Posted on 08/31/2006 12:38:36 PM PDT by Borges
ZANZIBAR, Tanzania (AFP) - Organizers of a 60th gala birthday party for the late Zanzibar-born rock star Freddie Mercury, have cancelled the weekend event after outraged Muslims threatened to disrupt it.
Faced with fierce opposition from Islamists, who complained the flamboyant Queen lead singer's lifestyle was offensive to many on the overwhelmingly Muslim archipelago, organizers said they had no choice but to call it off.
"We have decided to cancel the party after misleading and erroneous information was spread about it," said organizer Simai Mohamed Saidi, who runs a Freddie Mercury theme restaurant in the capital.
"I urge Muslim groups in the future to seek correct information from us instead of relying on rumors," he said in an open letter, adding the event was intended to be celebration to honor Mercury, who died of AIDS in 1991.
Saidi also lamented that the cancellation would hurt his intention to use the party to raise money for HIV/AIDS victims on Zanzibar.
Conservative Zanzibari Islamists last week demanded that authorities ban the party and then vowed to stage mass demonstrations if it went ahead, saying it would tarnish the islands' reputation and culture and promote homosexuality.
"We were ready to join forces against the party because we had information that a number of gays from abroad had come to take part," said Sheikh Azzan Hamdani of the association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation (UAMSHO).
"We had also written letters to the tourist commission and the owner of the Mercury restaurant, demanding that they stop the party," he told AFP.
The authorities, who have long tip-toed between secular constitutional ideals, the demands of a booming tourist industry and the wishes of conservative Muslims, never formally responded to Islamists.
But Zanzibar's information ministry this week ordered local state-run media not to give the event any coverage.
Few on Zanzibar are aware of Queen or Freddie Mercury, who was born Farrokh Bulsara on the main island of Unguja to Persian parents employed by the British colonial administration on September 5, 1946.
But the appearance of posters advertising the beach party to celebrate what would have been his 60th birthday in recent weeks prompted the Islamist complaints.
Although he was educated in India and moved with his family to Britain in 1964, Mercury, who died in 1991, remains perhaps Zanzibar's most famous son to many westerners and rock music fans.
THAT, OTOH, is right on the money! LOL!
That's a pretty good one too.
I am a Baptist. I gotta million of 'em!......
I guess some Americans don't know what real rock and roll was.
It wasn't about homosexuals.
This really sums it up. And not just Freddie Mercury's birthday bash, either. Our whole modern, western civilization is faced with fierce opposition from Islamists and we seem hell bent on kowtowing to their requests that we change our ... everything. Oh, we'll have to work to catch up to places in Europe and Africa, but we seem willing...
Little Richard wasn't rock and roll?
Beach Boys, Beetles, Chuck Berry, Danny and the Juniors, the Drifters, the Everly Brothers, Bill Halley and the Commets, Little Eva, etc. = Rock and Roll.
Little Richard = Freak.
ROFL. Awesome. Okay, we've been bashing Baptists long enough. Know any good Lutheran jokes?
How can you tell a Lutheran congregation got the joke in the sermon?
They're smiling as loudly as they can.
Well yeah I guess Little Richard doesn't rock as well as Little Eva. /sarc
I'd rather spend a weekend with Freddy M (as fruity as he was)....than a minute with any of those GoatBanger Mohammedens...
Whatever floats your boat.
If Little Richard is your idea of a preferred companion - have fun.
I'd rather spend the weekend with Little Eva.
I haven't heard that joke since I left Minnesota a few years back.
It never gets old.
*snicker*
I hear the Moos are really pissed because whenever ol' Freddy took it __ the ___, he would scream out Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad! Yes my prophet, yes, yes, yes!
Groucho Marx once said, "There's no such thing as an "old joke" if you've never heard it before."..........
Silly. There are no AIDS victims on Zanzibar because they're mostly Muslims. /sarcasm
Check out this site! It'll bring back all your fondue-est memories......
http://www.basicjokes.com/dtitles.php?cid=43
Uuum I was talking about the music.
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