Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Taqwacore

This is like something out of a novel by Ursula K. LeGuin. I mean, look at it one way and it's a bunch of kids with no sense. Look at it another way and it's everything that is good about humanity, it is freedom out of oppression, it is life out of death, it is music giving people hope.

From the video:
I stopped trying to define punk around the same time I stopped trying to define Islam. They aren't so far removed as you'd think. Both began in tremendous bursts of truth and vitality but seem to have lost something along the way. The energy, perhaps, that comes from knowing that the world has never seen such positive force and fury and never would again. Both have suffered from sellouts and hypocrits, but also from true believers whose devotion has crippled their creative drive. Both are viewed by outsiders as unified, cohesive communities when nothing could be further from the truth... Like punk, Islam itself is a flag, an open symbol representing not things but ideas. You cannot hold punk or Islam in your hands, so what could they mean besides what you want them to?

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