One of the most controversial figures to emerge from the sea of opinionated commentators during the run-up to the United States presidential election has been the 51 year-old, Mumbai-born Dinesh D'Souza. To say that Mr. D'Souza is a conservative seems almost to understate the point. His 2007 book, for example, “The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and its Responsibility for 9/11,†expounds on his theory that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were largely an angry Muslim response to American liberalism.
Though he's long been visible in the realm of political think tanks, his latest book and his new movie have made him a celebrity. The 2010 book “The Roots of Obama's Rage,†which argues that President Barack Obama is trying to destroy Western powers to fulfill his father's anti-colonial dreams, this year was adapted to become an unlikely film hit, “2016: Obama's America.†Created with the help of Gerald R. Molen, a co -producer of “Schindler's List,†the 90-minute film is now the second-highest-grossing political documentary of all time, behind Michael Moore's “Fahrenheit 911,†despite having been dismissed as a “slick infomercial†with an unengaging narrator and storyteller (Mr. D'Souza).
In addition to writing and filmmaking, Mr. D'Souza, who comes from a Goan Catholic family, is also the president of The King's College in Manhattan, a Christian liberal arts school. He recently spoke to India Ink about the unexpected success of his movie, why Indians in America are such Obama fans and why he thinks that they're actually far more Republican than they realize.
What inspired you to make “2016: Obama's America�
I remembered that Michael Moore had made “Fahrenheit 911†and unloaded it before the 2004 election, and I thought the conditions weren't so different right now - we have a controversial president and a country that is divided - so I wanted to do a similar thing.
How did you end up working with filmmaker Gerald Molen, who also made “Schindler's List,†on the film?
I was set on having a high-quality documentary because I have seen so many low-quality ones. I wanted it to be beautiful and have that “Out of Africa†richness, and someone suggested that I reach out to Gerald Molen to help me, so I did.
He knew who I was but hadn't read my book, so I gave him a copy, and he agreed to come on board a week later. He felt that whether you agree or disagree with the book, it has an interesting story that should be told. I personally feel that what makes the movie strong is that it is not a policy film - it is a narrative and gives a psychological perspective of Obama: Here is an abandoned kid who went finding his father and who happens to be the president of the United States.
And this is not a “don't vote for Obama†movie. It's meant to be educational on who t he real Obama is.
You've said before that you embraced conservatism when you attended Dartmouth - can you talk more about how that happened?
I met a group of young conservative students who had answers to questions I didn't know were questions, like “What are the books everyone should read in order to be considered an educated person?†or “Isn't it immoral for a private corporation to do charity?†These were things I had never thought about, and as I began to read and think, it dawned on me that I didn't become a conservative. I always was, and was learning the vocabulary to express it. That's when I began writing and speaking and thought I had a unique perspective, being Indian.
You've also said in the past that your conservative principles resonate with the same ideals you were brought up with in India â€" can you please explain how?
I grew up in a middle-class family in Bandra [in Bombay]. My mom was stay-at-home, my dad was an engineer, a nd we were not political. I was raised with values that placed a tremendous emphasis on education, the importance of studying hard, and the idea that if you have talent and work hard, things will work out for you. I was raised Catholic but was not pious, but I didn't think about political issues at all until I was in college.
What were your expectations with the movie? Was its success a surprise?
Filmmaking is new for me, so I had no expectations. I have a good sense of the book market and what it means to have a successful book. I did know that I would get my message out to a wider audience, since the number of people who buy nonfiction books is far less than those who watch movies. The book was a New York Times best seller last week, but that means it sold 100,000 copies. Meanwhile, three million people have seen the film.
I did sense that it might resonate with a wider population when I sat in the back and observed the audience in the single theater we o pened in in Houston. I saw wild emotion. People were weeping and giving the movie a standing ovation. They were the early evangelists for the film, and since those who see the movie seemed to be overwhelmed by it, it's really word of mouth and social media which has helped it go viral.
You had 25 initial investors in the movie, but you weren't one of them. Between two decades of speaking engagements and several best-selling books, you can't be cash-strapped?
I thought to myself that I'm entering a world I don't know. I will contribute what I know, which is the intellectual structure of the movie. I will write it and narrate it, but I don't know how to market it and distribute it, so it made no sense for me as an investor. It was much more logical to me to approach people who are investors and tell them what I am trying to do.
As it happens, one of the initial investors dropped out because of financial issues, so I did eventually end up putting in $150,000. I will make out well from the film and the investors will get a good return as well.
Why do you think the majority of Indian-Americans support Barack Obama?
I think for most Indian-Americans, Obama's appeal is that he is, like many of us, an in-between man. We are American in much of our identity, but at the same time, we come from another culture, so we are trafficking in the same world as him and identify with him.
For most Indians, it is sufficient that Obama is global like them, but my argument with Obama is not that he has a global point of view but that he has the wrong global point of view. India tried the socialist road for 40 years and is now trying the free-market mode. The socialist model was an unmitigated disaster, and the free-market model works better. Obama is a guy who is frozen in the anticolonial model of 50 years ago, which I could have understood if I were living 50 years ago. It made sense to say things like the rich became rich from l ooting poor countries, but you wouldn't find intelligent people talking that way today in India. He seems to be the most modern of men, and his ideas are backwards. There is the Obama he wants us to see and the Obama of the film.
Do you support Romney, and what do you think he has to do to win over Indian-Americans?
In the film, I don't mention Romney or the Republican National Convention at all, but I will vote for him. However, I do have issues with him. I don't have a clear sense of what his true convictions are. You get the sense that he is tentative and unsure of himself or that he is barraged by consultants who tell him this is how he should be.
The great paradox is that in their actual lives and in the actual values that they espouse and practice, Indian-Americans are to the right of Romney. The Republican Party has three defining elements: they think that this is a dangerous world and America needs to have a tough foreign policy, they want a societ y where people are free to rise on their own merits or not, and they want a free society but also a decent one where open displays of homosexuality, children being born out of wedlock and pornography are limited.
How many Indians think it's okay to have open homosexuality? Very few. How many would like to come home to a pregnant 19-year-old? Very few. And the vast majority of Indian-Americans I know rightly think they rose on their own merits and not through the assistance of the U.S. government.
If Romney looked like Obama, he would sweep the Indian-American vote, but they identify with Obama because he is the underdog and symbolizes making it from outside, just like them.
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