3:AM Magazine

Andy Blade was lead singer with early punk legends Eater. He is also the author of one of the best punk memoirs ever published, The Secret Life of a Teenage Punk Rocker: The Andy Blade Chronicles. Andy still makes music, and has just recorded a new album all by himself. “Mi’amo Jihad” (video above) will be the first single from this new album. This animation video was produced by Hass, Andy’s brother, a “vociferous ‘apostate’” who recently lost faith in Islam after 25 years. 3:AM asked Andy Blade why he wrote this song:

Why did I write the song? Suicide martyrs are an old hobby horse of mine. Terrorism and Paedophilia are the only remaining taboos in both the media and society, both frighten the public, and the media, of course, love that. Acts of terror, by their very nature, are sensationalist. Sensationalism on the front page accompanied by a picture of an exploded car/train/plane/bus gives the green light to a government to rein us in and step up their own operations in the name of ’security’, which in turn, hands extremist groups excuses to bomb us. What “Mi’amo Jihad” represents is a middle finger to Big Brother, the populist media, the brainwashed tabloid readers and the brainwashed sheep who dream up and carry out these attacks. No one is ever going to achieve their aims by force anymore, be it the armies that represent our nations, the secret services or the ‘terrorists’, those days are gone. The world has changed. People are waking up and arming themselves, not with weapons, but with bullshit detectors. Bullshit detectors terrify goverments far more than a bomb ever can, providing us with an opportunity to laugh at these people instead of crying with despair. We’ve had enough vengeful rhetoric since 9/11 and it’s not working. Let’s be honest, the real reason the west has engaged upon this ‘war on terror’ is because our leaders will not tolerate the cage being rattled — the fact that the bogeymen cage-rattlers are Islamic funamentalists is neither here nor there. Wealth and power require order. Order cannot be maintained whilst the plebs are rattling the cage.

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Here Andy Blade comments on the following Yahoo News item:

“Muslim groups in Britain placed advertisements in British national newspapers in praise of the emergency services and to declare that terrorism is ‘not in our name,’ borrowing the slogan from the mass protests in Britain against the invasion of Iraq. The ads from the Muslims United coalition also quoted the Quran: ‘Whoever kills an innocent soul, it is as if he killed the whole of mankind. And whoever saves one, it is as if he saved the whole of mankind’.” All well and good, but the Koran also states quite clearly that Jews, Christian, apostates, unbelievers etc. should be slain — and it doesn’t mean hypothetically either. It’s too late to go back and edit out the contradictions in the big book, so what are you left with? Moderates ignoring the ‘kill them all’ verses and extremists ignoring the ’save the souls’ declarations (of which there are far fewer than the ‘kill em all’ ones). You are an ‘unbeliever’ if you doubt one word of the Koran, which leaves Muslims in a bit of a quandary really, doesn’t it? The extremists, from my experience, seem to study the Koran in depth, the moderates, not so (and when they get to a nasty bit, they make excuses for what good old God actually meant, or they skip past it) which is why the extremists always claim to be the REAL deal Muslims — which, quite frankly, one would have to, statistically, agree with. So what is the point of ‘not in my name’? None whatsoever unless they create a new edition of the Koran. That would never happen though, because then they too would be unbelievers. What a fucking mess. Good luck Mr Brown. Good luck community leaders. Putting a PG rating on an 18 movie does not make it PG. True Islam (’as featured in the Koran’) is quite clearly not a religion of peace so I wish they’d stop fucking saying it was.

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ISLAM CALLING

Despite an increasingly militant wind blowing through the Muslim world of late, there has been a surprising growth in the number of British converts to Islam in recent years; boxer Chris Eubank, snooker star Ronnie O’ Sullivan, musician Richard Thompson and footballer Freddie Kanoute, to name but a few. Even former Taliban kidnapee, journalist, Yvonne Ridley, whom I would have thought would never want to see another copy of the Koran again in her life, succumbed to Islam’s mystical allure.

What surprises me about British people becoming Muslims is that I would have thought they might consider Islam just a little scary. I’m not talking about the obvious ‘scary’ reasons here, you know, blowing people up, post 9/11 implied association with terrorism or the xenophobic fantasies of Robert Kilroy-Silk, no, I’m talking a different type of scary. The giving up of good old British normality scary; the exchange of one identity for another. If you’re born into the faith and its tacit cultural ties, however tenuously, as I was, you have to endure what’s foisted upon you in the name of your religion, whether you like it or not, but to join up of your own free will? That’s madness, surely? I spent half my life trying to escape its claustrophobic embrace, which makes me only more curious as to an outsider’s attraction to the world’s second largest religious institution.

I was unaware that London Mayoral reject, Frank Dobson’s son, Joe, had become a Muslim until my elder sister sent me some old newspaper cuttings about Westerners turning to Islam in an ongoing, vain attempt to get me to see the light and join her in her devotion to Allah. Sadly, Dobbo Junior’s transformation wasn’t enough to stir me into giving up my highly prized, doctrine of free life. Nor was the piece on Princess Diana’s supposed interest in Islam, inspired by romantic flings with a Muslim doctor, a Muslim surgeon and a Muslim playboy. Diana, it would seem, took a very hands-on approach in her particular voyage of discovery. At the rate she was going, were it not for her untimely death, the list might well have included half a dozen more high-profile Muslims. Good looks weren’t always a consideration, just look at Dodi. Salman Rushdie could have been next, perhaps even Abu Hamza the hook-handed cleric. Who knows? Had she lived and taken up art, she may at some point have knocked out a Tracey Emin style bedouin ‘love tent’, it would have been so cool.

Another of the articles my sister sent me was on Christiane Backer, a former MTV presenter who’d turned away from the world of television and was now concentrating on fulfilling her new found religious duties. Her conversion, I believe, had more than a little bit to do with her marrying a Muslim. I remember meeting her once at a book launch and was so struck by her beauty, I wanted to marry her too. If I’d have thought she would have been impressed by my half Egyptian/half English, pseudo-Muslim heritage, I would have done my utmost to make her aware of it rather than banging on about the stupid band I was in at the time. Like many other converts who have married into the religion, Christiane seems to be taking her acquired faith very seriously. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, in fact it’s quite sweet. It tells the world that, so devoted are you to your husband, that you’ll merrily take on board his beliefs as well as his name. It’s no worse than agreeing to support the same football team or pretending to like your new in-laws, I suppose.

Hass. My elder brother Hass’s embracing of Islam had nothing to do with falling in love with anyone. All through my life, Hass had been an incredibly big influence on me. He was almost two years older, which counts for quite a lot when you grow up with someone. As the eldest of the three boys in our family, he was always the first to ‘do stuff’, the pioneer, be it going to school, riding a bike, smoking cigarettes, having sex, taking drugs, whatever. I was never jealous of any of it, on the contrary, he was a guiding light. Whereas with Lutfi, who was almost two years younger than me, there was a lot of rivalry, jealousy and one-upmanship going on. None of that kind of behaviour existed between Hass and I. I aspired to be like Hass. To me he was well balanced, funny, a brilliant storyteller and an excellent footballer. He was a good brother too. He looked after me and Lutfi, Hass did.

It was Hass who encouraged me with my first band when we started out. It was he that booked, and even lost money, but never complained, on our first gig with The Buzzcocks in Manchester. After the band broke up, It was Hass and his friends I wanted to be with, to regain some focus and pick up the threads. Hanging out with him was more than just fun, it felt right. He was like a good version of me, I thought. Then one day in the Spring of 1980, the Hass I knew dropped off my radar scanner. The last time I’d spoken to him he was about to go camping with his girlfriend Diane at a three day hippie festival in Lancashire. The next time I saw him, an impostor had taken his place. The impostor had found God and become a devout Muslim.

I tried hard to understand him and his reasoning, but none of it made much sense. When Lutfi followed suit a couple of years later, I didn’t know what to think anymore. Two of my five sisters were already practising Muslims, which meant that nearly 50% of my family had been lost to religion. It was a mystery because there had been nothing in our upbringing to endear us whatsoever to, what was essentially, my father’s jettisoned belief system. If adultery, drinking, gambling and hypocrisy were the attributes of a good Muslim, my Dad was a paragon of all Islam stood for. So proud was he of his roots he changed his name from Aziz to ‘Jean Pierre’ and told everyone he was French.

My sisters, I’d come to take for granted for the way they were, but Hass and Lutfi had always been such rebels. We’d even formed our boyhood gang, The Black Aces, as a reaction against joining the Scouts. We didn’t ‘do’ movements or institutions. Hass hadn’t even lasted more than two terms at the supremely liberal North London Polytechnic because of what he considered the loss of freedom to stay home, smoke dope and read Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers’ comics. Religion was something that weird, insecure people got into. Why now, seemingly of his own free will, would he want to go and join that club?

Hass’s religious awakening, he later told me, was precipitated by an incident that occurred at the hippie festival in Lancashire. He and his girlfriend, Diane, had been taking a stroll above the valley the event was set in. It was sunset and very beautiful. They could see all the campfires and hustle and bustle below. As they walked down the side of the valley he heard, as clear as a bell, the call to prayer, or the Azan, as it’s known. “Strange” he said, “where could that be coming from? Can you hear it? That’s the Muslim call to prayer!” “What is?” Replied Diane “That is!” He replied, but she could hear nothing. He couldn’t understand why she couldn’t hear it. They went looking for the source, but found zilch. He took it, literally, as his calling. The experience was to change the course of his life forever.

My Dad, very likely the original ‘Original Sinner’ saw an advantage in Hass’s conversion, and milked the situation for what it was worth. He changed his name back to Aziz, pretended to be reborn also, and for a while his act was quite convincing. He thought he’d lost his chance to control the life of his eldest son a long time ago and now here, by the grace of God, he’d been given another crack of the whip. This time he would make sure he didn’t lose his grip. For a start, Hass’s girlfriend would have to go, so resentful was he of her. My dad had lost his punch bag. That would have to stop. It was payback time. She wasn’t a Muslim and never would be, was my father’s considered view of the relationship, and he made sure Hass saw it like this too. As a reward for his conversion and, more importantly, as a tool for wrenching Hass out of the flat and her life, he took him to Egypt for a month, hoping, correctly, that he’d never return to her. In Egypt, with his once treasured Marc Bolan locks unceremoniously shorn, Hass was introduced to potential Muslim wives and poor Diane was forgotten about.

Whenever anyone has a spiritual rebirth they tend to evangelise for a time. Hass was no exception. He’d regularly give me Islamic literature to read, it’s subtext explaining how I was doomed to burn in hell unless I grew a beard and learned Arabic. Because it was my trusted elder brother, though, I gave him a chance to clarify his mission. If he’d fallen for this stuff, I reasoned, there must be at least something in it. Occasionally, I even agreed to accompany him to the mosque in Regent’s Park, where I’d not only have to endure the embarrassment of following a prayer routine I didn’t believe in or understand, but then have to suffer groups of earnest men, a lot of whom once had English names but were now called ‘Khalil’ or ‘Mohammed’, explaining, in further, more prosaic detail, about hell and how to avoid it. There was no joking around or discussing philosophy with these boys. A sense of humour, it seemed, was a tendril from Hades. The converts were a hundred times worse than those born into the faith. They all looked the same and sounded the same. Like clones, with beards.

One of the recent converts I was introduced to was Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens. Hass had only just embarked on what would prove to be a long time association with the born again rock star. One evening, after prayers, Hass dragged me off to a corner of the mosque to meet some of his new friends, who were sitting in a semi circle on the floor. Yusuf was amongst them and beckoned for us to sit beside him. We chatted rather inanely for about fifteen minutes. My reply to his question; ‘So what do you do?’ was met with a few words of disapproval of my choice of career and the music business in general. At the end of our little discussion, as we were getting up to leave, Yusuf put his arm around Hass’s shoulder and whispered something. I just knew it was about me. Hass told me on the way to the car that attention had been drawn to the holes in the knees of my jeans. Oblivious to my holey fashion statement and ever on the lookout for a good deed opportunity,Yusuf had stuffed a twenty pound note into Hass’s hand and asked him to buy me a new pair of trousers.

Lutfi’s rebirth was more the result of a well thought out, ideological choice rather than a profound spiritual experience, which is typical Lutfi. Ever the pragmatist. It didn’t take him long to take on board all of the political hobby horses that seem to go arm in arm with becoming a Muslim. He could be quite extreme in his thoughts and actions at times. Had it been the 21st century instead of 1981, Lutfi would have been a perfect recruit for Al Quaeda.

Lutfi tempered many of his views, however, after he got married and started a family. Although a lot of his friends that attended the wedding might have looked like suicide bombers, the majority of them were just fellow Geography graduates, with beards. Behind the confrontational rhetoric, they were quite a peaceable bunch, really. The ceremony was held at the Regent’s Park mosque and an impressive spread was laid on.

Yet another convert, the former world champion boxer, Mohammed Ali, was attending the mosque for another purpose that day, but, noticing the celebrations taking place, made a point of wishing the happy couple well. Quite a crowd gathered around him. I was determined to say hello, and waited patiently in line. I proffered my hand and he shook it, surprisingly limply, sadly, Parkinson’s disease had recently been diagnosed. There was an overall slowness of movement and speech that was unsettling and it was hard to imagine him as the great boxer he once was. Sitting there, frail looking in his skullcap with an unsteady gaze, I imagined for one sardonic second, that I could have smacked him one as hard as I could and have been front page news the following morning.

The West , largely, sees Islam as a confrontational religion and I can understand that. As I see it, one of the major differences between Islam and other religions is not so much in what the Koran says, but the way in which that message is interpreted and delivered from the pulpit. Not just in mosques around the world but at religious gatherings, rallies and even on the variety of media, such as tapes, compact discs and videos that are made available.

Try attending a church sermon, a talk on Buddhism or perhaps a new age type seminar given by a charismatic self-help guru and then a corresponding Muslim get together. You will notice the difference immediately. The former is usually delivered with an air of serenity and compassion, fake or otherwise, often with a well-pitched, well-scripted sense of humour. The audience will nod, sigh or laugh at the appropriate moments. Muslim meetings, sermons, or whatever, contain very little, if any, of these attributes or styles. The overriding theme, instead, appears to be the laying down of some kind of threat, that God is very angry, getting angrier by the minute and wants you to ‘do something’ about it. There are no such things as hymns in Muslim ceremonies or services, but if there were, they’d probably sound something like the heaviest of heavy Death Metal anthems ever written.

When a meeting happens to be held in Arabic, a vitriolic sounding zest appears to amplify the implicit menace, tenfold. A literal translation would probably prove that the message is exactly the same, but it just sounds worse because of the harsh, guttural sound of the Arabic language. Just asking for the time in Arabic can sound alarmingly angry. So much of this is the bluster factor contained within the use of the language and inherent in so many of its indigenous speakers. They seem to like it. This could explain, as anyone who has ever visited an Arab country will testify, why they always have their radios and television sets turned up so loud they distort. I think they do it because it sounds angrier that way.

The call to prayer, the Azan, that Hass heard during his spiritual awakening was full of beauty and resonance. When you hear the same words, five times a day, blaring out of loudspeakers, from an old worn-out cassette, atop a mosque’s minaret in Cairo or Tangiers, the racket sends out quite a different message. An order. A threat. Its delicate appeal is mugged. Absent is the intended elegiac and heavenly attraction that might lure a lost soul to a safe haven from a world brimming with fear, pain, sorrow and loss. Instead, it is reduced to sounding more like a furious Egyptian builder who’s accidentally dropped a sledgehammer on his foot.

Had my brother heard this cacophony rather than the perceived, sweet voice of an angel, he might just have assumed that Hawkwind had taken the stage, rolled a spliff and carried on with his life as normal.

There are, of course, many different reasons for becoming religious, but to many, adopting a religion is purely a lifestyle choice, as much as it is an unbending spiritual calling. A bit like deciding what to be when you grow up. Some religions just happen to fit in to your own social conditions better than others. Location, age and social standing usually play a big part in such deciding factors.

It’s the same with most religions, although it seems even more apparent with Islam, that the more disaffected, disappointed and distant you are from society, the bigger the welcome you might receive on induction day. New British Islamic converts are unlikely to be Habitat loving, fondue munching, media executives or ‘I’m a Celebrity…’ watching single mums from Croydon. I’m not trying to stereotype here, it’s just true.

To convert to Islam, it appears, a slightly more radical bent is necessary. Social mores and the surrounding environment of an area are not such an issue. If getting religion is all about making a statement about yourself, becoming a Muslim in the 21st Century (as opposed to being born into the faith) is like rejecting ‘the system’. Much in the same way that the Hippies did, but with very strict rules, potentially more frightening consequences and far less lovable spokesmen than John Lennon or Timothy Leary.

Although Cat Stevens’ conversion to Islam in the late 1970’s was the result of a spiritual experience (a near drowning), there was definitely a certain politicising that went hand in hand with his embracing of Islam. When I met him in the mosque, as we sat on the floor and talked, I got a small sense of peaceful commune but a massive sense a sense of angst-driven agit-prop.

Soon after becoming a Muslim, he began donating generously to Islamic charities, some of them, I’m sure he’d freely admit now, he might have done well to check their credentials a little more thoroughly first. However, any accusations that he knowingly funded terrorism are ridiculous. Donating to charities and the needy is as much a part of being Muslim as is praying, but there is a tangible limitation in choice of charities presented to the newcomer. Of course, that is not to say that you cannot give to whoever you want to, but it’s not as simple as that when you’re swept along with the tide of your new found faith. To confuse the issue even further, Islamic ‘charities’ are sometimes, little more than self-contained political movements. This in itself, is often part of the attraction for the newly converted. It’s radical. It’s hard. It’s in your face. “Look at me Ma, I’ve gone all scary!”

The truth of the matter is that Yusuf Islam likes helping people. His biggest problem is that he doesn’t know how. The easiest way is to donate money, it’s his way of showing he cares. Like most celebrities, he is out of touch with the reality that most of us know so well. Remember, he’s been in the public eye, a rock star no less, for over three decades. He is also very wealthy, a trapping of his fame and success that cocoons him from the rest of the world, leaving him at the mercy of advisers, yes men and sycophants to plot his day to day activities. He wouldn’t know how much a pint of milk costs. When my brother split from his wife and became temporarily homeless, Yusuf gave him the money to buy himself a flat. Hass didn’t ask for it, he was busy arranging a mortgage, but as soon as Yusuf heard about his plight, he wanted to help, it was as simple as that.

As so often happens, the arrival of his children served to take the edge off any of his acquired radicalism, indeed, as they have grown up and begun listening to music and indulging in the various aspects of teenage culture, he has been encouraged, if not coerced by them to take up performing again.

“This is my wake up call!” He recently told my brother, after the US’s knee jerk decision to bar him entry into the United States as an undesirable. The incident shook him and with it came a realisation that what he thinks Islam stands for is not neccessarily how others see it. If anyone knows anything at all about Cat Stevens’ music or Yusuf as a person, it is that he stands for peace, love and crap album covers. He has every reason to feel aggrieved by their actions, however, he seems to accept that by association, if he doesn’t keep these things in check and take responsibility for how he expounds his religion, Islam’s new distorted, usurped and thus blemished reputation will precede him.

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Saturday, July 7th, 2007.