I got an invitation on Facebook to become a fan of novel/movie “The Taqwacores.” I always listen to pretty girls because I’m a fool like that, so I checked out the fan page. The movie seems to be trying to show that Muslims can be normal people, too. No doubt Muslims can be normal, that some can reconcile their religion with Western values, but to do that fully, they have to give up a large chunk of Islam — namely, the violent Jihad against non Muslims. While this book/movie might be a good thing, a step down the road to Muslims assimilating well into Western secular society, it still seems to promote core Islamic values.
As part of the set, a Muslim punk rock musician, Marwan Kamel, 23, painted “Osama McDonald,” a figure with Osama bin Laden’s face atop Ronald McDonald’s body. Mr. Kamel said the painting was a protest against imperialism by American corporations and against Wahhabism, the strictest form of Islam.
Mmm hmm. American corporate imperialism? Let’s see, imperialism means, “a policy of extending your rule over foreign countries.” Corporations can’t do that, so it’s just typical anti-American, anti-Establishment whining. To use Osama bin Laden’s face with McDonalds mascot is truly insulting. Osama wants Islamic Sharia law over the planet, a true Koranic imperialism promoted by Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabist government, and I’ll bet dollars that this book says nothing against the core beliefs of Islam.
The novel’s title combines “taqwa,” the Arabic word for “piety,” with “hardcore,” used to describe many genres of angry Western music.
Piety. Yup, nothing against the main points of Islam that create all these Jihadis. Hardcore. Ummm, so we’re talking “Hardcore Piety”?! Welcome to the Jihad. WTF?
For many young American Muslims, stigmatized by their peers after the Sept. 11 attacks but repelled by both the Bush administration’s reaction to the attacks and the rigid conservatism of many Muslim leaders, the novel became a blueprint for their lives.
Wow, bullshit alert. WOOP WOOP! Muslims were rightly stigmatized because Muslims committed the mass murders based on their holy book, the Koran (Qur’an)… yet very few Muslims were actually harmed, which either says America is full of pussies, or we’re actually far more restrained and thoughtful than the world likes to think we are. It’s the latter, by the way. And Bush bent over backwards to appease Muslim sensibilities, but that didn’t help us at all. “Rigid conservatism of many Muslim leaders” is just orthodox Islam. What dross.
The novel’s Muslim characters include Rabeya, a riot girl who plays guitar onstage wearing a burqa and leads a group of men and women in prayer. There is also Fasiq, a pot-smoking skater, and Jehangir, a drunk.
Such acts — playing Western music, women leading prayer, men and women praying together, drinking, smoking — are considered haram, or forbidden, by millions of Muslims.
Wearing a burqa is submission to Wahhabi Islam, you fool. Leading people in prayer is just promoting Islam. And the fact that millions of Muslims find such behavior described above as anti-Islamic should ring alarm bells in everyone’s mind. Some Muslims are trying to bust out of a 7th century mentality, and we get to feel their growing pains. However, there are still hundreds of millions of Muslims who want our secular asses dead dead dead, and I won’t oblige until I see something meaningful. I don’t expect Islam to change, and I don’t see the West eradicating Islam, so we get to deal with strife forever and ever.
For many young American Muslims, the merger of Islam and rebellion resonated.
Not only is that normal for young adults, it’s especially scary coming from people who adhere to a religion that demands its followers convert or kill non-Muslims.
I’m betting the author of this article, Christopher Maag, thought this whole thing was very progressive and certainly a turning point for Islam. It’s a step in the right direction, because social change can lead to dogmatic change, but it’s not nearly enough.
It’s still Islam, don’t bury your head in the sand.
“This book is my lifeline,” Ms. Arzay said. “It saved my faith.”
Maybe your faith in Islam isn’t worth saving. Do you really want to save a faith that teaches its followers that people of other religions are subhuman and should be killed?
Young Muslims Build a Subculture on an Underground Book – NYTimes.com.
