There is no place for music in Islam according to Minister & Mullah, Hafiz Akhtar Ali, in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.

Salman Ahmad of the Pakistani rock group, Junoon, however argues that there is a place in Islam – not only for rock music but for all kinds of music.

The minister has banned music - the rock star, who considers himself a true Muslim, fights for his right to perform and for Muslims right to access to music.

Now this illustrates an ideological and cultural clash evident in several countries today. A clash that includes the definition and control of identity and the right to choose.

With militant Islam entering global politics on a major scale through the 9/11 attacks, it is understandable that many politicians and dominant media have started to subscribe to the theory of a Clash of Civilizations, as proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington.

Huntington’s idea, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world has indeed a lot of relevance if we look at conflicts within civilisations -  but is rather dubious if we purely focus on conflicts between nations.
 
When rock musicians in Pakistan are attacked by Islamists one might easily see this as an example of the clash of civilisations – that rock music in this context represents western culture vs. Islamic culture.

But how then explain the ban on traditional music and wedding music in tribal area of Pakistan and Taliban dominated areas of Afghanistan, or the ban on classical Iranian music in the early years of the Islamic revolution in Iran?

The examples from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan clearly show that the conflict is within and not between civilisations.

Even before the Taliban take-over of Afghanistan in the 1990’s music had already been banned music on radio and television by the then prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar – also known as one of Afghanistans’ most brutal warlords.

Former president Ronald Reagan was once quoted as calling Hekmatyar “The moral equivalent to our founding fathers. But that was in the days of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when Gulbuddin Hekmatyar received billions of dollars from the CIA through Pakistan’s Intelligence Service to fight the Soviet soldiers.

Today, the very same Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has been labelled a war criminal by members of the U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai's government.

The fact is that Gulbuddin did not just want to liberate his country from the communists. He wanted an Islamic state with strict interpretations of the Qur’an and he is now backed up by money from the Middle East and has joined hands with Osama Bin Laden.

Both of them promote a certain type of Islam and the power struggle includes a stern grip on people’s cultural expressions – especially music.

In Freemuse, the organisation that I work with, we do try to document, analyze and understand why music is being censored in societies – what the clashes are really about. We are an international organisation advocating Freedom of expression for musicians and composers.

The organisation is less than 10 years old, we have a small secretariat in Copenhagen and we collaborate with artists, scholars, journalists, human rights advocates and even censors all over the world.

Through reports, conferences, and the worlds’ largest database on music censorship www.freemuse.org , we are documenting violations of freedom of expression for musicians, composers and music presenters.

In order to understand why certain types of music is being censored we need to analyze political, economical, religious and social conflicts.

Our very first report written by Professor John Baily was called ‘Can you stop the birds singing?’ Published in 2001 the report described and analysed music censorship in Afghanistan. The report stated very clearly that the Taliban did not introduce music bans in Afghanistan. The Taliban simply systematized it further and worked on the very lines that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and others had already initiated.

The inspiration in those days clearly came from Iran and those fatwas against music that Ayatollah Khomeini declared.

In 1979 Khomeini denounced music as “the opium of the youth” . In the 1960’s similar statements could be heard from Chairman Mao who considered rock’n roll as western opium to the Chinese masses, but as far as I know Khomeini never quoted Chairman Mao.

Those of us who were young in the 1950’s and 60’s remember similar statements from conservative and Christian religious circles in the West, when rock’n roll broke the social norms and sound  barriers of western media.

The whole idea that music causes sensual feelings and unwanted behaviour is common to certain ideologies within Jewish, Christan and Muslim cultures since ancient time. And in fact much of this thinking dates back to the time of ancient Greece where Plato proposed censorship of certain types of music.

The Jewish scholar Maimonides – who lived in the 12th century, provided a systematic summary of prohibitions against music – a system which has many parallels in the Muslim world today.

The systems represent a hierarchy of music. At the bottom of the hierarchy are instruments and music that according to these religious dogmas should be completely banned and on the top of the scale is chanting that may lead you to God and thus is allowed

During the formation of the Christian church, music was thought of a source of sin, vice, paganism, obscenity and all things secular – unless the music was subordinate to words praising God.

The European missionaries in Africa did their best to ban all instruments that they considered connected to traditional non-Christian belief systems. And in this part of the world Swedish missionaries in the 19th century convinced a lot of traditional fiddle players that the fiddle was an instrument of the devil and thus should be burned.

Many fiddlers did so and stopped playing.

Now all this is a question of power play and control of the minds.

The Swedish missionaries wanted to control people’s lifestyle and mindset. They wished to create a certain Christian identity and in this identity there was no space for fiddlers’ music.

When we know how much fiddlers’ music has come to represent national identities in Sweden as well as Norway, it is rather evident what it means to people and their cultural heritage when you try to suppress and ban their music.

What the Taliban and other Islamic extremists are striving for in the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan is exactly the same – they strongly promote certain ideas with the aim of controlling the minds of people and through this mind-control obtain political, economical and social control.

Women are the biggest losers in this game.
Not only are women restricted from performing their professional skills as musicians, singers and composers. The whole culture of women’s traditions is endangered.

Women have always been great carriers of culture – just think of lullabies, wedding songs etc.

Can you imagine a culture where lullabies and wedding songs are banned? Well, in Sudan in the 90’s Islamists did ban wedding music. And in the 1980’s wedding music was banned in those Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan controlled by Gulbuddin

Now almost 30 years later the Taliban are still controlling parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan and terrorize musicians and music shop owners wherever they can.

This is one picture of music and Islam.

But let me also quote a Muslim scholar, Sheikh Ibrahim Ramadan Al-Mardini from the Beirut Studies and Documentation Centre.

At a regional conference organised by Freemuse in Beirut 2005 he stated:

There is no ban on music in the Qur’an.

And there is no such ban in the Quran. The controversy about music and Islam stems from interpretations of Hadith and other stories passed down orally for more than one hundred years attributed to the sayings and doing of the Prophet.

But – although theological incorrect - fundamentalists constantly claim that such a ban exist and unfortunately several state systems are heavily influenced by this doctrine.

In some Arab societies the attacks are targeted on music specifically associated with western cultures.

In recent years we have witnessed many attacks on heavy metal music in the Middle East.
The musicians are attacked – not only by religious leaders but even by police authorities.
Authorities in Lebanon, Morocco and Egypt have claimed that heavy metal is not only western and decadent but even a tool for the devil.

As one the Moroccan musicians, Amine Hamma, said at the Freemuse conference in Beirut: ‘We were victims of a wave of phobia against the west in Morocco after 9/11.

If you had long hair you were suddenly considered a worshipper of the devil or a homosexual’, but as another musician expressed it: we play heavy metal because our lives are heavy metal.

So what is this conflict about?
What exactly do these conflicts within Middle Eastern societies represent?
Is it not true that these young long haired musicians wearing black t-shirts represent western decadence and anti-Islamic behaviour?

Well, the fact is that the average heavy metal musician in the Middle East – contrary to his western colleague - is mostly a very well educated young man, who reflects and represents new social movements. He is neither anti-Muslim nor particularly pro western.

In fact the American historian Mark Levine has pointed out that in a way pop culture in the Middle East as well as religious movements are feeding on much the same desire of social and political changes in the region.

You could say that the artists as well as the theologians are willing to push the boundaries of accepted political and social norms, and the struggle is basically about which norms that should be dominant in their societies.

We could make a parallel to the situation in the US where conservative, Christian lobby groups for years have reacted very strongly against any cultural or social movement that has questioned traditional Christian values and conservative, national politics.

The reason why many radio channels stopped playing the music of the country group – the Dixie Chicks just a few weeks before the US invasion of Iraq was the fact that the lead-singer of the group criticized Mr. Bush. This was considered unpatriotic and in the end even non-Christian.

But whereas musicians in the US do normally not receive “invitations” to police interrogation for their lyrics, their colleagues in the Middle East can be called for interrogation to the offices responsible for fighting terrorism and crime.

Sometimes their music is being confiscated. Sometimes they are not given permission to perform – and their music is not played in public media and this obviously silence them for some time.

Let me talk about another paradox in this region.
The media and music market in the Middle East is dominated by one company: Rotana.
Rotana has signed almost all major artists in the Arab World and produce and broadcast most of the promotional videos seen in the Middle East.

Especially the videos of female singers are criticized for being sexist and vulgar – and I believe most people in this room would agree that they are indeed sexist and vulgar.

But who is the owner of this company? Who is the owner who not only controls the Rotana record company but even the TV network dominating the satellite TV-market in the Arab speaking world?

Rubert Murdoch? No the owner is HRH Prince Al Waleed Ben Talal Ben Abdel Aziz Al Saud. Son of the founding King of Saudi Arabia, prince Talal is ranked by Forbes as the 13th richest person in the world, and the richest Arab. He has made large investments in AOL, Apple Inc., Motorola and other technology and media companies.Islamists in the Arab World criticize the Rotana videos and the artists.

Several of these Islamic leaders receive a lot of money from traditional Islamic forces in Saudi Arabia. But the criticism against Prince Talal is indeed very silent within Saudi Arabia. The Royal family and the religious leaders have a silent division of power within the country, so the ideological clash is basically performed outside the country.

Prince Talal has become a global player in the entertainment and tourist industry. His religious opponents have become global players in the ideological struggle for souls and power. Prince Talal, however, is not a western liberal promoting freedom of expression. His companies are not going to promote any song critical to regimes friendly to the Saudi Royal Family, so through his total dominance of publishing, media and concert venues his company can and does censor anything critical towards the interest of Saudi capitalism.

But he does obviously neither wish for the rest of the Middle East what he has at home, which is a complete ban on women performers in the public. So what could be a very open clash within Saudi Arabia has been transferred to the neighbouring countries. Talal promotes sexualized videos with half nude women and his religious countrymen promote veil, prayer and ban on music.

And in the post 9/11 era several Middle Eastern states prefer to aim their attacks at powerless heavy rock musicians rather than sexist videos produced by those who represent strong economical and political interests in the Middle East itself.

My time is limited so let me just round up by mentioning the New Freemuse report: Music will not be silenced. It is a rather grim documentation of suppression of music in countries as diverse as Cuba, Zimbabwe, Turkey and Indonesia as presented during the 3rd Freemuse world conference in Istanbul last November.

The testimonies at the conference had one thing in common: Musicians were attacked, censored and even jailed. These musicians represent an unwanted identity within their countries – it could be a Kurdish identity in Turkey or a Punk identity in Cuba.
The governments in these countries wish to control music because music represents the free expression of ideas, traditions and emotions of individuals and of peoples.

The Taliban, The Turkish State, The Cuban Government, Mr. Mugabe, Mr. Rubert Murdoch, Prince Talal and many others with big powers feel threatened by the very nature of a free exchange of ideas and a diversity of identities. In that sense the real clash of civilisation is between those who have control over the minds of people and those who resist these attempts of mind control.

I neither hope nor believe that they will successfully be able to silence the music.

Grieg and the Danish Connection Franz Liszt, Mentor for Edvard Grieg Grieg's a minor concerto as a national canon  Music and Identity