Posted on 04/21/2010 10:38:53 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
...Seven years after Morocco's satanic-music trial, the alternative music scene in the North African country is alive and kicking; it has even received a grant from king Mohammed VI himself.
...The last edition of L'Boulevard drew no less than 160,000 visitors, spread out over six days and two football stadiums...
It wasn't always like this. One of the members on this year's jury was 30-year-old Nabyl Guennouni. Now a manager at an events agency in Rabat, Guennouni was one of 14 heavy-metal musicians who in 2003 were arrested and sent to prison for practicing "satanism" and "endangering the Islamic faith."
...Urged on by the conservative Arab media, who took their cue from similar events in Cairo, Moroccan authorities arrested Guennouni and the others at their homes on Feb. 13, 2003. At the trial they were asked questions like, "Why do you cut the throats of cats and drink their blood?"...
Decades of dictatorship had made people cynical; they no longer believed that they could change anything. But the charges against the 14 musicians brought everybody together: human rights activists, left-wing militants, journalists, college and high school students and lawyers.
When the musicians' trial came up on appeal, the public prosecutor himself asked that all charges be dismissed. For Merhari and Bahou, things would never be the same again. "The publicity over the satanic-music trial catapulted us from obscure concert halls for 200 people to football stadiums," said Merhari.
Weeks after the trial ended, 45 people were killed in simultaneous suicide attacks against various targets in Casablanca that were blamed on Islamic radicals. The people behind Tremplin/L'Boulevard immediately responded by organizing a "metal against terrorism" concert.
"If we didn't succeed in channeling the aspirations and frustrations of young people in Morocco, the alternative was terrorism," said Guennouni...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
Heavy Metal in the Middle East PING
Check out Saudi band Wasted Land and Jordan's Tyrant Throne
Maybe Heavy Metal will open the way for the Gospel to be introduced in Morocco.
Only when our own celebrities likewise stand up to Islamic supremacist theocraties.
Instead the Hard Left says that it is "wrong" to bring Christianity even to Iraq. To me THAT is xenophobic. There can be no cultural exchange if a region is going to be closed to thought.
Judaism and Christianity have a far older history in the Middle East than Islam but Leftist radical side with the "poor put open" muslim over all other faiths. It isn't rational. They are harder line on prohibitions of atheism, homosexuality, and women's rights. But because they burn down religious centers and persecute the followers of other faiths, they get a pass.
Some of the Muslims are pretty good at Western Music. There’s a Turkish guitarist on youtube who does some great Mark Knopfler renditions. What it is etc
Hopefully more Western Culture will rub off on them. Metal is a good start.
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