Muslims say Hotel Mumbai sparks friction

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This article was published 06/04/2019 (2683 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Amid recent deadly conflicts between Pakistan and India in the disputed Kashmir region, tensions are heating up locally over a movie. Some members of the Pakistani community in Winnipeg say Hotel Mumbai’s portrayal of attackers incites hatred toward Muslims and Pakistan.

“I thought it was going to be just like a normal movie, not about demonizing one religion and one country,” said Rashid Ahmed, a Pakistani-Canadian and Muslim who saw Hotel Mumbai with his wife last weekend.

On Nov. 26, 2008, in Mumbai, India, terrorists from Pakistan laid siege to a dozen locations, leaving 174 people dead, including nine attackers, and wounding more than 300. One of the targets was the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, where most of the film takes place. In it, the attackers, who are members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist militia, are never identified, but their anti-India sentiments are made clear.

The intense, two-hour on-screen film was rated R in the U.S. and 14A in Winnipeg. At a recent screening at a city theatre, there were audible gasps from moviegoers.

Ahmed said the movie vilifies Muslims and Pakistan and he considered complaining about it to the Manitoba Film Classification Board until he realized the board no longer exists. In July, the province delegated authority to classify all movies shown in Manitoba to Consumer Protection B.C.

Community members considered organizing protests outside the theatre but didn’t want to publicize the film without explaining why they oppose it, said Ahmed, a University of Manitoba nursing professor and epidemiologist.

They say it paints Muslims as terrorists, and could trigger Islamophobic attacks such as last month’s massacre at two mosques in New Zealand, where the movie was pulled from theatres.

“Why show something that maybe triggers a white supremacist or someone?” said Masroor Khan, president of the Pakistan Trade and Cultural Association of Manitoba. He said he’s concerned for the safety of the 70 or so people who pray five times a day at the Grand Mosque on Waverley Street, with as many as 500 showing up for Friday evening prayers.

“There are people in every society who have extreme approaches,” Khan said. Radical thinking can come from someone who was born and raised in Canada just as it can from someone who immigrated, he said.

“I’m not worried about good people” seeing Hotel Mumbai, Ahmed said. “I’m worried about the bad people.” And with confrontation between India and Pakistan reaching the boiling point recently, he’s worried the tension is starting to spill over here with those trying to create division on social media.

“We shouldn’t bring those politics here,” Ahmed said. Pakistan and India traded fire in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir this week, leaving seven people dead.

The fatalities were some of the highest since tensions flared between the nuclear-armed nations after a suicide bombing killed 40 Indian troops in Indian-administered Kashmir in February.

In Winnipeg, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs “are very good friends here,” Ahmed said. “We organize joint parties here. We want to preserve that.”

 

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca