| |
Rock group Junoon mixing politics with
music to good effect
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani rock group Junoon - once banned by the government from
appearing on television, and later even from entering the country - can now
boast President General Pervez Musharraf as a fan.
But although Musharraf attended their latest tour, the band have insisted they
remain as committed to their often-controversial political message as ever and
have not become part of the country’s establishment.
Junoon are famed for publicly raising views on issues that many in Pakistan
would rather be kept quiet, such as HIV/Aids, the Kashmir dispute, and
corruption. They dismissed Musharraf’s attendance at their gig as little more
than a stunt.
“The establishment has joined us,” guitarist Salman Ahmed on Sunday told BBC
World Service’s The Ticket programme.
“What it says is pop culture drives politics, so strongly, anywhere in the world
right now,” vocalist Ali Azmat adds.
Junoon are the biggest-selling group in all Asia and have a massive fan base
among the young in the Pakistan-India subcontinent. Their high-profile status
led, two years ago, to them becoming goodwill ambassadors for the UN on the
issue of HIV/Aids.
Ahmed, who attended medical college before joining the band, said that Junoon’s
high-profile status conferred special duties on the band.
“People don’t want to talk about safe sex - they don’t want to talk about sex to
begin with,” he said. “It’s something uncool enough for me to do to be honest
and say: ‘Look, you have to take responsibility. You can’t be in denial, you
can’t be looking the other way.’” He adds: “Each day 25,000 people get infected
by HIV/Aids in India alone. In Pakistan we don’t even know the figures.” Ahmed
says that he felt the youth of the region were being suppressed by the older
generation, which he said lacked direction.
“It’s really interesting on the subcontinent as far as youth is concerned
because 50% of the people are aged under 25. They’re really open to being in the
mainstream of society, to be modern yet hold on to their traditions,” he said.
“But the generation to which Musharraf himself belongs to, I think let down this
country. They didn’t know where to steer it.” Junoon have constantly been a
thorn in the side of Pakistan’s ruling authorities.
In the early 1990s a law was passed in Pakistan - aimed directly at the band -
banning “jeans and jackets” from appearing on television. “A lot of it had to do
with politics because we are very outspoken, and we criticised government
corruption through a video for a song called Accountability,” Azmat explained.
“(Former prime minister) Nawaz Sharif found that too hard to swallow, so he
banned us.” Ahmed added that Junoon’s effect had scared the authorities into
taking action against them - first establishing them as the voice of Pakistan’s
suppressed youth, a mantle they have held ever since.
“The reason for it was that before it happened there wasn’t really a youth
culture, and all of a sudden in the early 1990s there’s a platform appearing,”
he said.
“It’s a youth platform and people say whatever the hell they want to say, and it
shakes the status quo. “They don’t like that, so they said ‘these guys are
changing things around, let’s watch out for them.’” - Internews
|
|
