Is this the same planet?

[Clivedurdle]

Wednesday May 9, 2007
The Guardian

Islamic militants ban music in frontier region

Islamic militants are confiscating music cassettes and CDs from buses and ordering shops only to sell recordings promoting jihad in the latest push to "Talibanise" a lawless Pakistani frontier region, residents said yesterday. The campaign was launched on Sunday in North Waziristan, a tribal region where the government reached a peace deal with pro-Taliban militants last autumn, an intelligence official confirmed. Armed militants have visited shops, warning owners to only sell recordings featuring sermons by clerics or songs without musical accompaniment that praise holy war.
Associated Press in Islamabad

http://browse.guardian.co.uk/search/all/Guardian/The+newspaper/International?month=05&lDim=N%3D4294964783%2B3093&search=music+taliban&year=2007

[JamesBannon]

Unfortunately yes, though Taliban militants are not the only group guilty of such things.

[Clivedurdle]

If I walk past a mosque playing my ipod might I be offending someone?

:devil1:

[JamesBannon]

I would take a bet on it. Don't expect me to rescue you if you try it though. :)

[OldYgg]

Ah, so it is back to the middle ages where music is ok - as long as it is about god and how great he is.

Or in this case how we are going to kill people so our god might triumph.

Old Ygg

[WWJD4aKlondikeBar]

"You there! Quit living in peace with your neighbor! Rabble rabble rabble!!"

So was this part of the peace deal or is the president of Pakistan going to blink at this?

Ah, so it is back to the middle ages where music is ok - as long as it is about god and how great he is.

Or in this case how we are going to kill people so our god might triumph.I'd have to say that their god sucks ass if he needs people to kill each other to promote him.

[Godless Dave]

Reminds me of the record burnings American fundies sometimes organize. Maybe we should take up a collection to airdrop Black Sabbath and Rush CDs over that part of Pakistan.

[Lucretius]

I was always under the impression that these prohibtions on music ,dancing etc were because it was thought that people would be spending time on these "frivolous activities" instead of spending their time praising/revering Allah ,studying the Koran.
Which when you think about it is really insulting to the message of Islam to say that listening to music readily becomes MORE important that the religious message effectively they are saying the message isn't that great after all.

[EthnAlln]

I was always under the impression that these prohibtions on music ,dancing etc were because it was thought that people would be spending time on these "frivolous activities" instead of spending their time praising/revering Allah ,studying the Koran.
Which when you think about it is really insulting to the message of Islam to say that listening to music readily becomes MORE important that the religious message effectively they are saying the message isn't that great after all.

Yes, and that aspect of it will have telling force in the end. The Western lifestyle just has more appeal than the stultifying "praise Allah all the time" message of the Taliban. So far nothing, not Communism, nor Catholicism, nor Islam has been able to prevail against liberal democracy.

[Wolfie]

Would a recording of "Onward, Christian soldiers, marching on to war..." be acceptable?

[OldYgg]

Reminds me of the record burnings American fundies sometimes organize. Maybe we should take up a collection to airdrop Black Sabbath and Rush CDs over that part of Pakistan.

And that - reminds me of when the US Military used hard rock as a weapon outside of complexes to get Noriega out - or something like that.

Which reminds me that was one of the first times the military used heat-sensing technology to track people running away from them in the forest. Apparently, when you shine your boots, it leaves a bit of free transferable wax behind. That wax transfers in small amounts to everything you walk by if it brushes against your boots.

So, little bits of wax changed the heat on the plants where people ran and the military was able to use that to track them.

When I heard about that I was like no f'n way.... But I heard it so long ago that I wonder if it is a fact or a myth now.

Old Ygg

[Clivedurdle]

Probably not - it has to be voice alone and about jihad - now - massed ranks of Welsh male voice choirs marching though the Khyber Pass!

Unless

Why are they blasting Iraqi prisoners-of-war with the theme tune to Barney the Purple Dinosaur?

http://www.jonronson.com/goats_04.html

I used to tithe to Brother Andrew - Bibles to Russia - we need a similar thing - Madonna and Geldoff et al to this area, air drops of ipods like the Berlin Airlift! Instead of Food Aid to Africa, Music Aid to Asia!