Music, I believe, is the strongest dialogue you can make with other people. Music lifts the veil of darkness from the Truth. Maybe this is why some mullahs are afraid of music. They are afraid that if people are free to access the Truth they would lose their high paying gig and power over the young. They see music as a competitor. Thus they wish to ban music. As a believer I’m a passionate promoter of a Musical Jihad against fanaticism, hate and bigotry from all sources: Muslim and Non-Muslim, secular or faith-based.
Freemuse has for years documented the clashes between music and power groups — politicians, radical religious forces and states. But Freemuse has not only defended freedom of expression for musicians, composers and the public, I’ve experienced several times how Freemuse creates platforms for dialogue and understanding.
Salman Ahmad
As a musician who has faced censorship in my home country Pakistan there is no conflict between my faith and my music. You can be a Muslim and play electric guitar. During a Freemuse conference in Beirut in 2006 I was pleased to be part of one of the rare occasions where music and religion is taken seriously and where discussions on music and Islam focussed on theology and not just social and cultural patterns.
I’ve played at the Roskilde Festival in 2000 under the banner of Freemuse, a couple of years after my band Junoon was banned in Pakistan because we protested against the nuclear power tests in India as well as our own country. Why escalate the arms race when people still need water? Why see our neighbours as enemies when we are so close to each other?
I’ve taken part in Freemuse dialogue meetings and press meetings. They have always been great meetings places for musicians, researchers and journalists and I’ve always felt that understanding the motivations behind and the mechanisms of censorship have been in focus — not just condemning censorship. Having said that, we, the artists, should always be ready to defend our colleagues when the rights to freedom of expression are attacked, and thus we need an organisation such as Freemuse to help us do this.
