Well, I seem to always be inspired by the person who is considered marginal. Firstly, their spirit of survival, their resilience, their lack of self-pity, the ability usually to laugh in the face of having nothing and to create a kind of sense of flamboyance and life at any cost, despite having you know no resources of any kind that are visible. That's what inspires me and I think in making portraits of the so-called outsiders, I'm also then allowed to question what is that society that deems us an outsider?

— Mira Nair on BBC “Masterpiece”, 11/29/04

When official America speaks of good and bad Muslims, we must not think that they are speaking of the attitude of Muslims to Islam. They are actually talking about the attitude of Muslims to the U.S. A good Muslim is simply a pro-American Muslim and a bad Muslim is simply an anti-American Muslim. This is not about Islam, it is about America.

— Mahmoud Mamdani, C-Span's Book TV series, hosted by the University of Michigan on April 15, 2005.

Want to better understand Zohran Mamdani’s intellectual and emotional heritage? Want to understand how he seems to be thrashing the culture war with, well culture?

Matthew did, and so he looked into the films of his mom Mira Nair (Part 1), and the scholarship of his dad, Mahmood (Part 2).

Show Notes

Masterpiece - Mira Nair - BBC Sounds

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim | Author Mahmood Mamdani

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim | Penguin Random House Secondary Education

Reluctant Fundamentalist, The

Ben Affleck, Sam Harris and Bill Maher Debate Radical Islam | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Sam Harris on the Reality of Islam - Truthdig

Samuel Huntington’s Great Idea Was Totally Wrong | The New Republic

#ZeeJLF2018 | Mira Nair

A timeline of JK Rowling's anti-trans shift

Mori Araj Suno lyrics

My secret debate with Sam Harris: A revealing 4-hour dialogue on Islam, racism & free-speech hypocrisy - Salon.com

New Atheists and old prejudices - The Chronikler

The Clash of Civilizations - If Books Could Kill - Apple Podcasts

President Reagan welcomes al-Qaeda and Mujahideen leaders to the White House, May 1986

For Zohran Mamdani, Mom Mira Nair’s Films Were a Formative Influence

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373: 8th January 2022