At the age of 18; Mirza Tahir Hussain; a British Subject; arrived in Pakistan. 24 hours later a taxi driver was dead and Tahir was tried for his murder. Condemned to hang in the Criminal Court he spent the following 7 years on death row. Released on appeal; he prepared to return home to Leeds but was sent back to death row by a Sharia Court. He stayed there for a further 11 years.Don Mackay of the Daily Mirror was the only journalist to visit him in that time. A British Subject is the true account of what happenedhellip; A British Subject opened at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe; before being revived at the Arts Theatre in 2011.
2011-10-20 2011-10-20File Name: B00ALXQO7O
Review
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Not only is the cover graphic but also the material ...By Mrs. ZNot only is the cover graphic but also the material as well. The subject is all about how African Americans were debased in civilized society and show a lot more nudity than I ever wished to see and ever wish to see in the future.9 of 13 people found the following review helpful. great facts but faulty premisesBy A CustomerSieglinde Lemke; Primitivist Modernism: Black Culture and the Origins of Transatlantic Modernism; OUP; Oxford and New York; 1998; pp183; hbkThis book is full of interesting information on the Western integration of African and Afro-American motifs in sculpture; music and dance; but is spoilt by a number of faulty premises:1) She assumes that Western civilisation went into decline in the twentieth century. But she presents no evidence that it did go into decline; other than it entered into a new relationship with African and Afro-American motifs. But why could not this hybridity be evidence for the opposite case: Western cultural dynamism? Lemkes cavalier assumption however is that adoption of hybridity is prima facie evidence for a declining civilisation. In fact; she should have spent more time spelling out the exact relationship between civilisational decline and hybridity in culture (if any). 2) She assumes that cultural hybridity with primitivism was an entirely new phenomenon in the West at the turn of the 20th century; but in fact such hybridity has been a long-standing tradition in Western arts and culture (from Ovids Metamorphoses to the Gothic revival). But; even if she is right and hybridity is new to West; she hasnt explained why the West came to adopt it now. 3) Likewise; Lemke concludes her book by asserting that; though Westerners used African and Afro-American motifs for their own dubious reasons; her `cross-over aesthetics have undermined the Wests colonialist mentality; racism; etc. Unfortunately; she provides no evidence to sustain this incredible assumption apart from her bald assertion that the `new hybrid culture was responsible for this change. 4) She is very critical of the way other people use the concept `primitivism; and also the concept of `the other; but she proceeds to use both these terms frequently throughout the book without ever clarifying what she means by them herself. She also is inadequate in explaining what she means by `modernism and how she means this to differ from `progress; which it is ordinarily associated with. 5) Her accusations of racism against other people are also confusing. In particular; her reasons for discriminating between the `racist Nancy Cunard and `anti-racist Pablo Picasso are not spelt out clearly enough. She seems to assume a lot about Picassos motives without ever justifying them sufficiently well for him to be distinguished so dramatically from Cunard. 6) She complains of other peoples lack of scholarly knowledge about art (William Rubin; p44) but she makes a number of basic errors in art history that the OUP proof-reader should have spotted at least: a) `Erich Nolde: it is Emil (p39) b) Jean `Buffet: it is Dubuffet (p45) c) American public `appalled by 1913 Armory show...[and] it is a well-known fact that the American public was hesitant to accept formal artistic innovations(p146). But this was not so `well-known to the Armorys leading light; Marcel Duchamp (who exhibited his famous `Nude descending a staircase there); who moved to America in 1915 and built his whole career there on the strength of his Armory reception. d) Also on page 146: `Picasso moved on to create an increasingly abstract art from the 1920s. What; even more abstract than the analytic Cubism of 1909-12? Not so. Among his early 1920s work; classically representative portraits in the style of Ingres featured heavily [not forget his Guernica (1939)].My basic assessment is: Oh dear! How could a publisher with the reputation of the OUP have published this book? Is this an example of `dumbing down? However; it should have been published by a less august house; and be read; if only for its excellent material on Jazz and other facets of Afro-American culture.Aidan Campbell (aidan@zola.demon.co.uk)