One can only hope T.R. is correct. Time to send in Lil' John ...

and a social/sexual order taken from the jim crow south. All the enemies of freedom are on the same side.

Right on, Thaddeus.

If your idea of righteousness doesn't include high-water booty, then you're no friend of freedom, and you're no friend of mine. Amen.

How does commercial exploitation of a women's sexuality equal freedom?

This article is one of the weaker article's i've read on Salon. It really makes no strong point.

Perhaps one point was that perhaps Muslims will become less fervent in their faith because of suggestive dancing?

Beyoncee dancing in her underwear hasn't kept anyone from church and the Muslim girls gyrating in tights won't keep people from the Mosque.

The other point seemed to be that somehow African American music is going to help establish democracy in the Muslim world.

African American rap music is VERY popular among practicing Muslims all over the world, and has been for some time. Heck - some of african american music is written & performed by muslims.

The article below talks about how Blues have roots in Muslims and Islam

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200604/muslim.roots.u.s.blues.htm

this is one of the most popular English speaking Muslim music groups in the WORLD:

http://www.nativedeen.com

Ignoring the above, if Jazz help bring the kind of democracy that Russia, Belarus and the central asian republics have now, maybe Muslims should campaign to ban it--maybe that's why America is turning into a less free country!

Just incase it isn't abvious..the last paragraph was meant in jest.

So Muslim youth love booty-shaking, rap, and bling-bling? That’s a good thing?? Not in my book. I’m a 20-something American Muslim woman living in the U.S., and Islam is my shield against the ubiquitous sexual exploitation of women and the crass materialism of pop culture and the music industry. I see my female counterparts in this country torturing and mutilating themselves to look sexy and beautiful, spending extravagantly to maintain the latest trendy lifestyle (and often getting into debt), and selling their sexuality for male attention. This isn’t freedom or liberation. This is slavery – slavery to ideals that are the antithesis of dignity, humility, and temperance.

Yes, music is a wonderful human pastime and a way to experience joy and express truths. But we need to make a distinction between music that uplifts the soul and brings true joy and understanding vs. music that cultivates all the negative traits of exploitation, violence against women, materialism, and vapidity.

So please don’t arrogantly presume that American pop culture will be the great liberator of the Muslim world. The thought of a Muslim Brittney Spears or Christina Aguilera or Missy Elliot makes my stomach turn.

It will do the same for Wahhabism. Religious fanatics have always complained of American black music, and the complaints make it more popular. The complaints themselves smell of easy hysteria and hypocrisy. These people are afraid that somehere, somehow, someone is having fun. Fun and pleasure, you see, are dangerous. Music and dancing are dangerous because you should be working all of the time. SOmeone might lose some power or profit if you think of yourself. What can be more dangerous to control than pleasure?

Freedom is choice. Work or play, or the timing of your work and play. How you play describes who you are. When you limit choice, you put yourself on the side of the enemy. Mainstream leaders try to use the bogeyman of music and media to frighten people into line. The majority of adults reject that, and it merely makes the anti-pleasure nuts look silly.

The fear of jazz is particularly telling. After all, the waltz was dangerous in it's day. Jazz-funk is still a fearsome force, making us move and forget our troubles. To enjoy the feel, the beat, the rhtym? You can't be controlled!

You can never beat the music. The music will always win. Fun is always greater than fear!

A cute little idea, this piece, with emphasis on little. As many high-concept books are weak because they were really magazine articles stretched beyond their intellectual heft, Salon's articles increasingly seem to be zingy one-liner headlines straining to be grown-up magazine articles.

Where this piece really shows its stretch marks is in the shortcuts it takes to make its point. Thad doesn't really know much about culture in muslim countries, and it shows. Indonesia may be the world's most populous muslim country, but they've been popping booty for a long time before hip-hop arrived on the scene. Dangdut is indeed global pop-culture fusion at its finest--but hip hop is a recent, and slight, addition to the mix. Dangdut was developed over a quarter century ago, from copying Indian and middle eastern dances and fusing with traditional Malay dance structures, which in turn are based on classical Southeast Asian dances that are thousands of years old. And ALL these style influences from way back in the day had a keen appreciation of the rump shake. Sure, 'drilling' cranks it up--er, down--a notch, but don't be telling bellydanceologists or Bollywood fans that Destiny's Child alums brought the butt-quake to Indonesia, or anywhere else in the Islamic world.

You wouldn't credit hip-hop culture with bringing us Shakira's truth-telling hips, would you? DO SOME RESEARCH, prof.

Another reason to 'click and watch a brief ad' rather than actually subscribing to this online collection of cocktail napkin doodlings.

In Zeitgeist, pages 220 and thereabouts in the paperback edition:

"I just got back off a pop tour through half of fuckin' Islam. [said Mrs. Elizabeth Ross, the American member of the pop group G-7] I've seen these solemn sons of bitches in their Ayatollah beards. I went eyeball to eyeball with them. I know what they mean. They are fuckin' medieval. They are a bunch of friggin' tribal morons. There's not room enough in the world for me and them. If I'm gonna be all I can be, those fuckin' losers have got to shut up shop and go."

She tossed her cigarette into the Bosphorous [the scene takes place in Istanbul]. "It's not half enough just to nuke 'em--they've got to *lose everything they believe*. I know they hate me. There's nothing they hate worse than an uppity bitch. Bein' an uppity bitch, I got myself one truly effective attack--I strip down to my scanties and *sit on their face*. Just put my butt-naked ass right into their satellite TV screen, man. Just straddle their big, beardy, Koran-quotin' lips. That scares the shit out of them. They're brave, they can give a shit about air strikes from Russia or NATO, but this"--she slapped her left buttock--"this is the one thing they know they can't survive."

"Betsy, you ever heard of a national-security pitch called 'Clash of Civilizations'?" [said Leggy Starlitz, one of G-7's promoters]

"I don't read much." She scowled. "So are you gonna help me out with my culture war here, or am I gonna have to settle your fucking hash too?"