Film Reviews: Of Mohawks and Muslims

Lequanne Collins-Bacchus

Taqwacore: The Birth Of Punk Islam
Director: Omar Majeed
Starring: Michael Mohammed Knight, Basim Usmani, Shahjehan Khan, Marwan Kemel, Omar Waqar, Sena Hussain
(Eye Steel Film, 2009) Rated: PG-13

‘I am an Islamist! I am an Antichrist!” belts out the lead singer of the Kominas, a Pakistani-American band — punk rock band that is.

Often cited as being The Catcher in the Rye for post-9/11 North American Muslim youth, the book that inspired this movement, Michael Muhammad Knight’s Taqwacores, tells the story of a Pakistani-American engineering student sharing a house with Muslim punk rockers. Taqwacores was meant as therapy for Knight, that is, as a mirror for self-apprehension towards understanding himself as both a Muslim and a rebellious young American. But due to its radical and liberating ideology, which appeals to an eager, misunderstood, misrepresented, stereotyped Western Islamic youth, Taqwacores has spawned a hybrid counter-culture movement as real as Islam-o-phobia.

The bands syndicated in this documentary smoke more than one substance, drink, and spend their nights rocking their beds during Ramadan. They relish the fact that they are giving the finger to both the traditionalists of Islam and the North American stereotypes that they are trapped in. Tongue-in-cheek, they demonstrate their effrontery with titles like “Mohammed Was A Punk Rocker” by Vote Hellzbollah (an Iranian band from San Antonio) and “Sharia Law in the USA” by the Kominas. Not only are these artists making a statement, they spread ‘the truth’ through the loudest of all musical genres — punk rock.

This documentary is a commentary onto itself; the camera is as wide-eyed as we who are watching this unimaginable spectacle. Defying everything one has ever thought about Islam this is a film that needs to be seen to be believed. It is so often unapologetic and so stark that, for sheer shock, it is easy to forget its illegality, or rather, irreverence. Combining traditional Islamic instruments with those of the usual rock musician – and new sensibilities – these bands have managed to create a whole new breed of punk; a whole new breed of Islam. The new sound is taqwacore, named for taqwa – an Arabic term for consciousness of the divine – combined with hard-core punk. Ideologically the music is all about finding truth within one’s self rather than in an imam or a mosque. It is ‘owning’ one’s own paradise and living with Allah. The self-image of this new age Islam is constantly at odds with stereotypes of the typical Islamic youth; in this instance the young self-confessed Muslim wants to own the media of his or her own representation, not be arrested by that of the ideological West.

The beauty of all this is that Islam-punk brought together religion, ideology and rebellious anti-establishment castes of different and conflicting music in a way that other sounds might never do; the honest chaos of punk reflects the honest chaos in Islamic communities. Taqwacore is about breaking stereotypes and ‘owning’ how one is defined. One might watch this documentary and think it is crazy but no matter how much you might not like Islam-punk or punk Islam, it’s certainly not as crazy as the fundamentalist strains of Islam many have been quick to ascribe to all Muslims.

The Keen Cry

Lequanne Collins-Bacchus

Soundtrack for a Revolution
Director: Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman
Starring: John Legend, Joss Stone, Wyclef Jean, Congressman John Lewis, Harry Belafonte, Julian Bond, Ambassador Andrew Young
(Freedom Song Productions, 2009) Rated: PG

As the film’s tagline states, every generation has a voice. With mixed cinematographic elements of the tribute and the documentary, Soundtrack for a Revolution is an account of the American civil rights movement through its music. Through song, angered voices become one as protesters resounded in their marches, mass gatherings; as they launch sit-ins, form picket lines and end up in jail cells in their struggle for justice.

Focusing on the events surrounding Martin Luther King’s activism, the narrative moves chronologically as it highlights the civil rights movement from the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 to the assassination of Martin Luther King in April of 1968. The movement is brought into sharp historical relief and given a cinematic depth-of-field as rare interview footages with prominent activists such as singer Harry Belafonte, Congressman John Lewis, Julian Bond, Ambassador Andrew Young as well as other foot soldiers are juxtaposed with quiescent archival materials. The recounting of individual memories and sharing of experiences as activists during the heyday of the movement provide the emotional weight that is sometimes lost when contemporaries think of this historical phenomenon.

In a more tributary note and as a sub-plot, Soundtrack for a Revolution features innovative covers of old freedom songs by talented artists, including John Legend, TV on the Radio, Wyclef Jean, Anthony Hamilton, Riche Havens and The Roots. The harmonies these artists recreated have been reverberating through time as slave chants, gospel hymns, and work songs; they have simply reworked the lyrics to address topical contemporary political situations. Echoing their voices dynamically, this film succeeds in presenting a fresh approach to thinking about the civil rights movement. Music not only brought people together and allowed them to express feelings they could otherwise not verbalise, it was also a medium that enabled youth engagement in the movement. The narration of this aspect of the movement is enlightening since it highlights a marked contrast to the general ideological commitment of today’s youth.

During the movement, youth were involved in politics to the point where going to jail was just as normal as going to class. They resort to singing while being handcuffed; music was used to fight the system. Of course it can be argued that continued youth activism is discernible in contemporary rap and hip-hop music as counter-culture. While those genres can be said to dip into the revolutionary roots of civil rights, they are now depleted of their initial transformational energies, having being hijacked by capital, and that dubious macho-effect for the establishment of street credibility as authentic ‘gangster.’ There is a significant disparity in attitudes and purpose these days. For example, while going to jail during the civil rights era was synonymous, for the youth, with fighting for freedom, today it is a stamp of an illicit tough-man image; it is a first-step to being trapped and recycled in the prison system, and in a life of notorious pseudo-criminality and selfish personality cult. In the old days, song humanised, unified and strengthened the community while today it separates, alienates, and dehumanises – especially as broadcast in mainstream media – on vinyl, CD, or video. This is especially obvious in the sound bites of gangster rap and hip-hop lyrics. In the past as protesters were brutally attacked by the police and marginalized by the system, melodies were strong in summoning the courage to speak real truth to power within the credo of non-violence.

There is certainly no mistaking the impact of music in the civil rights movement when even Martin Luther King ended his “I Have A Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with lines from a Negro spiritual — “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”