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No Terrorists at the Top of the Pops
Pakistani pop ballad deeper than it sounds, Salon 's Leonard says
By Heather McPherson
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Posted Aug 15, 07 6:41 PM CDT
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(Newser)
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A certain Pakistani pop song would be piffle if it were a love song, but it's not: it's an anti-terrorist ballad, an emblem of a “society-wide identity crisis,” and as such it has meaning, writes Salon’s Andrew Leonard. Eight pop idols recorded the “We Are the World”-style ballad, and it’s become a major hit.
Brainchild of a British Muslim, the tune proclaims, “This story that is being spread in our names is a lie/The name by which you know us—we are not that.” Not only a “welcome counterpoint” to images of the Red Mosque siege, it's also a “heart-rending” expression of social pain.