Singer Erykah Badu banned from Malaysia over temporary "Allah" tattoo

Badu deserves partial credit if she got a tattoo (rather, temporary body art) in non-Roman characters and actually knows what it says, unlike so many hipsters with "exotic" tattoos that may actually say "I have gout." The case is also a study in how multiculturalist arrogance -- the presumption of open-minded enlightenment -- can actually shoot itself in the foot and wind up committing various blunders through its free-wheeling and patronizing appropriation of other cultures' sacred symbols (the "Coexist" bumper sticker comes to mind).

Ultimately, though, it is another episode in the saga of Easily Offended Malaysia, where something that may once have been brushed off as silly and ignorant becomes a political football as an affront to Islam. "US singer Badu saddened by Malaysia concert ban," from Agence France-Presse, February 28:

KUALA LUMPUR — American singer Erykah Badu expressed sadness Wednesday at Malaysia's decision to ban her show after a photo of her with body art including the Arabic word for "Allah" caused anger.

Authorities in Muslim-majority Malaysia scrapped the concert Tuesday, a day before it was scheduled to take place in Kuala Lumpur after Badu's photo appeared in the biggest English-language paper, The Star.

The photo depicts the acclaimed singer with various symbols on her upper body including in Arabic and Hebrew.

Despite the fact the body art was not permanent and Badu no longer has it, Information Minister Rais Yatim banned the concert, saying it breached guidelines on "religious sensitivities and cultural values".

Tattoos are forbidden in Islam and many Muslims also frown upon depictions of the word "Allah" that are deemed frivolous or disrespectful.

A teary-eyed Badu said Wednesday she was "sad" not to be able to perform but understood the decision.

"I feel I understand. I don't have any heavy feelings about it because I understand (the minister's) position, and I respect the beliefs of the people who also feel the way he does," she told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

Badu said she would press ahead with plans to travel on Thursday to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, to perform there before returning to the United States.

She added art was often misunderstood, including in the US, but there "it is not such a harsh gesture to promote the name of God."

Razman Razali, managing director of organiser Pineapple Concerts, said The Star should have been more responsible. Rahman said government approval was given in December and more than 1,500 tickets had been sold.

Malaysian Islamic groups frequently oppose concerts by Western artists whom they accuse of promoting promiscuity and corrupting youths, but rarely are high-profile acts cancelled once initial approval has been granted.

The Star ran an apology on Tuesday, a day after the photo was published. Badu has stirred controversy before. She raised eyebrows in 2010 with a music video in which she strips naked while walking the street in Dallas, Texas, where president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

Too soon.

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Today in Tunisia they have found out that the system of what they got is not really working for them, as inflation goes up people are not getting what they need, read more about it. There might be another protest if carries on like this.

http://www.maghrebchristians.com/2012/02/29/tunisians-protest-rising-cost-of-living/

Plus thank Jihad watch in what you doing in the social network and the media today, keep up the good work.

Blessings

Youssef

funny! I read ot yesterday.
M

Badu is a racist moron. She actually did covers of "N__ggas With Attitudes' "Gangsta, Gangsta" and "F-- the Police"

She deserves all the bad fallout she gets after this dumb stunt of hers.

http://joebuddentv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=71754

I think with a lot of people who subscribe to multiculturalism and cultural relativism, they often seem to have so much hubris and ego that they think they've risen above the various cultural worldviews, and are looking at things from above. They lack the humility and self-awareness to understand that their multiculturalism is simply another worldview---and a very shallow, brittle and weak one, to boot, as is evidenced by how quickly they crumble and apologize when forcefully challenged by another, more violent worldview like Islam.

She seems lucky she still has her head, considering....guess that's 'cause she was going to a B list mulim nation.

Oh you don't want to get these people angry!!

Out comes a blunt knife and off with your head!!

They are nuts - they want to be Arabian - but their country is simply too far away!!

::

How many prominent artists have been banned or had trouble going over there - someone must have warned her that problems could arise.

A part of Pharrell Williams' group were locked up - or somehow ran into some local difficulties - in just that area.

PHARRELL WILLIAMS' hip-hop trio N.E.R.D. were forced to cancel concerts in Indonesia this weekend (21-22Mar09) after they were detained by Malaysian authorities for failing to gain the correct performance permits.

http://www.contactmusic.com/news/nerd-detained-in-malaysia_1098470

At one concert with a western singer - the Malaysian authorities - prevented Muslim citizens from attending - only the non-Muslims under that country's civil law could go.

They have a dual legal system. One Sharia - of which Muslims are largely caged in. Remember the hotel lounge police raid that caught a Muslim Malaysian woman drinking a glass of beer - who was then sentenced to a public flogging.

Like Erykah Badu - she was full of apologies and expressed understanding - too!!

What was Badu thinking scheduling concerts in Muslim countries like Malaysia & Indonesia?
Doesn't she know Islam is against music?

That tattoo is of a Burger King Ice Cream Cone Lid, not of the word "Allah".

About the Islamic conquest of India, here is what Will Durant, in his eight volume Story of Civilization, says on page 459-462 of Volume 1:

The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history...The first Moslem attack was a passing raid upon Multan, in the western Punjab (664 AD). Similar raids occurred at the convenience of the invaders during the next three centuries, with the result that the Moslems established themselves in the Indus Valley about the same time that their Arab co-religionists in the West were fighting the battle of Tours (732 AD) for the mastery of Europe...In the year 997 a Turkish chieftain...swept across the [Indian] frontier with a force inspired by a pious aspiration for booty. He met the unprepared Hindus at Bhimnagar, slaughtered them, pillaged their cities, destroyed their temples, and carried away the accumulated treasures of centuries...Each winter Mahmud descended into India, filled his treasure chest with spoils, and amused his men with full freedom to pillage and kill...he expressed his admiration for the architecture of the great shrine [at Mathura on the Jumna], judged that its duplication would cost one hundred million dinars and the labor of two hundred years, and then ordered it to be soaked with naphtha and burnt to the ground. Six years later he sacked another opulent city of northern India, Somnath, killed all its fifty thousand inhabitants, and dragged its wealth to Ghazni...The first of [the] bloody sultans [of the Sultanate of Delhi] was a normal specimen of his kind -- fanatical, ferocious, and merciless. His gifts, as the Mohammedan historian tells us, "were bestowed by hundreds of thousands, and his slaughters likewise were by hundreds of thousands." Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlak...killed so many Hindus that, in the words of a Moslem historian, "there was constantly in front of his royal pavilion and his Civil Court a mound of dead bodies and a heap of corpses, while the sweepers and executioners were wearied out by their work of dragging" the victims "and putting them to death in crowds."..His successor, Firoz Shah, invaded Bengal, offered a reward for every Hindu head, paid for 180,000 of them, raided Hindu villages for slaves...Sultan Ahmad Shah feasted for three days whenever the number of defenseless Hindus slain in his territories in one day reached twenty thousand...The usual policy of the Sultans was clearly sketched by Alau-d-din, who required his advisers to draw up "rules and regulations for grinding down the Hindus..." Half of the gross produce of the soil was collected by the [Islamic] government; native rulers had taken one-sixth. "No Hindu," says a Moslem historian, "could hold up his head, and in their houses no sign of gold or silver...or of any superfluity was to be seen...Blows, confinement in the stocks, imprisonment and chains, were all employed to enforce payment."

I have no idea who Erykah Badu is, or what kind of musician she claims to be, but her transliterative attempt at being hip, "Erica = Erykah" says it all.

But this is what I find incredibly irritating:

"She added art was often misunderstood, including in the US, but there 'it is not such a harsh gesture to promote the name of God.'"

Yeah, yeah, yeah - multi-culti, everybody say Allah together and get some ink, since all names for God mean the same thing, blah, blah, blah.

Pfft!

Multi-Culti Music Appreciation 101 - A:

http://www.ss.mtu.edu/faculty/Scarlett/WC/Lectures/5Music.pdf
________________________________________

From the "lecture above":

Krick - Krak!
Music and Cultural Performance
• Music as a window to view cultural blending:
religion, politics, identity, economics,
migration,…
• All cultural/social acts are performed!
• All performances are political…
• Academic vs. Folk
___________________________________________________________

Hey! Anything goes and everything "mixes", didn't you know?! "All performances are political".
______________________________________

Pfft! This is the garbage that passes for "Music Appreciation" classes at university, these days.

Whatever happened to methodical tracing of Western European Music? I guess we just all have to get tattoos now and forget about the Baroque, and Classical, and Neo-Classic and Modern, Post-Modern, Aleatoric, etc., periods of music composition.

Pfft!

I'm gonna' crank the Bach up - right now - before I start throwing things at my speakers!

Idiots, all of them...the moslems and the talentless Erykah Badu.

Badu also has had four kids with four different "baby daddies" one being Andre 3000 from Outkast. I used to like him but now knowing he had dealings with this loser, I lost all respect for him.

She also might not want potentital venues in sharia-compliant countries to know about her many out-of-wedlock-dalliances...

Singer Erykah Badu banned from Malaysia over temporary "Allah" tattoo
..............................

This isn't the first time Muslims have become unhinged over tattoos:

"Saudi Arabia: Morals police arrest Colombian soccer player for having tattoo of Jesus on his arm"

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/10/saudi-arabia-morals-police-arrest-colombian-soccer-player-for-having-tattoo-of-jesus-on-his-arm.html

More:

She added art was often misunderstood, including in the US, but there "it is not such a harsh gesture to promote the name of God.'"
..............................

More stupid cultural relativism.

In the US if your art is "misunderstood" it may affect album sales.

If your art is "misunderstood" in the Muslim world, it can lead to bannings, arrests, Fatwas, and maddened mobs howling for your blood.

And it has nothing to do with "promoting the name of God"—it's just that in the West we don't become unhinged over tattoos.

I have been listening to Badu's music for 20 years and always had to conventrate not to listen to her lyrics. She is not only a socialist but also a mohammedan. I also find her incredibly stupid. Doesn't mean her music isn't great though. I never went to any of her concerts because I despise her poltical leanings.

''Badu deserves partial credit if she got a tattoo (rather, temporary body art) in non-Roman characters and actually knows what it says, unlike so many hipsters with "exotic" tattoos that may actually say "I have gout."

Shrieks, Marisol !

''She added art was often misunderstood, including in the US, but there "it is not such a harsh gesture to promote the name of God."''

Extraordinary how these people don't listen to themselves. I've never heard of her, but she's clearly a fool.

I'm pretty sure that in any of the 500,000 days that have passed since the founding of Islam to today, that any person who showed up in any public place in the Dar as Salaam with a tatto of "Allah" on their body would have been instantly torn limb from limb by a howling mob. This is not some new phenomenon.

On the other hand, the kind of stupidity that would cause a non-Muslim woman to try to honor Islam in a way that would get her retarded self instantly torn limb from limb by a Muslim mob ... that IS new

Call me Lennie wrote:

On the other hand, the kind of stupidity that would cause a non-Muslim woman to try to honor Islam in a way that would get her retarded self instantly torn limb from limb by a Muslim mob ... that IS new
.....................

True that, Lennie.

It's hard to know if Erykah Badu should be considered "non-Muslim" or not, though.

She supposedly adheres to an absurd offshoot of the also ridiculous Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) founded by Clarence 13X known as the "Five Percent Nation of Islam", or as "Allah's Nation of Gods and Earths".

While "mainstream"—I use the word loosely—NOI members believe that Wallace Fard (one of the founders of NOI) was the incarnation of Allah on earth, the "five percenters" basically believe that really cool black people are Allah.

Quite a few Rap and Hip Hop artists are "five percenters", including Nas, Busta Rhymes, and—yes—Erykah Badu.

Of course, orthodox Sunnis and Shi'ites consider Black Muslims to be the worst sort of heretics. They only count NOI and its many offshoots as true Islam when they are attempting to inflate the numbers of Muslims in the West, especially the United States.

More stupidity here:

http://www.blackapologetics.com/fivepercentfaq.html

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