Green Energy
On January 8, 2007, LGF had a post named, “World Music Gone Horribly Wrong”, featuring a music album on the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage titled, “Palestine Lives!: Songs from the Struggle of the People of Palestine”. Among the tracks are, “The Testament of a Martyr” (“martyr” is Islamspeak for suicide-bomber), “The Road of Dignity” (once again, honor is shown to be of utmost important to them, more important even than the lives of their children) and “I am Enduring” (enduring self-inflicted suffering, if anything). I have already written of this “indigenous freedom fighter chic” (on December 5, 2006 and on November 17, 2006). But Charles’ title, “World Music Gone Horribly Wrong”, sent my thoughts darting in far-flung directions just as surely as Leto Atreides’ words, “The women are beautiful at this time of the year” sent Stilgar’s thoughts to faraway places in Children of Dune. This is about the phenomenon of World Music as a reflection of the relations between the “colonials” and the “indigenous”.
For the purpose of this post I have used the magazine Masa Acher, the Israeli equivalent of National Geographic. Geographic magazines, and this I realized quite from my beginning of reading them, a lot of years ago, are supposed to bring information about strange peoples and places, but in most cases fall very, very easily into the trap of value-judgments, usually the trap of Reverse Discrimination, in which they try to make up for past bias against the non-Western natives by heaping gory details of Western colonialist oppression of them. This is issue 90, from March 1999. It may seem too old to be useful, and indeed I had that thought as one of my first upon recalling it, but on second thoughts its being from pre-9/11 days makes it even more useful than if it were a recent issue, because that shows how deeply ingrained the PC (post-colonial or politically correct) attitudes are.
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In full on Our Children Are The Guarantors »
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Canada: Newly arrived Muslim families demand exemption from music and mixed-gender physical ed classesIn other words: "Hi! Thanks for having us. Here are are our demands." The response should be a brief language lesson -- free of charge -- consisting...
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UK: Schools Allowing Muslim Children to be Taken out of Mandatory Music Classes Because “Islam Forbids Playing an Instrument”From Weasel Zippers: (London)- Schools are allowing Muslim families to withdraw their children from music lessons because...
- Kuwait: No Music Classes For Kids, Music Is Satanic
Only if you play it backwards. From Eye on the World: The issue of music education has been a hot topic in Kuwait, with Islamist lawmakers pushing for a total ban on such studies in school. Mohammed Hayef, one such legislator, said music education would...
- If Only This Man Would Listen To His Own Lyrics
Cat Stevens used to be a great singer-songwriter. His music was beautiful and his vocal style was unparalleled. Then, he became a Muslim and changed his name to Yusuf Islam. He has since called for the death of Salman Rushdie for having the "audacity"...
- Mystery Solved
Old Navy ad Seems to have been coming from the Silvertide music post I put up this afternoon. Post gone, so's the music. Sorry about that gang! UPDATE: Silvertide video is back as well. Different embed no more Old Navy....
Green Energy
World Music Never Right In The First Place
On January 8, 2007, LGF had a post named, “World Music Gone Horribly Wrong”, featuring a music album on the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage titled, “Palestine Lives!: Songs from the Struggle of the People of Palestine”. Among the tracks are, “The Testament of a Martyr” (“martyr” is Islamspeak for suicide-bomber), “The Road of Dignity” (once again, honor is shown to be of utmost important to them, more important even than the lives of their children) and “I am Enduring” (enduring self-inflicted suffering, if anything). I have already written of this “indigenous freedom fighter chic” (on December 5, 2006 and on November 17, 2006). But Charles’ title, “World Music Gone Horribly Wrong”, sent my thoughts darting in far-flung directions just as surely as Leto Atreides’ words, “The women are beautiful at this time of the year” sent Stilgar’s thoughts to faraway places in Children of Dune. This is about the phenomenon of World Music as a reflection of the relations between the “colonials” and the “indigenous”.
For the purpose of this post I have used the magazine Masa Acher, the Israeli equivalent of National Geographic. Geographic magazines, and this I realized quite from my beginning of reading them, a lot of years ago, are supposed to bring information about strange peoples and places, but in most cases fall very, very easily into the trap of value-judgments, usually the trap of Reverse Discrimination, in which they try to make up for past bias against the non-Western natives by heaping gory details of Western colonialist oppression of them. This is issue 90, from March 1999. It may seem too old to be useful, and indeed I had that thought as one of my first upon recalling it, but on second thoughts its being from pre-9/11 days makes it even more useful than if it were a recent issue, because that shows how deeply ingrained the PC (post-colonial or politically correct) attitudes are.
[...]
In full on Our Children Are The Guarantors »
-
Canada: Newly arrived Muslim families demand exemption from music and mixed-gender physical ed classesIn other words: "Hi! Thanks for having us. Here are are our demands." The response should be a brief language lesson -- free of charge -- consisting...
-
UK: Schools Allowing Muslim Children to be Taken out of Mandatory Music Classes Because “Islam Forbids Playing an Instrument”From Weasel Zippers: (London)- Schools are allowing Muslim families to withdraw their children from music lessons because...
- Kuwait: No Music Classes For Kids, Music Is Satanic
Only if you play it backwards. From Eye on the World: The issue of music education has been a hot topic in Kuwait, with Islamist lawmakers pushing for a total ban on such studies in school. Mohammed Hayef, one such legislator, said music education would...
- If Only This Man Would Listen To His Own Lyrics
Cat Stevens used to be a great singer-songwriter. His music was beautiful and his vocal style was unparalleled. Then, he became a Muslim and changed his name to Yusuf Islam. He has since called for the death of Salman Rushdie for having the "audacity"...
- Mystery Solved
Old Navy ad Seems to have been coming from the Silvertide music post I put up this afternoon. Post gone, so's the music. Sorry about that gang! UPDATE: Silvertide video is back as well. Different embed no more Old Navy....