Dear Andreas,
The Gateway Pundit just published a music video released last June by 26-year-old Pakistani pop star, Rabi Pirzada. This is her first non-pop record, a Sufi devotional entitled "My Repentence" in Urdu. Her voice and the music are very beautiful and the drone footage of Lahore gives Westerners a very interesting and rarely-seen slice of life in Northern Pakistan.
The video, which on her personal YouTube page is billed as a "bold effort to speak against terrorism" shows Pirzada as a young woman receiving the components of a bomb belt, which she assembles. These scenes are intercut with serene images of her singing at a mosque and the aerial drone footage. The video finishes with her blowing herself up, choosing not to murder innocents at the market. Um. Did something get lost in translation?
The video came to light in the West after a Twitter beef started last Friday when Pirzada responded to Dutch opposition leader Geert Wilders' purposefully inciteful free speech activism event, the 'Draw Mohammed' contest.
"Freedom of expression can never justify blasphemy," Pirzada tweeted, "Making cartoon of Prophet is the worst act of terrorism. The Sketch makers must be hanged immediately."
This is hardly Sufi behavior and it runs counter to Pirzada's description of this video on her YouTube page: "To condemn Terrorism and promote the beauty of teachings of Islam." Her Twitter account was briefly shut down after several users complained.
The 'Draw Mohammed' contest caused over 10,000 supporters of the Tehreek-i-Labaik Pakistan party to demand the Pakistani government expel the Dutch Ambassador and to end all diplomatic ties with the Netherlands! A 19-year-old Afghan man with residency in Germany traveled to Amsterdam last Friday and stabbed two American tourists at the central train station, naming Geert Wilders and claiming he was motivated by perceived insults to Islam in the Netherlands.
Although Wilders' anti-Islamic activism is repellent, his influence has grown in recent years after several European artists were threatened and murdered by Muslim terrorists over stupid things like cartoons. In 2009, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith banned Wilders from entering the UK, labeling him an "undesirable person" but he was able to overturn the ban the following year. Wilders is not welcome in other countries but this hasn't stopped him from working to start the International Freedom Alliance, a network of groups and individuals who "are fighting for freedom against Islam" in the US, Canada, Britain, France and Germany.
Wilders' 'Draw Mohammed' event was canceled but his point had been made. Nicknamed "Captain Peroxide" for his obnoxious hairdo and matching personality, Wilders has lived under constant death threats since 2004, due to his persistent anti-Muslim rabble-rousing. He tweeted: "The cartoon contest proved once again that Islam and freedom are incompatible. We use the pen, they use the sword. We draw cartoons and they threaten us with violence and terror. Islam does not belong to us. We must de-Islamise in order to stay free!"
As for the lovely songstress in this video, Australian Reformist Cleric Imam Mohammad Tawhidi claims to have uncovered Pirzada's ties to members of the prolific global militant Islamist organization, Tablighi Jamaat in this article on OpIndia.com.
In researching her myself however, she seems quite bourgeois. She does not dress like the character in this video, she wears jeans and sometimes wears a saree. Her father was an officer in the Pakistani Army and it appears that her terrorist "links" consist of a selfie on Sunday with Inzimam-ul-Haq, a famous retired cricketer who is now a member of the radical Tablighi Jamaat group.
She remains unrepentant about her statements in defense of her faith. I don't know if this is standard practice in Pakistan or if she is affecting radical chic or if the Pakistani government's strident behavior created pressure for her to conform – or if it's just a publicity stunt.
In any case, would that relations between Islam and the West could be as sweet as Rabi Pirzada's voice...
Running Time: 4 min
