[thechat] Flaws in Cultures

[Erik Mattheis]

At 2:24 PM +0500 9/26/02, Syed Zeeshan Haider wrote:
>  > I recently heard some music from Pakistani which tried to emulate
>  > "grunge rock" - [...]
>
>Let me guess. Wasn't that "Junoon" group? It has three members
>Salman Ahmed, Ali
>Azmat and Brian O'Connor. Brian is a white guy from New York

No - it was a band that has no recordings: the radio piece focused on
the fact that the "grunge" phenomenon was in Pakistan and "garage
bands" exist there - the music was recorded at a live concert. I
think it was in Karachi.

>  > I live in Minneapolis, and can't leave my apartment during the day
>  > without seeing a dozen or so women wearing hijab, and can't go into a
>>  single independently owned convenience store without buying something
>>  from a Middle Easterner. Here is an article about the very visible
>>  presence of Somali Muslims in Minneapolis:
>>  <http://www.startribune.com/stories/1507/3238538.html>
>
>Sorry, Hijab is not something to wear. Hijab means "hiding", it is a Practice.
>It includes the hiding entire body of a woman except face, hands and feet.

In English, we say "hijab" to mean any covering of the head by
Islamic women. We know the full body covering except for the head and
hands as a "burka". In Minneapolis, it's pretty much just the Somali
Muslims that wear the full burka - from my personal observation, the
majority of the non-Somali Muslim women here wear pretty much Western
clothing and just cover their head.

>I am happy to hear about such freedom for Muslims in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis, has a huge mix of races and ethnicities: Hispanic,
Somali, Hmong and others from SE Asia, American Indian and of course
black and white (... of course including Jews) ... and although
people from different cultures tend to live in their own
neighborhoods, we all shop at the same Kmart and think nothing of it
... and even better, all the ethnicities have their own restaurants
... and I can go to all of them without fear, often sitting at the
only table of white people, yum. Food tastes better to me when it's
served by someone who doesn't speak English very well.

And more importantly, most of us choose to get along side by side. As
I understand it, you sometimes are afraid of other Muslims in
Pakistan just because your views are more liberal than theirs! And
you yourself seem to have a bit of a problem with Pakistanis who
enjoy listening to different _music_ than you do - no offense
intended - but it's odd that you find it pleasurable to have been
exposed to Micheal Jackson, but experience something near moral
offense because other Pakistanis enjoy the style of different Western
musicians.
--

__________________________________________
- Erik Mattheis

(612) 377 2272
http://goZz.com/

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