In San Jose, anti-corruption groups and individuals continue their campaign to remove vestiges of nepotism, corruption and mismanagement at Northside Community Center. This campaign has been in full swing since about 2002/2003. Anyone remembers the first meeting of the anti-corruption coalition? These groups—several Filipino and other grassroots organizations of color—are seeking to improve ethnically attuned services and programs for city residents and to have a more inclusive public space and forum for dialogue.
Let's hope and make sure the local park and recreation department and the city council take steps to bring in a new management team who will work closely with various Filipino organizations and other community groups of color and will create an inclusive and collaborative environment.
This reminds me of the political corruption problems in the Philippines (with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo exercising fraud and violence in the May 2007 election) and the mismanagement of the World Bank by Paul Wolfowitz.
People are shouting in the streets and are calling for,
"Give Us Back Our Community Center / No More Corrupt Managers!"
"Stand for Credible Elections / Fight against Election Fraud and Violence [in the Philppines]!"
"Oust GMA!"
"Junk Wolfowitz and the World Bank!"
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Homeland security racism and other analytical concepts
Last week, I spoke at a migration panel held at a nearby college. Sponsored by KQED public television, the panel focused on "The Benefits of Immigrants in Silicon Valley." I elaborated on the following concepts:
- Homeland security racism
- Migrants not properly compensated for their contribution
- Migrant cultures of resilience
At the end, I mentioned the need to rethink citizenship in terms of acquiring and exercising "multiple citizenships" for everyone, rather than simply repliciting the creation of citizens and non-citizens as distinct categories by the state. In addition, I suggested that migrants consider engaging in a range of political activities beyond simply striving for narrowly defined citizenship rights in the U.S. context.
Fil-Am lawyer wants individual counsels for NY trial of Pinay nurses
Article posted April 06, 2007 - 11:44 AM
http://www.gmanews.tv/print/37242
The Filipino-American lawyer defending the 10 Filipino nurses on trial in New York for conspiracy and child abandonment wants the Philippine government to provide his clients with individual lawyers.
In a press statement sent to GMANews.TV, Salvador Tuy accused the government of abandoning the plight of the distressed Filipino nurses, including medical doctor Elmer Jacinto who left the Philippines to work as a nurse in New York, who walked out of a home care facility for disabled children in April last year.
They were accused of conspiracy and for endangering the lives of their patients when they walked out allegedly without proper notice. The nurse complained that SentosaCare that recruited them to New York failed to comply with the terms of their contract, a matter they supposedly brought to the attention of the concerned authorities.
Salvador Tuy represented the nurses when they were arraigned last month before Judge Robert Doyle of the Riverhead Country Criminal Court. The nurses and their lawyer Felix Vinluan pleaded 'not guilty' to the charges filed against them.
Tuy said the Philippine Consulate General in New York City only promised to secure funding for the defense of the nurses, but not to provide individual counsels at the government's expense.
Tuy accused the Philippine government of taking the side of the nurses' recruiter purportedly because of its close association with a former official of Malacanang.
Tuy also wanted the government to suspend Sentosa's license to recruit while the country and thousands of Filipina nurses are awaiting the outcome of the case in New York where contract violations were allegedly committed against 55 Filipina nurses who were recruited to work in the USA .
"This is to protect more Filipinas from suffering the same fate as those now in the USA and facing trial just because they had the guts and temerity to file administrative charges against Sentosa," Tuy stated.
On April 6, 2006, lawyer Felix Vinluan filed discrimination charges on behalf of 28 Filipino nurses and physical therapist against several New York-based nursing home facilities affiliated with Sentosa Recruitment Agency.
Sentosa Recruitment Agency supposedly recruited the 28 Filipino healthcare workers and had them sponsored as immigrant workers by its NY-based nursing home affiliated facilities.
The nurses signed individual employment contracts with their respective nursing home-petitioners. Upon their arrival in the United States, most of them were not given immediate employment.
Some were initially made to work as clerks with much lesser salaries. Most of them were assigned at facilities different from the nursing home facilities that sponsored them.
Their working hours were reduced from 37.5 hours a week to 35 hours a week. And all of them, without exception, were not made direct-hire employees of their respective petitioning employers. Instead, they were made agency employees of Sentosa Services/Prompt Nursing Employment Agency, a non-entity to their employment contracts.
The nurses received their salaries and employment benefits from Sentosa Services/Prompt Nursing Employment Agency.
The nurses claimed that had they been directly employed, they would have been directly-hired employees of their respective petitioning employers and would have received the salary rates and benefits being received by regular employees of their petitioning employers.
http://www.gmanews.tv/print/37242
The Filipino-American lawyer defending the 10 Filipino nurses on trial in New York for conspiracy and child abandonment wants the Philippine government to provide his clients with individual lawyers.
In a press statement sent to GMANews.TV, Salvador Tuy accused the government of abandoning the plight of the distressed Filipino nurses, including medical doctor Elmer Jacinto who left the Philippines to work as a nurse in New York, who walked out of a home care facility for disabled children in April last year.
They were accused of conspiracy and for endangering the lives of their patients when they walked out allegedly without proper notice. The nurse complained that SentosaCare that recruited them to New York failed to comply with the terms of their contract, a matter they supposedly brought to the attention of the concerned authorities.
Salvador Tuy represented the nurses when they were arraigned last month before Judge Robert Doyle of the Riverhead Country Criminal Court. The nurses and their lawyer Felix Vinluan pleaded 'not guilty' to the charges filed against them.
Tuy said the Philippine Consulate General in New York City only promised to secure funding for the defense of the nurses, but not to provide individual counsels at the government's expense.
Tuy accused the Philippine government of taking the side of the nurses' recruiter purportedly because of its close association with a former official of Malacanang.
Tuy also wanted the government to suspend Sentosa's license to recruit while the country and thousands of Filipina nurses are awaiting the outcome of the case in New York where contract violations were allegedly committed against 55 Filipina nurses who were recruited to work in the USA .
"This is to protect more Filipinas from suffering the same fate as those now in the USA and facing trial just because they had the guts and temerity to file administrative charges against Sentosa," Tuy stated.
On April 6, 2006, lawyer Felix Vinluan filed discrimination charges on behalf of 28 Filipino nurses and physical therapist against several New York-based nursing home facilities affiliated with Sentosa Recruitment Agency.
Sentosa Recruitment Agency supposedly recruited the 28 Filipino healthcare workers and had them sponsored as immigrant workers by its NY-based nursing home affiliated facilities.
The nurses signed individual employment contracts with their respective nursing home-petitioners. Upon their arrival in the United States, most of them were not given immediate employment.
Some were initially made to work as clerks with much lesser salaries. Most of them were assigned at facilities different from the nursing home facilities that sponsored them.
Their working hours were reduced from 37.5 hours a week to 35 hours a week. And all of them, without exception, were not made direct-hire employees of their respective petitioning employers. Instead, they were made agency employees of Sentosa Services/Prompt Nursing Employment Agency, a non-entity to their employment contracts.
The nurses received their salaries and employment benefits from Sentosa Services/Prompt Nursing Employment Agency.
The nurses claimed that had they been directly employed, they would have been directly-hired employees of their respective petitioning employers and would have received the salary rates and benefits being received by regular employees of their petitioning employers.
Books to get and study
Andrew Gelman and Jennifer Hill’s Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models.
Samir Amin’s Obsolescent Capitalism: Contemporary Politics and Global Disorder.
Michel Chossudovsky’s The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order.poem for fely garcia
MISTERYO NG HAPIS
by Joi Barrios Leblanc
April 2007
(Para kay Fely Garcia, domestic worker sa New York na diumano’y nagpatiwakal)
Nakabitin siyang
natagpuang patay,
Anong misteryo ng hapis.
Ang tanging sinisiwalat
Ng pantali sa kanyang leeg
Ay sanhi ng pagkamatay,
Di nito maibubulalas
Ang hapdi ng kaluluwa,
O ang dalamhating inipon sa dibdib.
Ang ipinagluluksa natin
Ay di ang katawang walang buhay,
Di isang numero sa statistiko
ng mga manggawang nangibang-bayan
Di lamang si Fely, ang mahal nating si Fely,
Kundi si Huli, laging si Huli,
Katulong na bayad utang,
Lahat tayong inaakalang
Aliping bayad utang.
Tanging ang kanyang pagkamatay
Ang misteryo.
Ang kahirapang nagtutulak sa pagluwas
ang trahedya na nakasakmal sa ating mga leeg,
At tayo’y nakikibaka, bawat saglit nakikibaka
Para sa bawat hiningang walang pangamba,
Para sa luwalhati
Ng kaunti man lamang pag-asa.
Joi Barrios Leblanc
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan
MYSTERY OF SORROW
(For Fely Garcia, a domestic worker who allegedly committed suicide in her New York apartment)
The woman in the closet
Hangs dead,
A mystery of sorrow.
The sash around her neck
Tells only of the cause of death,
Not the pain of the spirit,
Nor the longing of the heart.
So we mourn,
Not the lifeless body,
Nor the overseas worker statistic,
Not only Fely, dear Fely,
But Huli, ever Huli,
A servant paying for debt with life.
All of us they consider as slaves,
paying for debt with life.
Only her death
Is a mystery.
The poverty that drives us to exile
Is the tragedy
That wrings our necks,
And we fight,
Each moment we fight
For glorious hope,
For every fearless breath.
by Joi Barrios Leblanc
April 2007
(Para kay Fely Garcia, domestic worker sa New York na diumano’y nagpatiwakal)
Nakabitin siyang
natagpuang patay,
Anong misteryo ng hapis.
Ang tanging sinisiwalat
Ng pantali sa kanyang leeg
Ay sanhi ng pagkamatay,
Di nito maibubulalas
Ang hapdi ng kaluluwa,
O ang dalamhating inipon sa dibdib.
Ang ipinagluluksa natin
Ay di ang katawang walang buhay,
Di isang numero sa statistiko
ng mga manggawang nangibang-bayan
Di lamang si Fely, ang mahal nating si Fely,
Kundi si Huli, laging si Huli,
Katulong na bayad utang,
Lahat tayong inaakalang
Aliping bayad utang.
Tanging ang kanyang pagkamatay
Ang misteryo.
Ang kahirapang nagtutulak sa pagluwas
ang trahedya na nakasakmal sa ating mga leeg,
At tayo’y nakikibaka, bawat saglit nakikibaka
Para sa bawat hiningang walang pangamba,
Para sa luwalhati
Ng kaunti man lamang pag-asa.
Joi Barrios Leblanc
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan
MYSTERY OF SORROW
(For Fely Garcia, a domestic worker who allegedly committed suicide in her New York apartment)
The woman in the closet
Hangs dead,
A mystery of sorrow.
The sash around her neck
Tells only of the cause of death,
Not the pain of the spirit,
Nor the longing of the heart.
So we mourn,
Not the lifeless body,
Nor the overseas worker statistic,
Not only Fely, dear Fely,
But Huli, ever Huli,
A servant paying for debt with life.
All of us they consider as slaves,
paying for debt with life.
Only her death
Is a mystery.
The poverty that drives us to exile
Is the tragedy
That wrings our necks,
And we fight,
Each moment we fight
For glorious hope,
For every fearless breath.
Islamic street preachers
From Boston to Lahore and beyond, the tentacles of taqwacore - aka Islamic punk rock - are spreading. And it's giving disenfranchised young Muslims a voice, says Riazat Butt
Riazat Butt
Saturday April 28, 2007, Guardian (UK)
http://music.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329793613-122428,00.html
There can't be that many female playwrights who are deaf, punk and Muslim, so Sabina England is something of a find. With a lurid Mohawk and leather jacket slathered with slogans, she looks every inch the rebel and has an attitude to match.
Sabina, who says she lives in the "shitty midwest of the United States" or the "HELL-HOLE OF BOREDOM AND YUPPIES", is part of a subculture that, until a few years ago, existed only on paper.
The Taqwacores - a novel about a fictitious Muslim punk scene in the US - has spawned an actual movement that is being driven forward by young Muslims worldwide. Some bands - such as the Kominas - have a cult following. Others, such as Sabina, are virtually unknown. In a brief email exchange, she lays out some harsh truths.
You're a playwright. What do you write about?
"I write plays about fucked up people in fucked up situations, because we're all fucked up human beings that live in a fucked up society. People need to quit whining and shut up and realise that we're all freaks, whether we admit it or not."
Where are your ideas from?
"Being a deaf woman from an Indian Muslim family growing up in both England and the US, I've never felt I fit in or belonged anywhere. So I was always forced to be an outsider, and because of this, I'd just watch people and observe their actions and words. I guess a lot of my ideas come from my alienation and anger."
How well known is the taqwacore phenomenon where you are?
"Muslims around here would rather act like a model minority and don't really want to rattle anybody's chain. I really want to move to New York City, if I can get my plays produced there. Unfortunately it seems many theatre companies are too scared to do my works, or think I only cater to Indians and Pakistanis and won't attract white people. But they're fucking wrong, and they can't see beyond racial boundaries. Fucking worthless piece of shites."
What does taqwacore mean to you?
"It means being true to myself, having my own faith, and interpreting Islam the way I want to, without feeling guilty or being looked down at by other Muslims."
What is the future for taqwacore?
"It's gonna get bigger. A lot of Muslim kids are tired of being told what to do, how to think, what to believe in, and how to act, by their parents. There are 'the angry muslim kids' who wanna grow beards and pray five times a day, and then there are the OTHER 'angry Muslim kids' who wanna get drunk and say a huge big 'fuck you' to the Muslim population. Or maybe they just don't care and wanna sit at home and not think about Osama's video speeches about how America is the Great Satan."
How her words would fare with Michael Muhammad Knight, author of The Taqwacores and an unwitting idol to the young and restless, is anyone's guess. Knight, who is 29 and lives in New York with his dog Sunny - "not as in Sunni Muslim" - downplays his achievement of single-handedly inspiring this subculture that has produced artists such as the Kominas, Secret Trial Five, Vote Hezbollah, Al-Thawra, 8-Bit and Diacritical.
"There was a scene already," says Knight modestly, whose next novel will be titled Osama Van Halen. "I just gave it a name. There were kids out there, doing their thing. I don't think of it as a movement, though, just a group of friends supporting each other."
Knight wrote the book to deal with his own issues. He converted to Islam as a teenager and admits he "burned out" from being so religious. "I was so intense. I felt Islam was so black and white and there were no grey areas. These Muslim kids, who are punks, they are in these grey areas."
The kids he refers to have all devoured Knight's work, some taking it literally.
"One kid," he says, "thought the book was non-fiction and thought that stuff in the book actually happened. He got in touch. He said if it wasn't real, that he would make it real." He sounds worried by the suggestion that his book will be a manifesto for Muslim punks. "If the scene develops, I don't want it to be based on my book."
The words stable, door, horse and bolt spring to mind. Some Muslims are deeming his book to be nothing short of a revelation. "When I read The Taqwacores," says Basim Usmani, frontman of The Kominas, "all my reservations about Islam melted away."
Usmani was born in New York and moved around the US when he was growing up. "I had this identity that stretched way further back than these disenfranchised white kids I was hanging out with, but they were the ones who showed me the most respect. I entered America where I was weird and, when I went back to Pakistan, I was weird there too. I was too Pakistani to be American and too American to be Pakistani."
His aggression was ongoing, although he freely admits his rage didn't come from social dynamics. "In Boston I was middle class. In Pakistan, where I am now, I am definitely upper class. But the poverty here is intense and that makes me angry."
Basim first played with Boston-based outfit Malice In Leatherland, supporting horror punk band the Misfits. It was during this time that he heard about Knight's book.
"I read the book and I'm amazed. I send him an email and he called. I saw a lot of myself in it. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a story." Neither he nor his taqwacore comrades confess to embracing the more debauched antics of the novel - which has one character urinating over the Qur'an and then reading from it and a female Muslim veil-wearing punk, performing oral sex, onstage, in front of 200 people.
Understandably, Usmani was nervous approaching Shahjehan Khan, also in the Kominas, about the book. "I didn't know how he would react, he's not punk, but he was cool about it. He read it in one day. You could say it was a catalyst for the Kominas." Their songs are irreverent and un-PC. His favourite track, he says with a snigger, is "I Want A Handjob" - a jibe at Pakistani rockers Junoon (who launched a Muslims For Bush campaign for the 2004 elections).
Usmani left the US just as the Kominas were breaking through into mainstream culture. But he has a new band - the Dead Bhuttos, a variation on the Dead Kennedys (who released their first single through the independent record label Alternative Tentacles, the very label that picked up Knight's book for distribution).
A future project, hopes Usmani, will be a Punjabi version of the Billy Bragg song There Is Power In A Union. "I'd like it to be a song for the Pakistani workers 'cos they don't really have one," he muses.
The Kominas, currently on a gigging hiatus, will tour later this year in North America. "It seems weird to leave just when we were on the brink. If I'd stayed then I would have been playing to sympathetic white liberals. I didn't want that. In Pakistan, people want to rebel against the police and religious authority and punk is the perfect way to do that."
He's put a downpayment on a bus and decorated it with the shahadah [the Muslim declaration in the oneness of God]. "I have no idea how we're going to get it through customs."
Meanwhile, Khan is in Boston mixing the Kominas debut album: "We've put some EPs out but this is our first official release. There will be remixes of our old stuff like Suicide Bomb The Gap."
Khan says he looks like a typical engineer - with glasses and a goatee - and comes from a comfortable, middle-class background. But he appreciates what taqwacore has done for him. "I was like, where has this book been all my life? None of us know where taqwacore is going or what's going to happen. It is a subculture that could influence culture in general. It's nice to be part of something at the beginning."
One of the newest recruits to the taqwacore scene is Secret Trial Five, from Vancouver. Lead vocalist Sena Hussain, 25, took her inspiration directly from the Kominas. "We saw them play and we were all into punk music anyway. We haven't had a chance to rattle some cages, we only got together last summer, but I expect we will. That's the point of punk."
Proposed title tracks include Hey, Hey, Guantanamo Bay and Emo-hurram, a pun on the first month of the Islamic calendar. And, in a male-dominated culture, she thinks they will face challenges from all sides. "It's another thing that drives us," she says, "Muslim women are seen as helpless and oppressed. We want to prove that wrong. I used to sport a mohawk, I don't now, but we will totally play up the punk thing.
"There's so much animosity towards Muslims and we need a dissenting voice to say 'fuck you' to people who pigeonhole us." Hussain, who is looking for a new guitarist, adds: "It's only fitting that we identify ourselves as taqwacore, that's where we got our inspiration from, and I think that's the way the genre will grow - and I hope it does."
- Riazat Butt presents Islamophonic, www.guardian.co.uk/islamophonic
Riazat Butt
Saturday April 28, 2007, Guardian (UK)
http://music.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329793613-122428,00.html
There can't be that many female playwrights who are deaf, punk and Muslim, so Sabina England is something of a find. With a lurid Mohawk and leather jacket slathered with slogans, she looks every inch the rebel and has an attitude to match.
Sabina, who says she lives in the "shitty midwest of the United States" or the "HELL-HOLE OF BOREDOM AND YUPPIES", is part of a subculture that, until a few years ago, existed only on paper.
The Taqwacores - a novel about a fictitious Muslim punk scene in the US - has spawned an actual movement that is being driven forward by young Muslims worldwide. Some bands - such as the Kominas - have a cult following. Others, such as Sabina, are virtually unknown. In a brief email exchange, she lays out some harsh truths.
You're a playwright. What do you write about?
"I write plays about fucked up people in fucked up situations, because we're all fucked up human beings that live in a fucked up society. People need to quit whining and shut up and realise that we're all freaks, whether we admit it or not."
Where are your ideas from?
"Being a deaf woman from an Indian Muslim family growing up in both England and the US, I've never felt I fit in or belonged anywhere. So I was always forced to be an outsider, and because of this, I'd just watch people and observe their actions and words. I guess a lot of my ideas come from my alienation and anger."
How well known is the taqwacore phenomenon where you are?
"Muslims around here would rather act like a model minority and don't really want to rattle anybody's chain. I really want to move to New York City, if I can get my plays produced there. Unfortunately it seems many theatre companies are too scared to do my works, or think I only cater to Indians and Pakistanis and won't attract white people. But they're fucking wrong, and they can't see beyond racial boundaries. Fucking worthless piece of shites."
What does taqwacore mean to you?
"It means being true to myself, having my own faith, and interpreting Islam the way I want to, without feeling guilty or being looked down at by other Muslims."
What is the future for taqwacore?
"It's gonna get bigger. A lot of Muslim kids are tired of being told what to do, how to think, what to believe in, and how to act, by their parents. There are 'the angry muslim kids' who wanna grow beards and pray five times a day, and then there are the OTHER 'angry Muslim kids' who wanna get drunk and say a huge big 'fuck you' to the Muslim population. Or maybe they just don't care and wanna sit at home and not think about Osama's video speeches about how America is the Great Satan."
How her words would fare with Michael Muhammad Knight, author of The Taqwacores and an unwitting idol to the young and restless, is anyone's guess. Knight, who is 29 and lives in New York with his dog Sunny - "not as in Sunni Muslim" - downplays his achievement of single-handedly inspiring this subculture that has produced artists such as the Kominas, Secret Trial Five, Vote Hezbollah, Al-Thawra, 8-Bit and Diacritical.
"There was a scene already," says Knight modestly, whose next novel will be titled Osama Van Halen. "I just gave it a name. There were kids out there, doing their thing. I don't think of it as a movement, though, just a group of friends supporting each other."
Knight wrote the book to deal with his own issues. He converted to Islam as a teenager and admits he "burned out" from being so religious. "I was so intense. I felt Islam was so black and white and there were no grey areas. These Muslim kids, who are punks, they are in these grey areas."
The kids he refers to have all devoured Knight's work, some taking it literally.
"One kid," he says, "thought the book was non-fiction and thought that stuff in the book actually happened. He got in touch. He said if it wasn't real, that he would make it real." He sounds worried by the suggestion that his book will be a manifesto for Muslim punks. "If the scene develops, I don't want it to be based on my book."
The words stable, door, horse and bolt spring to mind. Some Muslims are deeming his book to be nothing short of a revelation. "When I read The Taqwacores," says Basim Usmani, frontman of The Kominas, "all my reservations about Islam melted away."
Usmani was born in New York and moved around the US when he was growing up. "I had this identity that stretched way further back than these disenfranchised white kids I was hanging out with, but they were the ones who showed me the most respect. I entered America where I was weird and, when I went back to Pakistan, I was weird there too. I was too Pakistani to be American and too American to be Pakistani."
His aggression was ongoing, although he freely admits his rage didn't come from social dynamics. "In Boston I was middle class. In Pakistan, where I am now, I am definitely upper class. But the poverty here is intense and that makes me angry."
Basim first played with Boston-based outfit Malice In Leatherland, supporting horror punk band the Misfits. It was during this time that he heard about Knight's book.
"I read the book and I'm amazed. I send him an email and he called. I saw a lot of myself in it. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a story." Neither he nor his taqwacore comrades confess to embracing the more debauched antics of the novel - which has one character urinating over the Qur'an and then reading from it and a female Muslim veil-wearing punk, performing oral sex, onstage, in front of 200 people.
Understandably, Usmani was nervous approaching Shahjehan Khan, also in the Kominas, about the book. "I didn't know how he would react, he's not punk, but he was cool about it. He read it in one day. You could say it was a catalyst for the Kominas." Their songs are irreverent and un-PC. His favourite track, he says with a snigger, is "I Want A Handjob" - a jibe at Pakistani rockers Junoon (who launched a Muslims For Bush campaign for the 2004 elections).
Usmani left the US just as the Kominas were breaking through into mainstream culture. But he has a new band - the Dead Bhuttos, a variation on the Dead Kennedys (who released their first single through the independent record label Alternative Tentacles, the very label that picked up Knight's book for distribution).
A future project, hopes Usmani, will be a Punjabi version of the Billy Bragg song There Is Power In A Union. "I'd like it to be a song for the Pakistani workers 'cos they don't really have one," he muses.
The Kominas, currently on a gigging hiatus, will tour later this year in North America. "It seems weird to leave just when we were on the brink. If I'd stayed then I would have been playing to sympathetic white liberals. I didn't want that. In Pakistan, people want to rebel against the police and religious authority and punk is the perfect way to do that."
He's put a downpayment on a bus and decorated it with the shahadah [the Muslim declaration in the oneness of God]. "I have no idea how we're going to get it through customs."
Meanwhile, Khan is in Boston mixing the Kominas debut album: "We've put some EPs out but this is our first official release. There will be remixes of our old stuff like Suicide Bomb The Gap."
Khan says he looks like a typical engineer - with glasses and a goatee - and comes from a comfortable, middle-class background. But he appreciates what taqwacore has done for him. "I was like, where has this book been all my life? None of us know where taqwacore is going or what's going to happen. It is a subculture that could influence culture in general. It's nice to be part of something at the beginning."
One of the newest recruits to the taqwacore scene is Secret Trial Five, from Vancouver. Lead vocalist Sena Hussain, 25, took her inspiration directly from the Kominas. "We saw them play and we were all into punk music anyway. We haven't had a chance to rattle some cages, we only got together last summer, but I expect we will. That's the point of punk."
Proposed title tracks include Hey, Hey, Guantanamo Bay and Emo-hurram, a pun on the first month of the Islamic calendar. And, in a male-dominated culture, she thinks they will face challenges from all sides. "It's another thing that drives us," she says, "Muslim women are seen as helpless and oppressed. We want to prove that wrong. I used to sport a mohawk, I don't now, but we will totally play up the punk thing.
"There's so much animosity towards Muslims and we need a dissenting voice to say 'fuck you' to people who pigeonhole us." Hussain, who is looking for a new guitarist, adds: "It's only fitting that we identify ourselves as taqwacore, that's where we got our inspiration from, and I think that's the way the genre will grow - and I hope it does."
- Riazat Butt presents Islamophonic, www.guardian.co.uk/islamophonic
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