Presented as part of THIRTEEN Forum, Director Victoria Pitt, Executive Producer Jared Lipworth, author Mira Kamdar (@MiraKamdar on Twitter), and Al Jazeera correspondent Todd Baer join Columbia Journalism School’s Sree Sreenivasan (@sreenet on Twitter) for a discussion about the making of Secrets of the Dead: Mumbai Massacre and the events surrounding the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai. Presented in partnership with SAJAforum.
Also, read journalist Todd Baer’s Forum blog post, “Revisiting the Mumbai Massacre.”
Speakers
Victoria Pitt, director
Jared Lipworth, executive producer
Mira Kamdar, author, Planet India
Todd Baer, Al Jazeera
Recorded at The Journalism School, Columbia University, November 17, 2009. Runtime: 67 minutes.
THIRTEEN Forum presents New York’s best lectures, debates and conversations to the world. Covering a wide range of topics, from the arts to public affairs, THIRTEEN Forum is a one-stop library of enlightenment, a place where the brightest minds gather to share ideas and explore our world.
Highly entertaining, smart and thought provoking. Many thanks to the panel and the Australian Director and the team that produced this wonderful documentary. Can’t wait to see it.
The program aired tonight, and I was, thoroughly, disappointed.The scale of the content was, obviously, far too much for the crew to handle.It was poorly covered, too narrowly focused, and the Chabad House was barely covered.
You did not even tell the backgrounds of the Rabbi and his wife and the others.You never gave a follow-up of the Rabbi’s son and the Nanny, let alone describe the horrific murders.They were tortured. Their eyes ripped out, their genitals cut out.Apparently, the researcher, writer, producer, and director do not have the skills to do proper investigation, or research.If the information was not sufficiently investigated by the Indian police, secret service, FBI, and the Pakistani counter-parts, the program should have been delayed, if not canceled. There wasn’t even sufficient background on the terrorists.They were Pakistanis? Are you sure? Or did they train with the Muslim terror groups in Pakistan? The importance of the Chabad House would have become evident had even preliminary research been done. The program should have been
done in two shows, if the content could only be handled properly in a two hour time frame. The role of anti-Semitism was
paramount to these terrorists in their motivations and in their planning.Nothing was said about that, either.When you deal with a tragedy of this magnitude, utmost respect has to be the approach. The brutal, utter barbarism of these animals- and that is what they are- must be explained.The self-censorship has negated the Truth.It’s about time, this PC dicta
ceases before all of you, and us, find yourselves in a Stalinist arena.We are living in the United States of America in which our Freedom of Speech is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights in the U.S.Constitution.The Rights to Freedom of Expression derive from the Freedom of Religion.
That freedom to worship as we want is what propelled the original settlers to leave England.
Does anyone on this crew know American History? Has anyone grown up in the United States on this
crew? A crew from various backgrounds is fine and can be advantageous, but you are producing this program for an American TV market.You are free to tell the Truth, and it was not served in this show.The way the deaths and horrific tragedies that occurred in Mumbai were shown was a travesty.
Those who have been murdered deserve the utmost respect in a program on their deaths from Islamist terrorists.This was a travesty. Truth was devastated
as much as the victims’ lives were.You owe the families a deep apology. Shame on all of you.
Exactly, what was your purpose in doing this show?
Whether, or not, this comment is published, makes no difference to me, but it should be read by all involved with the production.This terrorist attack was India’s 9-11.A list of those killed should have been denoted in a closing and opening crawl.Everyone was precious to others.Each one murdered was a human being deserving of respect.
If no one on the team understood that, no one should be in news, or TV. Frankly, the lives and the remembrance of them was so dismissive of the victims,
in toto, it is nauseating.
Barnett, did you even watch the panel discussion?Many of your criticisms would of been answered if you did.
The reasoning behind the directors choices why the story line of only looking at tales of survival of a individual or couple under siege VS telling the entire political background and torture in this factual story. The director also states that many of the survivors did not want to be interviewed including the Nanny. This program also had to fall into the format of PBS and what they required for their audience. They also had to find another way to tell this story that was different to the 6 or more other docos out there ( including the BBC etc) looking at this one event, that have covered many of your pointed remarks.
You have a specific agenda that you wanted to see brought to light in this documentary and then you rip shreds off the people that did something different. The world is full of different points of views and different stories, that stem from one event, this was obviously just one point of view.
I really enjoyed this documentary I found it riveting. The survivors stories were touching and I still say well done to the crew.
The story is horrific. We live in an age that some called WW III. If only the world would turn from hate and power over to dialogue, love, and selflessness we would not be living through this age of international terrorism. There are root causes that go back centuries as to why this is happening, but of course no one likes to look at root causes since it will ask us to look at what we have done as individuals, groups, governments, nations, religious sects, and empires. We will be living many more years in this state of anxiety until one day, one way or another it will all end as all things end.
How do I join SAJA? I’m an Australian expat. resident in Poland. I am so proud of of the ABC’s contribution to the Mumbai doco.
Yours, Ralph Morrison, Wroclaw, Poland.
I think it is undoubtedly a well made movie. There are no issues that the movie does not cover infact the major parts/theme of this attack but a lot of it is deliberate due to time considerations and the theme which the director wanted to present. I appreciated the movie a bit more when I heard the QA session. The jist of the QA session explaining the aim of the movie perhaps could be mentioned in a single minute to make it complete so as the audience can be in sync with the director. Its a slightly different approach (and that is good) but we are used to see movies claiming to be nearly complete rather than like this.. so a single minute to explain the idea behind this which comes so nicely from the directors reply in the QA session including the stuff that some of those who had to make a hard choice were presented and all the other stuff she told could have made it more wonderful. Without that many people find gasping for more or completeness.. Thanks.. and its a great work.
Unforgettable. Great stories. Fine reenactments and cutting as well. As for the problem? These young terrorists were the product of 25 years of Saudi-funded madrassas in the Northern border regions of Pakistan. Brainwashed, yes. If Pakistan, aided by the UN and international community moved systematically through this region, closed down the madrassas and replaced them with modern, well-furnished schools, this epicenter of hate would be neutralized and the kids would be better off.
Tim,
You have got this only partially right. The terrorists were not from the northern areas or the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. They were from villages and towns in mainstream Pakistan. They belonged to an organization that has not been operating outside the purview of the law. Rather, they have been patronized, funded, trained and built up by the Pakistani military over the last couple of decades. They are also not all poverty stricken, though some of them are. They are not all Madrasa trained.
The solution is not as simple as closing down Madrassas and constructing new schools in the border regions. It involves convincing the military of Pakistan that the use of terrorists as proxies is not a prudent strategy. They have to be convinced either by reason (unlikely to happen given the history of the last two decades) or because they have no other alternative (due to diplomatic and/or military pressure from the rest of the world). It involves convincing them to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism that the state of Pakistan has built over the last many years.