"I don't give a fuck what they say," is Malian rapper Amkoullel's terse answer to a question about the Islamist music ban. "We won't let
them get away with it. We don't need them to teach us how to be Muslims.
We're a secular tolerant country, where everyone declares their religion according to their feeling. And in any case, they know that a Mali without music is an impossibility."
"I'm a Muslim, but Sharia isn't my thing," says Rokia Traore, one of Mali's most famous international stars. "If I couldn't go up on stage anymore, I would cease to exist. And without music, Mali will cease to exist."
More news from a strange planet: At one level its heartening to hear people defiant in the face of such obtuseness; still, you can't but help feel depressed at the speed with which this plague is spreading...
Yesterday I had an intriguing conversation with someone who has gone the other way. Started out as a real firebrand, "the most hardcore person in my batch", someone who wrote polemical articles saying the killing of certain minorities was justified to someone who now doesn't believe. Smart, articulate, and with an incredible passion for reading, understanding, this person, a historian of sorts, is now an avid fan of classical music (Chopin). But it does make you wonder: how can one hold such views in the first place? Is it just 'natural' if you're brought up in a household were such views are rife? Also, what is it that makes someone switch? In his case it seemed to be that the defeat of the Taleban wasn't followed by the end of the world. And finally, what is it that actually changes: the content of one's thoughts, the style of thinking, a change of heart?
This is a question for all of us, really. Especially when you hit middle-age and realize that your views are becoming even more rigid by the day and you're becoming more set in your ways, literally hungering for some sort of order in your life (you must admit that the extent of it is nothing more troublesome than not having your butter in a butter tray and having jam out of a jar rather than from a small bowl. How anal is that!).
"I'm a Muslim, but Sharia isn't my thing," says Rokia Traore, one of Mali's most famous international stars. "If I couldn't go up on stage anymore, I would cease to exist. And without music, Mali will cease to exist."
More news from a strange planet: At one level its heartening to hear people defiant in the face of such obtuseness; still, you can't but help feel depressed at the speed with which this plague is spreading...
Yesterday I had an intriguing conversation with someone who has gone the other way. Started out as a real firebrand, "the most hardcore person in my batch", someone who wrote polemical articles saying the killing of certain minorities was justified to someone who now doesn't believe. Smart, articulate, and with an incredible passion for reading, understanding, this person, a historian of sorts, is now an avid fan of classical music (Chopin). But it does make you wonder: how can one hold such views in the first place? Is it just 'natural' if you're brought up in a household were such views are rife? Also, what is it that makes someone switch? In his case it seemed to be that the defeat of the Taleban wasn't followed by the end of the world. And finally, what is it that actually changes: the content of one's thoughts, the style of thinking, a change of heart?
This is a question for all of us, really. Especially when you hit middle-age and realize that your views are becoming even more rigid by the day and you're becoming more set in your ways, literally hungering for some sort of order in your life (you must admit that the extent of it is nothing more troublesome than not having your butter in a butter tray and having jam out of a jar rather than from a small bowl. How anal is that!).
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