On the heels of the controversial visit from Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I thought the above Rolling Stone Magazine article (click on ROCK~n~ROLL: Mosques... to read the whole article) would be of interest to my readers. What's it like to be a young Muslim punk musician in America post 9/11? Did you click on the link yet? Get to it!
The article talks about the first ever Muslim punk rock tour. The young musicians visited Islamic centers in many US cities to play music for their peers. They talked about how the males and females are separated in the audience. The thing that struck me hardest was when the band Secret Trial Five took the stage, the show organizers had the police shut down the entire show. Secret Trial Five happen to be five young Muslim women and it is against Muslim law for women to sing in public... The other musicians were pretty upset about that.
One of the band members, Basim Usmani was wearing a t-shirt that said "Frisk Me I'm Muslim" on it and was slam dancing with a dude who was dressed in a woman's burqa-that's balls. lol Overall the musicians felt that the tour was a positive experience and gave them a feeling of belonging which is something that they are apparently not getting from their local communities.
Hormone hell, pimples, separation and individuation, dating, college, and uncontrollable horniness is hard enough to deal with without also having very adult social, political, and religious issues to complicate things further.
Still scratching her uncovered head over the "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country" comment,
Professor Val
(Visit my online/phone life coaching site: Soma Space Coaching)
Monday, October 1, 2007
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3 comments:
I would like to shake the hand of the man who made that t-shirt.
I'm glad that these groups of Muslim bands went on a rock tour. Being a fan of rock music, I would personally enjoy going to a show to see them play and how they express their feelings through music. Everyone should have a chance to fulfill their dreams so I hope the young man in the article keeps it up with his music. I also commend him for wearing that shirt to prove a point. As for what happened to the girl's band that was to perform, that's horrible. I understand that women not singing in public is part of their tradition but, think how disappointed that must have made the members of that band. Just because they are women, doesn't mean that they shouldn't have a chance to have their music heard, to express themselves through song. Expression through lyrics in my personal opionion, is one of the most wonderful ways that a person can express themselves.
I think Pesident Ahmadinejad forgot to finish his quote "We don't have homosexuals in Iran"...with "because we kill anyone who shows any public signs of being one, even though many of us are secretly dying to come out of the closet."
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