Centerfield

Osama Senses a Disturbance in the Force

The Boston Globe reports on a Clash-like punk band for young American Muslims

The Kominas, whose name means ''bastards" in Punjabi, say they hate labels but offer ''Bollywood Muslim punk" to describe their sound, a blend of punk, metal, and Bhangra folk music. The lyrics, written mainly by Usmani, are clever, sometimes risque commentaries on racial profiling, foreign policy, and religion.

The Kominas are among the first American Muslim musicians to emerge from a nascent punk culture its adherents call Taqwacore, the name taken from a novel by a white convert to Islam named Michael Muhammad Knight. If it develops -- and channel MTV Desi has already done a spot on the Kominas -- the band will likely be remembered as Taqwacore's pioneers.

I can't begin to describe how positive a development I think this is, and I hope it has legs. Culture changes are very often only achievable via slow multi-generational movement. The voices of muslims who view both American culture and the most rigid aspects of islamic culture with a jaded eye are good ones to listen to. Punk rock is IMO a form of folk music, and the audience is people who feel unmoved by the preachings of the spectrum of the loudest mainstream popular messages. Artists such as these can testify with the kind of credibility that is only granted to those who complain about the bullsh!t being shopped by both sides.

It's only a little punk band, for sure. But it offers the hope of an oppositional culture for muslim youth, one that questions the received wisdom of authority. There's nothing more vital to a vigorous democratic culture than to question authority and the received wisdom it declares sacrosanct.