Category: projects

My TEDx Talk on March 3, 2017

As much as I agree with Aamer Rahman’s critique of Ted Talks (“pacing around on stage with a headset recycling some basic ideas dressed up as apolitical new-age empowerment rhetoric while an audience of middle-class white ppl claps for itself”), I am preparing to speak about “borders” and what they mean to my film/art work as well as my journey as a human being and activist. It’ll be at Geva Theatre Center on March 3rd. As with everything else I do, this TEDxRochester talk will be infused with politics. And I will try not to pace around too much 🙂

Celebration of the 199th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s birth

The #ROCDouglass Consortium presents a celebration of the 199th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s birth on February 14, 2017 at his gravesite in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

According to New York Times columnist, Charles Blow, “Douglass was one of the most brilliant thinkers, writers, orators America has ever produced. Furthermore, he harnessed and mastered the media of his day. Writing an acclaimed autobiography, establishing his own newspaper and becoming the most photographed American of the 19th century.”

Blow is not alone in his esteem, President Abraham Lincoln called Frederick Douglass “one of the most meritorious men, if not the most meritorious man in the United States.”

Frederick Douglass was a citizen of Rochester, New York, during one of the most consequential chapters of his illustrious life. He established The North Star, an anti-slavery newspaper, in the city in 1847. The newspaper’s motto was prescient, with a 21st century-like understanding of the intersectionality of oppression. Its motto was “Right is of no sex-Truth is of no color-God is the father of us all, and we are brethren.”

Unlike more modern men and women who can tell the day and exact time they were born and under what moon, it seems especially important to commemorate Douglass’ bicentennial because of the relative inconsequentiality of slaves’ births. In the “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass,” Douglass said – “I never met with a slave in that part of the country who could tell me with any certainty how old he was. Few at that time knew anything of the months of the year or the days of the month. They measured the ages of their children by spring-time, winter-time, harvest-time, planting-time, and the like. Masters allowed no questions concerning their ages to be put to them by slaves. I suppose myself to have been born in 1817.”

Frederick Douglass was born in either 1817 or 1818, but per his autobiography, “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass,” he was born in about 1817.

The event producers, #ROCDouglass Consortium – consists of three members/organizations, including:
· Neelum Films, Mara Ahmed (Founder)
· AmandaChestnut.com, Amanda Chestnut
· 21st Century Arts, Rachel DeGuzman

Produced in affiliation with Flower City Arts Center, Writers and Books, North Star Players, DUNWOOD? Visual Consulting, PeaceArt International, the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, City of Rochester Mount Hope Cemetery, the Frederick Douglass Institute for African-American Studies: University of Rochester and more.

When:
Tuesday, February 14, 2017 – 11:45 am to 1:15 pm. The program will begin promptly at noon.

Where:
Mt. Hope Cemetery, 1133 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, New York 14620. Douglass’ grave is in section T, plot 26. Attendees will enter the cemetery in the south entrance opposite The Distillery Restaurant. The address for the office is 1133 Mount Hope Ave. Drive in and take a right where the drive-in road ends. (very short distance). Go to the first intersection but continue going up the slight incline. The next marker is a small pond on your left that is having work done on it. Guests should park in that area and continue walking a short distance up the road (keeping to your right) There will be a historic marker with Frederick’s name on it and right next to it a gravel walkway. Go down the walkway towards Mt. Hope Ave. a short distance and you will see the walkway goes to the left. Follow that to the end. It ends at Frederick Douglass’s grave.

Program:
· Welcome and introduction to Frederick Douglass
· Contemporary inspirations/testimonials including Spiritual by Thomas Warfield,
readings by Banke Awopetu-McCullogh, Shawn Dunwoody and Lu Highsmith
· Attendee participation/recitation of Frederick Douglass quotes
· Frederick Douglass reenactment by David Shakes/North Star Players
· Interfaith prayer by Melanie Duguid-May

Handout text:
On December 3, 1947 Frederick Douglass published the first issue of the anti-slavery The North Star newspaper in Rochester, New York. Its motto was “Right is of no sex-Truth is of no color-God is the father of us all, and we are brethren.”

Straw Mat Writers Resist Protest Readings

spent the evening with local writers at the Straw Mat Writers Resist Protest Readings. the idea was to “voice resistance to hate speech and threats to democracy, celebrate free speech and diversity, advocate for accuracy in reporting and transform the margins into new frontiers.” this was a completely different experience for me. i didn’t know anyone there. as u can see, i sat at the best table, with the most lovely ladies. i read a piece i had written for post magazine a couple of years ago. it talks about my “muslimness” and places it in the context of how i grew up under a military regime in pakistan, surrounded by signposts all pointing to what would later become the war on terror. it also explores my personal feelings about islam and some of my family history. all the writers brought something unique and flavorful to the evening. loved most of it, except the deification of obama – it’s depressing. as a muslim, i can tell u that the islamophobia, now floating on the surface of american consciousness, has been there for a long time and that obama contributed to it as much as anyone else. perhaps he needed to distance himself from the muslim community in order to survive, but he took particular interest in the decimation of muslim countries and the death and maiming of muslim bodies. that many liberals, now disenchanted by trump, cannot see the depth of the problem is sad. it makes one feel quite alone. but i got a lot of support from the radical ladies at my table and that was cool.

mara ahmed at reading

Screening of The Muslims I Know at SUNY Brockport

excellent screening of The Muslims I Know at SUNY Brockport yesterday, for Johannes Bockwoldt’s film class. a full house and at least an hour long Q&A with non-stop questions and comments coming in. we discussed everything from the nature of islamophobia, to the current muslim ban, the depiction of muslims in the media to film distribution. had a particularly moving exchange about the overlap between islamophobia and racism and the need to strip away difference in order to belong. i’ve been under the weather and we had talked about skyping but i thought it an important opportunity to interact directly with a class full of students. thank u Johannes for screening the film, in the beautiful new liberal arts building.

#NoDAPL rally

great rally in support of #StandingRock in rochester today. it was painfully cold but about 75 people showed up, including wonderful young women from the muslim community. thx for stepping up Fathima and Navaira and thx for organizing Luc Watelet and Lisa Giudici. #NoDAPL



Why I attended and spoke at a solidarity rally

In the words of Judith Butler:

While demonstrations and assemblies often do not suffice to produce radical changes, they change our perception of what “the people” is. And they affirm the fundamental freedoms that belong to bodies, in their plurality. There can be no democracy without freedom of assembly, and there can be no assembly without freedom of movement and meeting. Mobility and bodily capacities are thus presuppositions of this freedom. The public demonstrations against austerity and precarity present in the street, in the public eye, the bodies of individuals who themselves suffer from a loss of class position and a feeling of civic degradation. They thus affirm collective political action by assembling, in their own way.

[…] Sometimes the mere presence of those who are meant to stay mute in public discourse manages to break these structures. When undocumented migrants assemble, when the victims of expulsion meet, when those who suffer unemployment or drastic reductions in their pensions meet, they inscribe themselves in the imagery and discourse of the representation of what the people is, or should be. Of course they do make specific demands, but assembling is also a means of making a demand with one’s body, a corporeal demand on public space and a public demand on political authorities.

So in a sense we first of all have to “break and enter” into discourse before we can speak truth to power. We have to break the constraints on political representation in order to expose its violence and oppose its exclusions. As long as “security” continues to justify the banning and dispersion of protests, assemblies and encampments, security serves to decimate democratic rights and democracy itself. Only mobilisation on a large scale, what we might call an embodied and transnational form of courage, will succeed in defeating xenophobic nationalism and the various alibis that today threaten democracy.

—– I was able to do that at the Rochester rally. I had 5 minutes but i “broke and entered” into the mainstream liberal discourse by talking about the WOT, the killing and torture of Black and Brown bodies, imperialism, white feminism, racism and much more. Was expecting an awkward silence but got much more support than I could have imagined. Other activists were able to do that as well, like Ashley Gantt who ended her speech with Black Lives Matter. Don’t believe everything the msm is telling you about the marches.

People’s Solidarity Rally

Friends and compadres, I hope to see u at this rally on January 21st at 11am. I will be speaking there, very deliberately and mindfully, as a first generation immigrant, a woman of color, and a Muslim. I want to open up the conversation a bit and talk about the importance of recognizing (and working with) difference within struggles for justice. Would love to see u there so we can march together.

People’s Solidarity Rally