Rock Concerts and Rushdie

We had some intense conversations this weekend at the indie music salon, especially with the gentlemen from IndieCan, who poured advice and encouragement over us till we glowed with their goodwill. It was empowering to hear of the huge strides they’re making across the country to electrify and connect independent musicians, and it was soul warming to know they do it because they believe, as I do, that thriving independent voices have wider repercussions for the freedom, innovation, prosperity and creative flourishing of a whole culture. It reminded me - in a personal, hand-shaking and hugging way - of why we do this and how big the context for this struggle is.

As this Indyish group blog gains some momentum and strength I hope we can use it to build links between us, promote art, share news, talk about processes, and also to look outwards - to question the fundamentalisms and critique the dull monopolies that constraint creation, celebrate the ISH in things, and hopefully help build community and support for independent voices in neighborhoods across the world where the struggle is even harder.

Last week hung with a memory of September 11, of course, and if you’ve been following the human rights reports you’ll know that the past two months have been a hell of hangings in Iran. Unnamed people, some identified as journalists, are being murdered by the state nearly every day, sometimes 10 at a time. In early August 230 people were arrested in Iran for having a rap/rock concert.

“This is the first time that tens of male and female participants have been invited to such an event through an internet call,” he told the semi-official ISNA news agency. Rock concerts are rarely permitted in Iran but are sometimes held illegally in venues such as underground car parks.

Lord love ‘em.

I read this and think of Rushdie, because I’m reading Step Across this Line (thanks Serah,) a collection of Rushdie’s non-fiction from the 10 years following the fatwa. Salman Rushdie has lived the twisted impact of censorship enforced by terror in a more public way then anyone alive, with the help of rock stars like Bono from U2 who felt common cause with him and helped amplify his struggle. With the fatwa Rushdie became a focal point for artists of all kinds subject to terrorizing control. They sent him their stories and he sought them out. In Step Across this Line Rushdie reports on all this from a unique, un-enviable but powerful position -powerful only because he choses to report rather then be silenced.

I breathed a sigh of relief, breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, when I read Rushdie’s description of Canada’s reaction. Turns out I do like to identify with a national identity that supports human rights.. shocking.. anyway:

“In November (1992) Iran’s prosecutor general, Morteza Moqtadaei, said that all Muslims were obliged to kill me, thus revealing the falsehood of Iran’s claim that the fatwa had nothing to do with the Iranian government. Ayatollah Sanei, the man behind the bounty, said that volunteer hit-squads were to be dispatched. Then, at the beginning of December, I made it across the Atlantic again: to Canada, as the guest of Canadian PEN. (Was any writer ever given more help by his colleagues? If I ever get out of this, it will be my life’s work to try and give back just a little of the aid, and passion, and affection I’ve been given.) At a PEN benefit night in Toronto (…) The Premier of Ontario, Bob Rae, bounded on stage and embraced me. He thus became the first head of any government to stand with me in public.“

It goes on, with Canadian all party support, which is nice to hear.

I don’t remember the politics.

What I remember instead is just a feeling. The leader of one country calls for the murder of a citizen of another country who’s crime is in storytelling? You out there with hyperactive imaginations who, like me, grew up the children of artists in this decade might share the memory of the dread that crept into kitchens and bedrooms then.

I was 12 and the fatwa is how the non-fictional “Muslim world” entered my awareness for the first time, and that’s a shame.

Rushdie again:

“If zealotry is to be tolerated because it is allegedly part of Islamic culture, what is to become of the many, many voices in the Muslim world - intellectuals, artists, workers, and above all women - clamoring for freedom, struggling for it, and even giving up their lives in its name? What is “theoretical” about the bullets that struck William Nygaard, the knives that wounded Italian translator Ettore Capriolo, the knives that killed the Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi?

After nearly seven years, I think we have the right to say that nobody has been angry enough about this state of affairs. I have been told in Denmark about the importance of cheese exports to Iran. In Ireland it was halal beef exports. In Germany and Italy and Spain other kinds of produce were involved. Can it really be the case that we are so keen to sell our wares that we can tolerate the occasional knifing, the odd shooting, and even a murder or two? How long will we chase after money dangled before us by people with bloody hands?“

Rushdie’s perspective is from a moving centre of the inevitable but often nauseatingly hypocritical conversation that goes on between global trade and global morality. Reading his book this week, and finding common cause with the other Indie’s has galvanized me. Indyish will be keeping an eye out for news from the international struggle for artistic freedom and we’ll continue questioning the forces - economic and religious - that constrain our fellow artists. If there are stories you think we need to talk about, email us at editors@ Indyish.com. We are lucky to be relatively safe here in Montreal, and we hope you’re safe expressing yourself where you are but if not please know we’re with you. Peace guys.