Taqwacore is both a fictional book described as “Catcher in the Rye” for young Muslims and a documentary film on the birth of Punk Islam. The trailer, press and web site weren’t as interesting as I had hoped. It’s all a little too slick and calculated, almost as if it’s being done because it’s such an obvious dichotomy, the purporters knew it would generate interest. I’m still interested in seeing the film, although I distrust anything to do with organized religion and gung-ho adoption of popular culture. And speaking of… I’ve also got some year old video of skateboarding inside the Catholic school system. The real story isn’t the skateboard that was designed and given to the Pope, instead it’s Father Peter Pomposello dragging his knuckle on the gym floor at St. Elizabeth’s in Washington Heights, NYC.
– Thanks to Tito and Sarib Khalsa for the tips.
Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam
Holy Rolling for the Pope from MSNBC.
11 comments
101ers77
Islam and punk rock don’t mix. Muslims don’t deserve those mohawks, they should go back to wearing turbans and go back to listening to those weird-geeky-islamic music.
Welsh Pete
Narrow-minded wankers don’t ‘deserve’ punk rock. They should go back to pre-fab/ manufactured, formulaic tosh.
kilwag
WINNER: Welsh Pete!
Boy Ipoh
yes there’s huge metal scene in India.. And some in Pakistan as wells. Speaking of Muslim Punks. well it’s not something new. From where i’m from. We have metal / thrash metal scene since early / mid 80’s and punk in the late 80’s. Later Hardcore and grunge in the early 90’s. And all of us in this underground music scene were Muslims. yes i’m from Malaysia and Malaysia is an Islamic country. Skateboarding begin here in the mid 80’s sometime 1984. Nothing suprise me when i see the taqwacore. Maybe it’s new to the arabs muslims and speaking of arabs i think Tukish have mny great old punk and hardcore bands from the early 90’s. Maybe the differences between malaysian muslims hc punk kids is that…well none of Malaysian band preached about religion in their music. We never claim our music as muslims punks or muslim -core…but there is once few Indonesian band claim themselves as Muslim core coz they think if there’s KrshnaCore like shelter / 108 or babygopal or Christian core like Bloodshed, Unashamed from Tooth And Nail records stuff…then they think why no we have Muslimcore…btu again it never happend in Malaysia coz we think not everyone in the scene is muslims and we live in multiracial community and we don;t wnat it to be bias. So we never preached religion in our messege and that’s Malaysian HC punk is like.
egbert
Skateboarding…Catholic Priests…I’m smelling a collab deck with Deathwish in the shape of a eleven year old boys penis.
jake
and as for the papist skateboarding… i wanna see where this papist ripper kid is at, cause with those toys r us ramps, they arent gonna get much better. Christianity and skateboarding probably shouldnt be mixed. It seemed like that priest just found an easier way to get these kids brainwashed and it seems it has worked.
jake
they filmed a scene for that movie at the tower in cleveland ohio and were paying kids 50 bucks but they had to get make up on and shit…
conahan
or mall punk.
ssk
Might as well throw this one on the pile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XI8Bhjr8WM
Looking around, seems like there are punk bands just about everywhere. I had no idea.
Apparently there is a whole metal scene in India. Blowing my mind. I did not expect to see bands this tight out of there.
http://www.myspace.com/bhayanakmautmusic
http://www.myspace.com/kryptosindia
Makes you wonder whether there are real skate scenes too.
JKP
…and no point either.
brk
islamic punk? seems the same as christian punk. no gods, no masters.