themes in the art and drag performances of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto / Faluda Islam

 Artist and memory activist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr. created a drag persona to address issues of Islamophobia and homophobia in the world. Drag is ​​a performance

of gender that parody gender norms could shatter the illusion that there are only two genders – man and woman – and lead to a proliferation of genders; or rather to a recognition of, and ability to speak about, the already existing great diversity of genders, sexualities, bodies and pleasures (Evans and Williams, 2013).

 

In an interview, Zulfikar, also known as Zulfi, discussed his drag persona “Faluda Islam”: “She is a zombie, she was resurrected through Wi-Fi technology and the way she died was in the future queer revolution,” Zulfi explained. “She’s sort of an oracle… she’s able to give an insight into [the] past, present and future” (Burke, 2018). Faluda disrupts the binaries of organic-machine, male-female, even life-death with each performance as a queer Muslim icon.

Zulfikar Jr. is named after his late ancestor Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who was a prominent politician and leader of the People’s Party in Pakistan. In a way that subverts heteronormative expectations of Zulfi, he bravely entered the international art world with pieces that address his cultural background and extended the limits of the name in creating a drag persona. Zulfi recalled his father, Murtaza Bhutto’s assasination, when discussing this persona, and the themes he wishes to explore: “I talk about injustice, who gets the right to live or die, who is the decider of that,” says Zulfi. “War comes up, aspects of martyrdom come up, Islamophobia comes up.” (Burke, 2018) In my understanding, he is addressing the existential weight of being born a male in a Shi’a family and the expectations of martyrdom of such a gender identity. This responsibility was heightened during the Iran-Iraq war that started in the late 1980s when mostly Shi’a men as well as children in Iran fought their enemy combatants in Iraq.

Zulfi explained his ideas in an interview with Reconstructed Mag in May, 2020:

Why are we forced to make our children and families martyrs? What are the forces against us that make us go into these spaces that end in death? The drag character Faluda Islam questions this. The character is my attempt to look at revolution through a high femme lens (Bhutto, 2020).

 

Digitisation allows for “humans to mobilise memories that cut across the individual and the collective, the institutional and the corporate, the local and the global in ways that disrupt conventional binaries of the public and private, of the body and other” (Reading, 2016). Faluda exists digitally and in performances, disrupting the idea that a “man” protects “his women.” Faluda’s martyrdom and reincarnation as a Zombie may have been for all queer individuals, rather than for prolonging a heterosexual mode of reprdocution. Faluda as a Zombie, in Zulfi’s intention, also remembers the anti-imperialist slave rebellions in Haiti, where Zombies were an esoteric instrument to defeat the white settler-enslavers.

As a multidisciplinary artist, Zulfi’s other conventional artworks likewise explore the Shi’a Muslim’s conundrum of remembering assaults in Islamic history through lamenting the past, while other events celebrate masculinity as strength. As an artist, Zulfi highlights the inherent queerness of such an identity, despite the state’s priority to limit the identity as straight and one-dimensional. In critiquing the national imagery of a strong man, Zulfi said in an interview, in the context of his textile artwork series “Mussalman Muscleman”: “What for me is masculinity? It's softness” (Bhutto, 2017). In his works of a fictitious queer rebellion, he uses imageries of “brown and black body by creating glamorous queered future guerrilla fighters who do not fit neatly into categories of gender, race, faith, threat or desirable subject.” The works sought “to challenge the shifting borders between terrorist and freedom fighter as seen and named by the Anglo-Saxon world” (Bhutto, 2019). Memory, gender and technology are the themes explored by Bhutto’s works and the tools which allow him to express his ideas to a largely heteronormative public.

 

 

 

One of his exhibits

In “Future Faithful: Islamic Experiments in Space Exploration and Posthumanism” in 2021 at the Bass & Reiner gallery in San Francisco, U.S., Zulfi's artworks incorporate imagery of the calf as a reference to the second chapter in the Holy Quran, “The Heifer.”

 

 

“mustaq-bel 2,” 2019. By Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

Zulfi’s artworks reference traditional architecture and mythology. The calf has appeared prior as a sacrificial motif in Abrahamic traditions. This metaphoric practice has been substituted by the sheep or lamb in some ritual instances out of respect for others who found the sacrifice of the cow offensive, such as in India and Pakistan. In Sher Shah, Pakistan, a Shi’a saint’s shrine has been used by pious locals both as a shrine for fulfilling human prayers and a cow sanctuary, which demonstrates the power of cultural syncretism in the subcontinent (Khalid, 2016).  The popular press and general population in South Asia interpret spaces like shrines (dargah) as examples of tolerance, since both Hindus and Muslims participate in worship and place requests to the saint of the shrine. They burn incense (loban) and consequently experience therapeutic convulsions against evil spirits that possess them (haziri) (Bellamy, 2011). Sometimes they are places of refuge and sources of cures to illnesses and evil spirits, while other times they are Gedächtnisraum (memory spaces). The usages of these spaces have been altered by modernity, as witnessed by the declining numbers of cows at the Sher Shah shrine.

The textile works by Zulfi were “created to honor real and imagined queer guerrilla fighters from Shiite Muslim traditions of martyr and saint veneration” (Bass & Reiner, 2021). More than just remembering a scar from a millennium-old feud, Muharram rituals as well as Zulfi’s artworks both symbolize a rejection of illegitimate state authority, which many Shi‘as also regard as a key feature of their faith (Freitag, 1989). In Zulfi’s praxis, he is directly addressing wealth inequality of the present.

The evolution of Muharram rituals in South Asia from a religious ritual to an “urban ritual” can be observed from the level of urban negotiation among the multi religious participants (Nejad, 2015). The processions are not limited to one sect or codified in one practice and often have multiple meanings. Different communities establish their own tazia, (also spelled as ta‘ziyah and ta‘ziyeh) which symbolically represents martyrs’ tombs, and carry it to the area that symbolizes the battlefield of Karbala. Zulfi’s work of “Mercy 258 رحیم ۲۵۸” paid tribute to such a practice; his symbolic Karbala was the art gallery of his exhibition.

 

 

 

Mercy 258 رحیم ۲۵۸. by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Screen print on muslin, chiffon and raw silk, inkjet print on silk, various trimming and plastic sequins. 2020, 148 x 28 in

 

In conclusion, this essay has explored the drag persona Faluda Islam, along with other works by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, to demonstrate the potency of memory in his artwork. As an activist addressing Islamophobia and homophobia, Zulfi uses both embodied performances, audiovisual recordings, as well as hand sewn textiles in his ongoing works. Memory both informs the work and energizes the viewers who share part of the knowledge systems and geographies as Zulfikar’s upbringing. The drag zombie Faluda Islam interrogated on the idea that gender is a learned memory that is hard to alter or evolve; rather, the gender practices may or may not survive a future apocalypse. Memory is both the medium and the message.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Bass & Reiner. 2021. Future Faithful — Bass & Reiner. [online] Available at: <https://bassandreiner.com/zulfi> [Accessed 21 December 2021].

 

Bellamy, C., 2011. The Powerful Ephemeral: Everyday Healing in an Ambiguously Islamic Place. University of California Press. 33.

 

Bhutto, Z., 2020. Live Interview with Reconstructed Mag.

 

—----------., 2019. [online] Praxis Center. Available at: <https://kzoo.edu/praxis/artists/zulfikar-ali-bhutto/> [Accessed 21 December 2021].

 

—----------. 2017. [online] The Tumeric Project. Available at: <youtube.com/watch?v=bc8VtrHA8QE> [Accessed 21 December 2021].

 

Burke, S., 2018. Meet Faluda Islam, the Muslim Drag Queen From the Future. [online] Vice.com. Available at: <https://www.vice.com/en/article/7xjbgb/muslim-drag-queen-faluda-islam-zulfikar-ali-bhutto-queerly-beloved> [Accessed 21 December 2021].

 

Evans, M. and Williams, C., 2013. Gender. Routledge.

 

Freitag, S., 1989. Collective Action and Community. Berkeley: University of California Press. 251.

 

Khalid, H., 2016. The changing fate of a Muslim shrine where cows are sacred. [online] The Caravan. Available at: <https://caravanmagazine.in/lede/thinning-the-herd> [Accessed 21 December 2021].

 

Nejad, R. M. 2015. "Urban Margins, A Refuge For Muharram Processions In Bombay: Towards An Idea Of Cultural Resilience". Südasien-Chronik 5. 341.

 

Reading, A. 2016. Gender and Memory in the Globital Age. Palgrave MacMillan.

Ramadan 2019: Day 12-13

Day 12 - Friday


Walid and I met up at 7pm and went to an iftar hosted by members of the Taha Collective. The event happened at an apartment close to MIT. The woman at the front desk asked us cautiously, "are you here for the event?" I said with a tad bit unsure, "the iftar." Walid was more used to communicating such details and soon assured the woman that we were indeed here for the fast-breaking dinner.

We arrived via the stairs since the elevator required card access. Many attendees were also from MIT, mostly desis and some white Americans. The graduate of Rutgers, Omar, talked with us about his Ramadan; he cannot fast due to his health conditions. I had only seen some people at previous Taha events, which had lecturing and/or duas commemorating virtues of the Imams. This event was more relaxed and focused on socializing, which I did not like in such cliquey environs. Someone discussed with enthusiasm about their shared city of Hyderabad and their routine. Another gossiped about the rent of the apartment, which I was also curious.

I remembered the time when I thought I would have no trouble making desi friends when I arrived in Boston, which soon proved to be wrong--not everyone can engage with me fully while also dealing with the strained life of American identity politics. We sat at a fireplace and some college students watched distantly. I had a brief conversation with a woman in the biryani line. She was a researcher at MIT. She also found the pretenses quite strained and gave up. I thanked Irtaza, who was paddling out the chicken biryani. I also said hi to Laila, who looked tired, possibly just finished with her coursework.

He prayed with other Muslims and later wrote a nice message about this interfaith experience on his faceb00k. This created a lot of conversation among his male friends. We both noticed that when readers do not like our message, they tend to note typos in our text rather than say outright their issue.

انبارح كان فيه إفطار منظمه شباب من جامعة هارفرد. فطرنا على تمرات وميه، أُذِن للصلاة وكان الأذان مضاف عليه " حي على خير العمل". وقفنا كلنا للصلاة، كنت فاكر ان الوحيد -المتفتح ومتقبل الاخر- اللي هيصلي زي السنه وسط شيعة، بس لقيت معظم اللي حوليا زيي.افتكرت الجدال العقيم اللي كنت جزء منه عن ان الشيعة مننا ولا من الناس التانيين. بس يبدو إن مستوى التعليم والبيئة المحيطة لها تأثير كبير، لدرجة مكنتش متخيل أن حد من اللي معايا دول كان جزء من جدال بالنوع دا. بالمناسبة طلعوا بيصلوا زيييينا بالضبط تقريباً والأهم من كدا الأكل كان حلو.

There was some confusion over the direction of prayer. We joked that the leader of the prayer is quite headstrong in his mistakes like me. We took a group picture but I have yet to receive it...

I brought pecan pralines from c0stco. I did not think that everyone could finish it at first. Soon after iftar, someone started hogging the whole box and finished all the whole pecans.

Walid noticed another Egyptian man present, who served the dessert. Walid did not feel like striking up a conversation that would soon become too intimate.
We left and walked along the red line over the river. It was my first time walking over the bridge despite crossing it thousands of times on the Red Line. We took selfies and parted ways. I had trouble sleeping because I was nervous from the social gathering as well as for the next day's schedule.

Walid also shared the good news that he secured a job at the big mosque. I am happy for his new opportunity but I am also concerned with the forms of political engagement that this would entail.

Rather than arguing that neoliberalism favors individualism vs. community, we need to focus on the *kinds* of community that neoliberalism fosters -- particular forms of family life, for instance, or new forms of Christian community ("evangelicalism," "mega-churches").

— Adam Kotsko (@adamkotsko) May 19, 2019

Neoliberalism more than secularism is the insidious force that doesn't marginalise religion so to speak but rather mutilates it in every sphere of human endeavour, so that it persists but in forms that are ugly and decrepit. See F S Michaels Monoculture and Kotsko's recent work https://t.co/HqpfSxerGL

— Ibn Maghreb (@IbnMaghrebi) May 19, 2019

Day 13 - Saturday

Art by @ejnoodles

I left the house at 6am in the morning, one of my first times leaving so early, and went to the Isha yoga class taught by Sam and Tulsi at the Democracy Center, Cambridge. There were only two students, one was a person called Jose from Mexico. At 12pm, I went home, felt very tired and slept after lunch.

Walid and I met at 5pm, after my nap. We danced a bit outside the house. I made some Chinese noodles for our dinners.

ZZZzzzzz

We finished the Avengers: Endgame at night. I enjoyed it more than Walid, who thought it would have been a waste of money to watch it in theaters.

(*SPOILER ALERT*)

I noted how the patrilineal message linked with the Avengers' legacy: If the white Captain America stayed anonymous after his decision of not returning to the 21st century as the 40-year-old self, there would have been no proper passing-down ceremony. Still, he came back and gave his shield to an African American superhero. Black Widow sacrificed herself in a very sati fashion, took one for the team in all eternal glory. Tony Stark doesn't have to leave his daughter any symbolic legacy, and we as viewers are happy that she is financially secure. The threat of any female characters using the stones for her own legacy was out of the question (note how asexuality played a role in Tilda Swinton's guardian-of-the-stone character).

We also discussed how literary traditions affect the kinds of films each country makes. Walid thinks that Americans love superhero movies because of the lack of myths their country has in comparison to Egypt. Peter Hessler makes a similar point in his recent New Yorker article: My House in Cairo https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/my-house-in-cairo

Walid also discussed his techniques of improving family relations with me. I wanted to sleep and we soon slept, even though Walid wanted to talk more. 

Vipassana Meditation Part III: The Obstacles

Before we left the meditation center, our teacher Vijaya told us that we should practice at least half an hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. Another former student, a middle aged Indian uncle, chimed in and said at least one hour is necessary to keep up the practice. He came to a meditation retreat a long while ago and stopped altogether. Coming back to it was very difficult for him. At that time I was excited to come back to the real world and share my experiences; I was not so hung up on the advice because I knew once everyone leaves the place, challenges will occur and excuses not to meditate would come by easily. Challenges to the practice already existed inside the well-organized albeit temporary meditation center.

I constantly wanted to write during my meditation hours. I managed to sneak and write a few short notes when I could not hold back, although it was against the rules. I also got bored sometimes even when the electric tingling experience was "happening." Instead, I would reminisce the films I watched before. Italian classic Cinema Paradiso was particularly vivid and when the explosion of the cinema happened in my head, the tingling also intensified surreptitiously. A fellow meditator exclaimed on the last day that she also had replays of Sesame Street songs or unpleasant film scenes.

I recounted these experiences to a friend of mine, a Chinese monk. He also knew before that people's memory becomes extremely sharp during meditation, even in traditions other than Vipassana. He recounted an urban legend: a guy who used to be a butcher terminated his trade and followed the Buddhist path. During a silent group meditation sitting in a temple, he shouted "Ahh!!" Everyone looked at him. Apparently, he remembered how someone short-changed him in exchange for the pork he sold a long time ago. I could definitely relate to these aha moments, although luckily none of my memories were as regretful (e.g., "I should have caught that person who short changed me!"). I also have similar issues nowadays while practicing at home. 

Aside from the neuro-challenges during meditation, one long term obstacle to the practice has been the cultural baggage. I don't want to be seen as someone "looking for a trip," in the words of Goenka, but then to be "committed" to yoga, meditation and/or some other practic has also been tough. Although no one has ever criticized me for testing the waters, I project these judgments at times. Goenka's reassurance has helped settle down some of that baggage.

JNU at dusk, usually the time when people come out to exercise

Politics has also come into the list of challenges to meditation. When I exchanged in JNU, Delhi, the dominant attitude among the Left was to frown down upon certain activities related to the Hindu pantheon. Yoga day was recently introduced by the Modi government and that would obviously be taken up as an issue, since many of the minorities who don't want to bow to the sun. I would sometimes see a person meditating by the tracks under the tree. I wondered when I would ever have the confidence to do that in public. The politics veered towards an automatic, reflexive bent--when the Paris attacks happened, I would overhear a person in JNU my age explaining to his parents (who were strolling with him) about the hypocrisy of the Western world--"no one mourned for [x country] when [y number] of people died!" I was emboldened when I heard it at first, since it reflected my views as well. But sometimes this attitude could become a dogma as well, especially in regards to spirituality. Anything with an "om" becomes the agenda of the Hindutva or Brahminical. My friend Amit, who meditates, also agreed with me on this point. He thought that more JNU students could benefit from meditation. In other words, we all have the obstacles we created on an intellectual level.

One of the rare Hindu events on campus that I attended--Kali Puja

On the other hand, one can also see how meditation can be difficult in a casteist society even if the programs are offered free of cost to all participants (They are sponsored by previous students' donations). When asked by Linda about caste and Buddhism, I said that if one is used to being an outcast, it would be very difficult for him or her on a psychological level to even enter a space that offered Vipassana in India. But that I have yet to corroborate with research. Someone should research on the challenges posed by caste on the Vipassana revival in India! 


Paradoxically, I gained the courage and motivation to treat meditation seriously at JNU, even when I didn't pick up the practice then. My friends here, such as Yogesh, were committed to social issues but also incorporated meditation in their lives. Yogesh would often suggest that I meditate as a way to concentrate on my studies and offered rewards, as if I was in his class as a student. He was a good mentor during difficult times. Alas, other cravings were stronger at the time. Still, I managed to meditate again despite the challenges. I could even say that the challenges helped me look inward: I was in the happiest and liveliest place in India, yet suffering was still all around. Turning inward was indeed an answer, even months after I had left.