Harry's Place

Massive Attack did a remix of a piece of his.

~*starts clapping hands together~*

#Musht a-musht#

It’s written “Musst Musst” on the record.

While I’m sure this could be a cynical and counterproductive move, anything that involves more Qawwali singing is a good thing.

I saw – as documented in last month’s The Word magazine – Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s nephews facilitate a genuine moment of cross-cultural understanding in Abu Dhabi recently. At the WOMAD festival which was held there, for the first time in the Emirate’s history, migrant workers were allowed to come to a major cultural event along with the Emiratis and more privileged ex-pats. When Rizwan and Muazzam Ali Khan did their – really quite amazing – thing, the Pakistani construction workers and cab drivers in the crowd went wild, spinning around, picking up kids to dance with etc, all of which was regarded with interest and even approval by the locals.

Now this was a small moment, and changed nothing in the grand scheme of things – the Emirate remains totalitarian and exploitative of its workers – but nonetheless it was the first time such a thing had ever happened in Abu Dhabi, and was a sweet thing to witness.

I don’t accept a word of it.

The best method available is the one being pursued in SWAT by the Pakistani Military at the moment.

Just kill them all. Wherever they are, whoever they are, what ever they are doing or saying at the time of being detected. Even in mosques. Even while praying.

The extremists are human effluent.

It is the only way.

No.

~*starts clapping hands together~*

#Musst musst#

A military solution is a short term answer.

In the long term the solutions are economic, culturo-religious and educational – hence promoting sufism.

Imagine if it does and the wahhabists find that no one listens to them anymore?

Pakistan needs deep rooted structural change. I appreciate thats not as exciting for some as explosions.

So Neil W a few Table tennis clubs, fifty quid a week”Job Seekers Allowance” and lots of PolyTech Madrassers and all will be sweetness and light.

Ok, I am with you man, Lets get the Volkswagen gassed up and hit the highway, you bring the dope and I will bring the, erm, mmm, oh forget it, you go and write it all down on a post card and err “Post” it.

I am going to bed.

The truth of the matter is that religion is so deeply imprinted on the Pakistani state that they are inextricable.

Pakistan has no reason to exist other than Islam. The land that comprises Pakistan was historically as heterogenous and diverse as India is now. It was a land of Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam, as well as being a historical heartland of Buddhism, and the cradle of the Indus valley civilisation.

Overnight, Pakistan became a mono-religious state, to be kept together with an iron fist and religion. Hence, religion has always been ’state sponsored’ in Pakistan because state-sponsorship of Islam is the very DNA, raison d’etre and meaning of Pakistan. The state of Pakistan defines Islam and Islam defines Pakistan. This led to tensions from the beginning of its existence in 1947. Within 24 years Pakistan was split in half after Bangladesh seceded following ‘West Pakistans’ attempts to impose an ‘Urdu’ Islamic identity on it. Pakistani soldiers carrying out their rape and genocidal killing sprees referred to the rebellious Bangladeshi Muslims as ‘Hindu monkeys’, the worst thing imaginable to a Pakistani, because the Pakistani state inculcates Islam by schooling Pakistanis that non Muslims, (and in the context of the partition of India) especially Hindus are a sub-species of the higher race (Pakistani Muslims). Jamaat-i-Islaami supporters in Bangladesh were at the vanguard of support for the genocidal army action, because they saw the sundering of Pakistan and the freedom and independence of east Bengal as a blow against the Ummah.

So the issue of state-sponsorship of Islam in Pakistan is default, non-negotiable, eternal, unwielding. It’s more a question of degree. Ahmeddiya Muslims are persona-non-grata in Pakistan, even though there are many millions of them in the nation. To have a Pakistani passport you have to sign a declaration that as a citizen of Pakistan you repudiate the teachings of the Ahmeddiya sect. There are countless other examples of how deeply Islam and the state are are fused in Pakistan, and how the horrors of this compact are played out, the most global aspect of which is the virtual state sponsorship of Islamist terrorism by a security-state that inculcated Jihadism and supped with the most reactionary, supremacist Islamists for generations as part of its strategy for projection throughout the world.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan represents the gentler side of Pakistan that exists apart from this compact between Islam and the state. He not only sang songs in the sufi tradition extolling the purity of love for humanity and God inherent in the mystical traditions of Islam, many of his lyrics were infused with the imagery of Hinduism and Sikhism, as the complex, tolerant, grassroots spiritual culture of pre-partition western Punjab manifested itself. He not only sang spiritual songs, he sang traditional songs about pastoral life and romantic love. In fact he used to sing in Sikh temples when touring around the world! He represented something that is latent in most Pakistanis, a kind of gentle, tolerant folk sufism that elevated music and compassion as the virtues of religion, an easy-going faith rooted in the culture of the lands that used to be India, but became cleansed and became Pakistan.

Pakistan is incrementally becoming Islamised. Slowly, the native arts of the land are being snuffed out. Dance, music, these are the expressions of humanity that are most suspicious and eyed most covetously by the cleansers. Whether they succeed will really come down to how much the soul of the Pakistani people can take being suppressed. And whether the hectoring tone of the mullah, allied with the power of the state, hypnotises the Pakistani people more than the music of their ancestors.

NFAK’s music is pleasent to listen to, but it’s silly to argue that it’s going to change the world.

Yes. Yes the big fatty is the answer, and I seriously mean that. Man was a genius, a rolypoly heavenly voiced rythmic genius and his band was as tight, and as good as the Blockheads, the Stooges, Bowie’s band and Elton’s band, if presumably, much better behaved in private than those guys.

Yes, it’s silly to argue that music has any part in societies changing.

Like Plato did, e.g.

Manto, that was a really good comment.

“Yes, it’s silly to argue that music has any part in societies changing.” – Joe Muggs.

One in the eye (ear?) for Betthoven.

I do not care if the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is what is claimed for it but it sounds great to me and I rarely stray away from dead Germans (and Austrians).

Clap Hammer. If you lived in the U.K. you could get help for your problem; but you would have to surrender your weapons.

S*d! The preview was not working. That’s “Beethoven”. But it doesn’t work now. Over to you Joe!

I was being sarcastic, Larkers.

The question is not whether music – or any other cultural activity, indeed – changes the world, but how it changes the world.

Nusrat and a big fat spliff. Yes.

The Soviets tried to undermine the Mujahideen in the 1980’s by broadcasting rock music. I predict that this effort by the government achieve similar success.

Latest: cleric killed.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6486033.ece

For opposing Taleban and upholding Barelvi Islam

The Revolotionary Communist Party and its spokescreature at HP Tagnuzlsx/Tim Carlos Allon are extremely unpleasant to listen to AND its silly to argue they’re going to change the world.