from Photographers Blog:
Utah gets Holi, Photographer gets dirty
By Jim Urquhart
The Holi Color Festival is a yearly event in Utah that for years I have known of but never attended myself. I would be reminded of it after the fact when seeing it in images by other photojournalist friends. It is rooted in a Hindu tradition of celebrating the end of winter and beginning of Spring and takes place at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah.
What makes this festival so amazing is not just the crowds of people and the color but also that it is taking place in Utah County. The same county as the LDS Church's Brigham Young University. In my mind, Utah County is not known as a mecca of culture and was really only a melting pot of white bread, sugar and milk. I was about to have my stereotype blown away.
It has always puzzled me and in the days before the event I was asked to speak to communication students at BYU. I asked the professor of the class, who is also a good friend, why it is that so many Mormon youth and young adults attend the event. It is not part of my picture of white Utah county. He explained that the event draws the students and families from the area because not only is it an experience in another culture's traditions but it also a safe fun outlet for them.
100 pilgrims killed in stampede at Hindu festival in India
A stampede sparked by a night-time road accident in dense forest has killed more than 100 Hindu pilgrims in the southern state of Kerala in India. Kerala’s deputy general of police told reporters that 102 people who visited the Sabarimala Temple to offer prayers to the Hindu deity Ayappa had been killed on Friday night. Officials at a Hindu temple estimated the death toll at around 100, Kerala Temple Affairs Minister Ramachandran Kadannappally said by telephone.
Hundreds of thousands had gathered at the hilltop shrine of Sabarimala on Friday evening, the last day of an annual two-month religious festival. A bus carrying pilgrims back to the neighbouring state of Karnataka collided with a jeep and went out of control, crushing people walking nearby, Kadannappally said. Panicked pilgrims rushed forward, triggering a stampede.
“They came down the hillside… this happened primarily because the area was totally dark,” Jacob Punnoose, Kerala Deputy General of Police told Times Now TV channel.
Fifty-two pilgrims were killed in an almost identical stampede at Sabarimala in 1999. An investigation into the deaths found the state government guilty of negligence in ensuring public safety.
“MOOZ-lum” film depicts challenges for black U.S. Muslims
The makers of a new movie about family life for black Muslims in America want to highlight challenges facing followers of Islam, just as Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” revealed the racism and harsh realities facing black youth in Brooklyn two decades ago.
“MOOZ-lum” was filmed in Michigan, which has a large Muslim population, and premiered to packed theaters at the Urbanworld Film Festival in New York last Friday.
“I hope people can walk out of the theater thinking more and trying to understand what we’re facing here,” said director Qasim Basir, adding the movie’s portrayal of discrimination mirrored his own Muslim-American experience. “I’m hoping to give Muslim-Americans a film that reflects them. I want it to be something the audience can look at and say, ‘This represents me,’” he told Reuters in an interview.
The movie, which has yet to find a distributor and so is not in commercial cinematic release, emerges amid a heated dispute over a planned Muslim cultural center in New York. Urbanworld founder Stacy Spikes said the buzz surrounding “MOOZ-lum” had been helped by the debate.
Read the full story here. Below is the official trailer from YouTube andhere’s a link to the film’s Facebook page, which already has over 66,000 fans:
Morocco resists Islamist calls to ban Elton John from music festival
Elton John will headline Morocco’s biggest music festival this week despite calls by religious conservatives for the gay singer to be turned away. Allowing the British singer and songwriter to perform at the Mawazine World Rhythms festival in the capital Rabat would tarnish the image of the north African kingdom, say powerful opposition Islamists.
“Elton John is one of the best artists in the world. He is great and extraordinary when he appears on stage. That’s why we invite him and welcome him to the Mawazine festival,” festival director Aziz Daki told Reuters. “The private life of a singer is not our business. We do not invite singers and artists after assessing their private lives.”
The festival, backed by Morocco’s King Mohammed, brings together musicians from 50 countries and has drawn criticism from Islamists who say such events encourage promiscuity and alcohol consumption, corrupting Islamic values.
German film explores Muslims struggling with life in West
German-Afghan director Burhan Qurbani shines the spotlight on the difficulties facing young Muslims in the western world in his first feature film “Shahada”, set in multicultural Berlin. The film, which won applause at its screening at the Berlin film festival on Wednesday, is about the intertwining tales of three young German-born Muslims struggling to reconcile their family faith and traditions with a modern, Western lifestyle.
“My motivation was to get the audience to look at the film and connect with this religion that is all around them,” said Qurbani, born in Germany of Afghan parents. “I hope the film will get the public to talk, to debate.”
“Shahada” is part of a recent wave of critically acclaimed German movies challenging cultural stereotypes and exploring the difficulties facing the so-called second generation of immigrant communities.
Pan Arabism racism
Arab racism against non-Arabs is huge, the tragic example of the genocide in Sudan is the bloody example.
Then we have the Pakistani & Malaysian as slaves under the boot of the gulf & Lebanese racist Arabs…
Not to mention the massacres on the Kurds by pan Arabism in Iraq or the persecution on them by Syria. or the Berber natives on North Africa by Arab settlers past & present (Morocco, Algeria).
Or the anti Jewish racism by the entire Arab world, What else is the Palestinian-Arab conflict really all about, the Arabs can’t stand the better group in its midts (especially how Arabs live in free Israel, much better than in ANY Arab country – since all of them are oppressive), so they invent each season a new libel and (commit crimes against humanity, like) push the palestinian kids to die as human shields so that their hatred can have a “reason” of fake “war crimes”, using TV cameras like irresponsible Al Jazeera showing most graphic photos of causalties without explaining the real culprit behind it… in order to bolster Palestinian or Hezbollah vicious orchestrated massacres casted as “victim-hood.”
Is one a better Muslim because he/she buys Arab Palestinian propaganda as if they are “natives” in Israeli/Palestine?
What about the peaceful Muslims inside Israel, shouldn’t they be protected from Arab “brotherly” terrorism?
Just take a look at the “queers for palestine” example, how is this a “dignity” or an honor for Islam?
Did this entire anti-Jewish Arab genocide campaign for so many years bring any honor to Islam’s name? on the contrary! How many westerners do not link Islam with hatred today?
Why does Islam’s image have to suffer because of palestinian Arab self inflicting wounds (and due to buying racist Arabism’s propaganda)?
Who has given the right to the radical pro-terror pro-genocidal-Hamas group CAIR to represent mainstream Muslims in America?
Why do we have to believe each and every lie the Arabs tell, just because they have the lobby oil power over the media (check out how much of US media Saudi billionaire Bin-Talal owns…) & the United Nations???
Half a million Hindus bathe in India’s Ganges; first day crush kills 7
Hundreds of thousands of Hindus bathed in waters considered sacred across large parts of India to mark the start of a religious festival on Thursday, with at least seven people killed in a stampede in the country’s east.
At least half a million men, women and children braved chilly winds to bathe in the icy waters of the Ganges in the holy Himalayan town of Haridwar at the “Kumbh Mela,” or Pitcher Festival, held every 12 years in different Indian cities. Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges during the almost four-month-long festival cleanses them of their sins, speeding the way to the attainment of nirvana.
The ritual bathing takes place in other venues as well, with massive crowds often leading to accidents. In West Bengal state in the east, six women were among seven people killed in a stampede as thousands bathed at the confluence of Ganges river and the Bay of Bengal, officials said.
More than 50 million people from India and abroad are expected to visit the holy city of Haridwar over the next few months, authorities said. Haridwar is one of four spots where Garuda, the winged steed of the Hindu god Vishnu, is said to have rested during a battle with demons over a pitcher of the divine nectar of immortality.
Here’s a video detailing security measures for this huge festival:
Dear Writer,
Thanks for your wonderful coverages of this important Hindus mass gathering in holy places,taking bath in holy rivers,exchanging their pleasant and divine messages with passerby and it had really brought and re-energized our souls.
Because of over crowding, no correct follow up in traffic arrangements, some stampede happens.
That is avoidable by proper planning.
We want to follow, upkeep of our forefathers,ancestors and grand parents,parents belief on our family growth,prosperity and well being to other sections.
Your pictures are really praise worthy and note to recollect our memories.,
from Our Take on Your Take:
All about Eid
This week, both the Reuters Pictures wire and the submissions to Your View were dominated by pictures of the Muslim festival of sacrifice, Eid al-Adha. This photo from Saad Shahriar in Bangladesh clearly captures the desperation some people feel to get home to celebrate the festival with friends and family. Saad used a slow shutter speed to add a hurried sense to the chaotic scene.
Did Jesus headline Glastonbury before Springsteen?
Jesus Christ may have visited an English town now renowned for a raucous modern-day music festival to meet ancient druids, a new film argues. “And Did Those Feet” explores the theory that Jesus accompanied Joseph of Arimathea on a visit to the area around the southern English town of Glastonbury.
The Glastonbury Festival held on a farm near the town draws some of the 21st century’s biggest music stars such as Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z, Neil Young and U2 to the world’s largest open air music and arts festival.
Church of Scotland Minister and researcher for the film Gordon Strachan argues that Jesus may have come to Britain to further his education because the area was a stronghold of the ancient druids, then associated with ancient wisdom.
“There’s no reason why Jesus shouldn’t have come,” Strachan told Reuters. “Glastonbury was very important in the ancient times, the tradition goes back to pre-Christian times … He probably came by boat with the traders. He had plenty of time and nobody knows what he did before he was 30.”
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There is little evidence Jesus even existed. Let alone visited Glastonbury.Which means that as far as baseless claims go, both are equally possible.
Nepal Hindu temple conducts biggest animal sacrifice on earth
At least 15,000 buffalo and “countless” goats and birds were sacrificed in a temple in southern Nepal on Wednesday in a ritual billed as the single biggest animal slaughter on earth.
Hindus in Nepal routinely offer animals for sacrifice to appease deities, especially power goddesses, for good luck and prosperity. But the festival held every five years at the Gadhimai temple in southern Nepal was condemned this year by animal rights activists, including French actress Brigitte Bardot, who called for an end to the centuries-old ritual of slaughtering animals.
“We had more than 15,000 buffalo sacrificed Tuesday. But the number of goats and birds, including roosters and pigeons, sacrificed Wednesday is countless,” Shiva Chandra Prasad Kushawaha, chief of the festival’s organizing committee said.
October a busy month for Indian religious festivals
October is a busy month for Indian religious festivals in India. Here are Reuters videos from three of them.
Diwali, the five-day festival of lights, was celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains across the country with fireworks and prayers. It marks the return of Lord Raama to his kingdom Ayodhya after defeating Ravana, the ruler of Lanka, in the ancient epic Ramayana.
The three-day Chhath Puja, an ancient Hindu festival dedicated to Surya, the chief solar deity, concluded on Sunday with thousands of devotees offering prayers to Sun God across India. Most devotees are married women praying for their families.
Women in Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh prayed for the long life of their brothers on the occasion of Bhai Dooj, a one-day Hindu sibling festival celebrated during Diwali. According to the Hindu tradition, both the brother and the sister take a holy dip in the river together, after which the sister applies vermilion mark on the forehead of her brother wishing him a long life.
George Ric is what we call in Hindi a “chootiya” ie fool of the worst kind.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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That looks like a lot of fun, how many people were there?