First, shout out to my brother Jay for putting this film on my radar.

So I watched a very swift documentary titled: Taqwacore – the Birth of Punk Islam today.  The title tells you what you’re in for, but it’s summed up equally well by one of the film’s characters: ‘A minority within a minority, within a minority.’  In a style reminiscent of Fight Club, a fictional book about a group of Muslims who became fans of punk helped spawn real second generation Muslims to find a passion for hardcore rock.  And not for the first or the last time in our ‘social media’ age, many of these individuals spread across the country were able to connect to each other and eventually meet in reality.

Taqwacore (the film) takes several interesting turns, among them when our punk group plays during an open mic session at an Islamic Center (I don’t think you have to be Muslim to figure out how well that went over); there are also some interesting chapters in Harlem with the Five Percenters, and even in Pakistan, as the group takes their extremely American musical style across the globe.  As implied earlier, the documentary doesn’t run a full 90 minutes, so if you have interest it doesn’t take up a lot of your time.

Finally I’ll say something real quickly about the latest ‘domestic terrorist’ incident.  Very few actual facts are still known at this time, so I won’t add my voice to those coming up with an opinion based on speculation.  What I do know is this: if we’re getting to a point where neither movie theatres or religious sanctuaries are safe, we are rapidly, RAPIDLY, going to become a police state.  And I’m fairly certain that’s not what any of us wants.

Hopefully lighter talks can resume later this week…