Documentary: Among the Believers
With everything going on lately—the an another India-Pakistan war, the nonstop flood of news, fake news, and bold claims from both sides—I’ve been completely consumed. It’s overwhelming. And while I don’t support war in any form (I mean, sure, both countries will always find reasons to justify it), the truth is, war always ends the same way: a devastating loss of innocent lives, families torn apart, and generational trauma that never truly heals.
In the middle of all this noise, I decided to revisit a documentary I’ve always been a huge fan of: Among the Believers.
If you haven’t seen it, please do yourself a favour and watch it. It’s an award-winning, powerful piece of storytelling directed, produced, and edited by Hemal Trivedi, a brilliant filmmaker based in New York. She made this in collaboration with Mohammed Ali Naqvi and Jonathan Goodman Levitt, and honestly, it’s one of those films that stays with you for years.
The documentary takes us deep inside Pakistan’s notorious Red Mosque and its radical Islamic school network, where children are indoctrinated to become jihadis. It’s heartbreaking. These boys are being raised with only one version of the world, one built entirely on hatred and extremism, and you can’t help but feel that they were robbed of any real chance at life.
But Among the Believers isn’t one-dimensional. That’s what makes it so important.
It also highlights the other side of Pakistan, the brave, progressive citizens journalists, activists, and teachers who are standing up to extremism at great personal risk. These are people fighting to reclaim their country from within, knowing full well that they’re putting their own lives on the line every single day. And that’s what I think gets lost in the noise of war rhetoric: the humanity.
Yes, India and Pakistan are at odds politically. But let’s not forget, not everyone in Pakistan is the enemy. There are people there who want peace, who hate extremism, and who are trying to fight it, even as the world views them through a narrow lens.
One thing I highly recommend is reading Hemal Trivedi’s Director’s Statement. She started filming Among the Believers after losing a friend in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. It’s a painful but honest perspective and she wanted to understand why these attacks happened. What she uncovered was even more tragic: the same extremist groups that attacked Mumbai are also holding their own people hostage. In her words, “ordinary Pakistanis are themselves victims rather than perpetrators.” you can read her statement here: https://www.amongthebelieversfilm.com/filmcrew
And that’s the truth. This documentary doesn’t just document extremism, It documents a country caught in a battle for its soul.