safety of Mr. Rushdie. The film, Mr. DuCann said, was not merely ”trivial entertainment,” but was ”designed to inflame an audience which is susceptible to such influences.” Mr. Rushdie, in a statement read at hearing by Geoffrey Robertson, the lawyer representing the film’s distributor, said: ”As a writer, I am opposed in principle to the use of the archaic criminal laws of blasphemy, sedition and criminal libel against creative works, even in the case of a film which quite plainly vilifies me.” Mr. Rushdie said he was confident that viewers, non-Muslim as well as Muslim, would recognize the film ”for the distorted, incompetent piece of trash that it is” and would understand that the Rushdie character ”is ludicrously unlike the real me.” In his statement, Mr. Rushdie said he had seen the film, whose dialogue is in Urdu, a language he speaks, and although it portrayed him as ”a murderer and a sadist,” he did not wish to seek ”the dubious protection of censorship.”

”Censorship,” he said, ”is usually counterproductive and can actually exacerbate the risks which it seeks to reduce.” Sajjad Gul, the Pakistani producer of ”International Gorillay,” said his film did not even pretend to be an artistic film. ”It’s a commercial film,” Mr. Gul said. ”It’s not an art film. To me, it’s a satire on the whole issue. If it had been made in England or America, it would have been made by Mel Brooks. That’s how people should view it. Mr. Rushdie has been painted as a very camp character.” Mr. Gul said the film had cost about $500,000 to produce and had earned nearly $300,000 in Pakistan (These quotations are from 1990), where, he said, it is very popular. With its action-oriented plot and frequent bursts of song and dance, ”International Gorillay” is typical of a genre that is popular in Pakistan except that the principal villain is named Salman Rushdie. The character who is supposed to be Mr. Rushdie, played by a Pakistani actor named Afzal Ahmad, wears slick double-breasted suits and designer loafers and, as Mr. Robertson pointed out today, looks more like the actor Walter Matthau than Mr. Rushdie. He lives in a sprawling white mansion on his private island in the Asia Pacific, which is guarded by hundreds of troops armed with sophisticated weaponry. (Contrary to rumours that circulated when the film was first banned, the guards are not Israeli.) In one scene, the Rushdie character, wielding a saber, slices the throats of four Muslims who are hanging on crosses on his lawn. The ”International Gorillay” of the title is three Muslim brothers who vow to kill the Rushdie character after the daughter and son of one of them are killed during an anti-Rushdie demonstration in Pakistan. After much fighting and chasing, the Rushdie character is struck by lightning and killed. Mohammed Fayyaz, a London video store owner who holds the international distribution rights to the film and on whose behalf the appeal was lodged, said there were plans for an English dubbed or subtitled version. Eventually, he said, he would distribute the film in the United States as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eoNLlHzPhI

As an early memory, I enjoyed the film because it portrayed Rushdie as a James Bond-style villain protected by the armed forces. The good guys are Islamic freedom fighters, and Rushdie is eventually killed by a bolt of divine and holy lightning emitted from the sky. Although it is hard to imagine anyone taking this seriously, when the film was submitted to the British Board of Film Classification, they were faced with an unusual dilemma as on how to deal with potential libel. In 1958, the BBFC had refused a certificate to two films about the alleged Nazi past of apparently upright German citizens. One of these, Operation Teutonic Sword directed by Annelie Thorndike, was passed by the London County Council, but its release was delayed by a successful libel action. The Board later sought legal advice regarding potentially libellous films and was informed that this was almost certainly outside its jurisdiction. As a result, the BBFC decided not to cut or ban films on these grounds. However, when International Gorillay or International Guerrillas was submitted in 1990, it was felt that the portrayal of Rushdie might qualify as criminal libel, causing a breach of the peace as opposed to merely tarnishing his reputation. The BBFC, therefore, refused to grant the film a certificate.

The film was made in the Urdu language; it also features several musical numbers including songs and dances. The film’s protagonists are three Pakistani brothers, the older one being a police officer and the younger two, small-time hoodlums. The three brothers ultimately reconcile in the light of the controversy over The Satanic Verses and in a dramatized version of the Islamabad police firing on a mob on February 12, 1990, when five demonstrators were killed and 83 injured, their younger sister is killed by the police while demonstrating against Rushdie. The three brothers decide to avenge her and Islam’s honour by hunting down and killing Rushdie. They receive the help of a female police officer in the course of their mission.

Salman Rushdie, played by Afzaal Ahmad, is portrayed in the film as a criminal mastermind, working devotedly to destroying Islam considering the Muslim’s faith is an obstacle to widespread crime and immorality. He is depicted as hiding in the Philippines, guarded by a private army led by a Jewish General (Read Israeli). Saeed Khan Rangeela stars as “Chief Batu Batu”, Rushdie’s main Jewish henchman. The fictionalized Rushdie routinely amuses himself by torturing and killing the mujahideens who regularly try to hunt him down. He also enjoys torturing Muslims by making them listen to readings of The Satanic Verses.

The protagonists arrive in the Philippines and start their hunt for Rushdie, who escapes them repeatedly thanks to the use of multiple decoys. In the course of one of their attempts to kill Rushdie, the three brothers appear wearing Batman disguises. The Jewish General’s (again please read Israeli General) sister is sent to seduce one of the Muslim guerrillas but ends up falling in love with him and ultimately converting to Islam in the final scene.

The film ends with a gunfight opposing the four Pakistani “international guerrillas” and Rushdie’s army of Jewish henchmen. The heroes defeat the villains and, as Rushdie attempts to flee the scene, A divine and holy light in the sky appears and fire energy beams at the wicked writer, incinerating him.

Rushdie has reported that he still receives a “sort of Valentine’s card” from Iran each year on 14 February letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him. He said, “It’s reached the point where it’s a piece of oratory rather than a real threat.” Despite the threats on Rushdie, he has publicly said that his family has never been threatened and that his mother who lived in Pakistan during the later years of her life even received outpourings of support. A former bodyguard to Rushdie, Ron Evans, planned to publish a book recounting the behaviour of the author during the time he was in hiding. Evans claimed that Rushdie tried to profit financially from the fatwa and was suicidal, but Rushdie dismissed the book as a “bunch of lies” and took legal action against Ron Evans, his co-author and their publisher. On 26 August 2008 Rushdie received an apology at the High Court in London from all three parties, but contrary although the film International Guerrillas or International Gorillay portrayed Salman Rushdie very negatively, he opposed the ruling of the BBFC, arguing that: As a writer, I am opposed in principle to the use of the archaic criminal laws of blasphemy, sedition and criminal libel against creative works, even in the case of a film which quite plainly vilifies me. The ban was overturned. Rushdie later said, “If that film had been banned, it would have become the hottest video in town: everyone would have seen it”. Rushdie’s stance was more than justified, as the film, a huge hit in Pakistan, disappeared virtually without a trace in Britain.