"These people don't want us to be happy. They want us to sit in the ruins and cry."

This is how you stand up to bullying fascist assholes.

...Last week, music lovers got another jolt when gunmen broke up the concert of popular singer Amar Hassan at An Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus. Hassan shot to local fame last year after he came in second in a Lebanese TV version of "American Idol," a competition of aspiring artists in which fans vote for their favorites.

Before the Nablus show, militants from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades came to Hassan's hotel room. They told him he must sing only political songs, and cut love songs from his repertoire. The Al Aqsa gunmen, who have ties to Fatah, told Hassan that light-hearted entertainment is forbidden as long as Israel occupies the West Bank.

Hassan said he ignored the demands, and started his concert before a crowd of 6,000. During his show, dozens of gunmen and hundreds of protesters rallied outside the university's walls. Gunmen fired in the air and threw stun grenades, eventually forcing Hassan to break off the performance. As concertgoers left the campus, the protesters barged in, throwing chairs and scuffling with those leaving.

Hassan said in an interview Tuesday that he would not be silenced. "These people (the militants) don't want us to be happy.They want us to sit in the ruins and cry," he said. "We will wage a creative war against them, with more poems, more art, more singing."

Labels: politics

¶ July 13, 2005