As performers of power, Shoaib Mansoor gets us to the scripts we perform for the sake of god – Khuda Keh Liye.
Does God Matter? Could God explain the strike? Perhaps. Given that we are controlled by the Gods of social things, e.g. the God of York* & the God of CUPE*, power will always conflict with power and gods will always be at odds. Perhaps that is what led to the command of a strike. Perhaps this is what has led to so much more strife beyond York.
This conflict of the gods creates the contextual battleground for Pakistani director, Shoaib Mansoor’s film “Khuda Keh Liye” ( For the Sake of God ) .It visualizes the power that sets flames to the social world, its beings and things. Released in 2007, the film takes us to a zone of intense social conflict, a battle on a bridge. The scene is set between Pakistan and the United Kingdom along with the United States of America. But importantly, not only does the East meet the West, but the East meets the East and the West meets the West. Social order is captured at its most chaotic and when the gods ( the state, religion etc ) declare a call to arms, it is the social world, its beings and things who bleed endlessly.
Before visiting Mansoor’s visualization of the site of power, take a moment to examine your own performance in the social world, as a social being in the midst of social things. What clothes do you wear? What language do you speak? How do you do the things that you do? Where, when and why? It should become obvious that all that we do is only possible because of the power invested in those over us. We perform for power and Shoaib Mansoor reveals how the performances of two Pakistani brothers in Pakistan and one Pakistani girl in London cause them to pay for their empowering performances against overpowering power. We become socially able only once we perform power and if we attempt to negotiate in social intercourse, we see reprisals for the sake of god, Khuda Keh Liye.
Set in a time zone ticking towards 9-11, the film presents Sarmad and Mansoor as two brothers who are having the time of their lives in Pakistan’s music industry : the melody of their lives is performed to an allured audience who temporarily gift them the power to perform. However, opposed to this power is a group of Islamic Fundamentalists who penetrate Sarmad’s mind and warn him of his short span of time on earth as well as the need to conduct himself with a strict social sense. They lead him to oppose the music he has attained fame for and a time comes when Sarmad departs from the family home. In the meanwhile, across another time zone, Mary/Mariam, a UK born girl to a Muslim father and a white, Christian mother faces the wrath of her father. She is in love with a white, Christian boy, Dave, and her father gives in to community pressure. He believes that he is saving his daughter in the nick of time and he cunningly takes her to Pakistan and marries her off to Sarmad. A successful band disbands, a brother breaks off from the home and a forced marriage in a barren space on the Afghan border – the social world of these social beings takes a complete twist and just after Mansoor arrives in Chicago to pursue his studies in Music, time comes to a haunting holt – 9 /11 strikes. The times that follow make this movie worth every second.
The power of this visual project lies in its exposition of the gods that come to dictate our social world. Each group in this film believe themselves to be following a righteous path and it is this belief that pits them against one another. In the end, the body bleeds the soul out and we are left in a world that swims in the blood of those who act for the sake of god. There is much to be said about this state but I leave it to you to dive into this pool. Mansoor does not attack the concept of god or gods. Instead, he asks us all to meet with our gods to realize our demons. As performers of power, this is the one film that gets us to finally meet the script we perform for the sake of god – Khuda Keh Liye.
* is a reference to the last strike @ York U
Author: Ali Abbas
