Muslim punks?
Tuesday December 23, 2008
Categories: Islam
Signs of the Protestantization and Americanization of Islam: the creation of a Muslim punk movement around an underground novel that's been made into an indie film. Excerpt: Noureen DeWulf, 24, an actress who plays a rocker in the movie, defended...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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This is a point in favor of my belief that the American culture is very, very, very good at assimilating immigrant communities.
Rod, I think that you seem to have a vision of young Muslims fiercely dedicated to the Koran and Islamic practices out-breeding a decrepit Western American consumer culture.
That vision is, in my view, incorrect for a couple of reasons:
1) unlike yourself, who has diligently searched for what you consider to be the True Religion and once found, practice it sincerely, most people don't care that much about religion or religious practices.
2) unlike yourself, who has rejected American consumerism and the celebration of personal autonomy, most people like consumerism and personal autonomy.
There is not going to be a Muslim Menace. American culture is too strong, they will be assimilated.
That's what I love about punk rock--the possibilities are endless.
I've gotta check this out!
Man bites dog story.
Jives with Doug Wilson's thesis that secularism will triumph over Islam world-wide. It's secularism that we really need to worry about.
Remarkable. The original book seems to be out of print; I just ordered the last used copy available at Barnes and Nobel.
Punk rock doesn't have anything to do with "secularism." There are lot of Christian punk bands. One of the most famous punk bands, Bad Brains, are Rastafarians.
Punk's not about secularism or religion. It's all about attitude. The attitude of "This is me, this is what I believe, take it or leave it."
This makes me very wary. Conservatives might rejoice that these kids might be becoming less Muslim and more "American", but I'm not sure the protestantization (at least of the American variety) of any faith is a good thing. It certainly hasn't made things great for the Catholic Church here in the U.S., where being a good Catholic is now seen as synonymous, in some quarters, with being a good conservative, and a "good American".
To paraphrase Mother Teresa, I'd much rather see American Muslims be the best Muslims they can be, Hindus be the best Hindus, etc etc., rather than become some watered down, American-protestant version of themselves.
On my first trip to Hyderabad India, I met a few young Muslim guys who were really into thrash and death metal. Mostly a lot of Euro-bands I hadn't heard of, but the guys were fascinated that I had actually seen Megadeth and Slayer back in the 80's. There were also a few young Muslim women at one of our offices who were really into Gwen Stefani music and tried to dress like Aishwarya Rai. Admittedly Hyderabad isn't Tehran, but they weren't what I expected at all. Most of the devout pro-Jihad Muslims I've met were in Montreal. Strange world we live in.
I think it just tells us that like all other human groups, Muslim Americans are a massively diverse group, and that it is becoming even more so as it encounters an ever-diversifying pop culture here in the US.
The problem with many conservatives (and Rod, Love ya, but I'm lookin' at you here) is that "Muslim" and "Radical Muslim" and "Terrorist" all become elided. Never mind the fact that peace marches by Muslim groups get very little press, or that there *IS* no national voice of Islam here to condemn specific actions. Yes, CAIR is problematic at best.
But so is Donohue's Catholic league, to tie in to the anti-semitism thread above. (That's not a violation of Manning's corrolary, btw: I am making the point that we are ALL far to slow to condemn the evil acts of our own partisans.)
I've known several muslims here in the midwest. One was only radical about being a fashionista, and hoped that the fact that she did the full on fast at Ramadan made up for the fact that she was a chimneyfish on Friday night. One, whose father was Palestinian and whose mother was originally a Lutheran of Norwegian ancestry, joked that as a Muslim growing up in Wisconsin, his life made excellent fodder for a sitcom. (My favorite story was how he shared an appartment with an Israeli. They duct taped a stretch of their living room off and called it the Gaza Strip.) Another was a Qatari who gave up his college career and emigrated back in 2002 because he felt so unsafe here.
In other words, except for the fact that went to the Mosque instead of the church next door, they were more or less indistinguishable from all the other 18-25 year olds you see in a college town.
It is fascinating how punk rock has infiltrated every conceivable aspect of American culture. In rock music, it is much more assimilationist and inclusive than, say, heavy metal, which is relatively rigid and conformist. I suppose that this also proves just how diluted punk is, stretching from Muslim punks to Hot Topic-loving mall goths a la Good Charlotte and Fall Out Boy, but it's good, I think, that punk is something so many can draw upon for inspiration.
P.S. Thanks for name-checking Bad Brains, Travis-- they rule.
Kitten - word. Although have you heard Mos Def's "Rock and Roll"? He does an awesome shift from hip hop to rock to punk in the last 90 seconds to demonstrate the ways in which "White" music like rock and punk are reliant upon Black artists. I t hink he overstates his case, but it's still great music.
I don't know all of the specifics of Taqwacore, but it only proves to me that punk will always be the most vital, most all-embracing, most meaningful music ever.
It is an aesthetic and thus easily appropriated by independent minded people everywhere who don't buy into the mainstream, average idea of being a good consumer.
That is why the devoutly religious are often the best punks - the Rastafarian Bad Brains, the Hare Krishna 108 and Cro-Mags, the Eastern Orthodox "Punks to Monks" movement. Being religious in today's society is the ultimate in counterculture.
I'm surprised that after writing Crunchy Cons, you didn't see how the DIY aesthetic of hardcore punk meshes perfectly with your own philosophy.
Now all we need is a killer band on the same level of the aforementioned bands with an unabashed Marian devotion. Hope springs eternal, maybe I'll start it.
Granted, Elizabeth Anne, I am ignorant of punk rock, so I decided to get educated, and went to Youtube and searched for Mos Def 's "Rock and Rock". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paW_sMtD_v0
OMG? This is music? This is Anything? Four minutes of 4 notes (not from any instrument I have ever heard before, so must be electronic) repeated ad nauseum. But because you said something good would come of this, I hung in. And what did I get but 70 seconds of a different set of repetitive noises signifying something to you perhaps, but not to me. I guess I am too old to learn.
I spent a few minutes listening to Pavarotti singing Puccini at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOfC9LfR3PI&feature=related
THAT is great music performed by a great artist.
Um, I'm not sure what to say about this. But I bet you know what to say.
Sure do. Let freedom ring!!!
AML,
Part of the problem is that you listened to an instrumental version. Go to this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg8cKch5ueU
And Rock n Roll starts at about minute 3. You may still not like it: not everybody likes everything! But it's something different with the vocals, which are the primary point.
I love Pavarotti, too, although I prefer Placido Domingo. Although to REALLY come down to it, I prefer choral music. The Carmina Burana is one of my favorite pieces - especially the Robert Shaw singers did with it.
Great stuff; America's ability to dissolve the rigid boundaries of religion, nationality and culture inspires patriotic feelings in me like little else does. Anne hits the nail on the head, though unlike her I see it as cause for celebration.
The best punk rock of the 1990s came from outside Christendom (mostly Japan - hey, AML, if you didn't like Mos Def, you ought to try Teengenerate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk9-lcf7W34 - look for me in the crowd!), Guitar Wolf (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8qT7OTkkmE) or Gauze (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhbHn4g3T2w), all much better than that Pavarotti racket!), so I'm very curious and excited to see what kind of sounds these kids come up with.
The Texas Observer did an article about this awhile back. One can argue that this musical movement had its genesis in Texas. Rock on.
http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2653
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