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lUNOON, continued from page 45 In a recent concert, I noticed that women were sitting on one side and men were sitting on the other, for the most part. Is that normal at your concerts? ALI: This comes out respect for women. Women are queens. I'll give you an example: In Pakistan, if you go to a bank and there are 46 people in line, if you're a woman, all 46 men will move and let you go fi rst. If you're a man, you are number 92! There are certain norms in Pakistani society to respect women. Plus there's a great divide between men and women. It's not like Western society where men and women can freely roam about. Girls come to concerts with girlfriends and they sit together. Boys come with their friends and they sit together SALMAN: It's a conservat ive society. You are the UN Goodwill Ambassador for Pakistan in the fight against AIDS. What do you do in connection with this position? SALMAN: I am a spokesman for HIV AIDS. The UN offered me this responsibility back in June. I took it because our [Pakistani] society is ignorant of a soul- destroying disease like AIDS, because there is such a taboo of talking about safe sex, contraception and AIDS itself. I thought if Pakistan wanted someone to talk about these taboo subjects, it might as well be me. Twenty years ago in Pakistan I was studying to be a doctor. I quickly discovered most of the patients in our hospitals are from the rural areas. It costs $15 thousand to treat AIDS. In our country where the aver- age annual salary is $200, the only effective cure is pre- vention. Specifically, do you talk about AIDS/safe sex in your music as a way to inform? SALMAN: No. I have done a TV ad campaign/poster campaign to promote awareness. The standard UN AIDS awareness campaign in many count ries is the slogan: "I Care? Do you?" printed alongside the face of the HIV spokesman (there are many UN AIDS spokespeople, mostly international celebrit ies, such as Ricky Martin). I told the UN, if you want to reach Pakistanis, you have to find a common voice. I suggested the following new campaign: "If you save one life from AIDS, it's like saving the whole of humanity." This is derived from a very well known Koranic verse, "If you save one life, you save all of humanity. " You see in Pakistan many people still think that AIDS is an African disease. I think the campaign will make a huge dent in awareness. Another great thing is that the government is behind this. Before the [Pakistan] government didn't want to know about AIDS. How many of your fans are Islamic fundamentalists? SALMAN: I think the West mistakes the words "Islamic fundamentalist." I'm an Islamic fundament alist- and I'll explain why I say that. The five fundamental pi llars of Islam say: pray to God, give charity, perform the pilgrim- age to Mecca if you're able to, make the declaration: there is no God but God (and believe in all the prophets, their books and the day of judgement) and fast during the month of Ramadan. Anybody who believes in those pillars is a fundamentali st, in my opinion. But the Western media cal ls the re ligion-distorting extremist an Islamic fundamentalist. Fundamentalism doesn't imply distortion. There's been widespread unrest and violence throughout the Muslim world for the last decade. Why do you think this is? 62 SALMAN: Any society whose people aren't given their rights will become a desperate society- as a lot of the Arab world is. Desperate people will make capital out of that desperation. If you want to get rid of terrorism in the world you have to address the root of the problem. The terrorist are the symptom. The root is the underlying political conflict. I've seen war in Pakistan (1971). I saw kids- innocent civilians-die in front of my eyes. I've seen terrorism in my own country, in my own city. People dying outside on my st reet. Some people in America who are just seeing this for the fi rst time may not realize that this is business as usual in our part of the world. What do you think is the biggest misconception that the West has about Islam? SALMAN: That Islam is a threat to civilizat ion. I read and hear on Western television that there is a natural clash between the Western and Islamic worlds. But Islam assimilates into culture. Look at the Bosnian Muslim, or the Pakistani Muslim, or the Indian Muslim, or the Indonesian Muslim- they have starkly different cultures. In fact, even in seventh century Arabia, Islam was absorbed by the Arabic cultu re. It's not like Islam is some sort of monolithic culture. What do you think is the biggest misperception that Pakistani Muslims have about the West? SALMAN: They think the West looks upon all cultures with a view to co-opt them into what has become so ca lled "Western culture. " They believe that the tentacles of the West want to stretch and put a Pizza Hut, a McDonalds and a Starbucks in every corner of the globe; a Ken and Barbie doll in every kid's hand. They think Western culture is intolerant to other cultures and beliefs. So, you are saying that is not an accurate picture of the West? SALMAN: Yes, of course it's not! In addition to the war against terrorism, there needs to be a greater war against ingorance, that needs to be fought on both sides of the divide. That is the battle in a sense that we [Junoon] have been looked upon, to transcend this divide. You have a tremendous power as the leader of the most popular band in a nation of 150 million people, in as you say, the war against ignorance. How are you trying to make the Pakistani view of American culture more accurate? SALMAN: The strongest voice we have is through our music. Specifically, look at the message in who is in our band. It 's made up of Azi and I, two Muslims and here's Brian, an American, who has been embraced in Pakistan. You acknowledge that the extremists are a small fraction of the population. But even one percent in a country of 150 million people is a lot. That's 1.5 mil- lion people. SALMAN: If the USA, the richest of all nations, has had Archie Bunker, Timothy McVeigh, and the Klu Klux Klan, aJI within the past f ifty years, then the chances are even greater for extremism in a country like Pakistan where there is still widespread lack of food and drinking water. But my war against ignorance is not focused on that 1% of of extremists. I aim my message to the mainstream and hope ultimately it gets down. What drew you originally toward the cause of pro- moting peace, mixing the agendas of music and peace? What experiences? SALMAN: Well, it was when I came to the United States actually. I went to junior and high school here, you know. My American friends I made here, they were Jewish, Christian, and agnostic. When diverse cu ltures get toget her, it really helps all of society. It was here I fe ll in love with the idea of being a musiCian, because American music culture has such respect here. When I went back to Pakistan, I found a great thirst for peace there. In getting to know you and your music, the thought of John Lennon naturally comes to mind. Do you have certain musicians and·activists that influenced you? SALMAN: Yes, you're right, as a songwriter my biggest inspiration was John Lennon. I really respected the way John lived his life. He wasn't afraid to put himself out there. He sang about Revolution, Give Peace a Chance, Imagine. At the end of the day, why do we express our art? Not to buy a Planet Hollywood! I respect U2. Bono is an amazing arti st, addressing Issues which in today's music scene aren't so hip like spirituality, and gun control. On a musical level my influences are Jimmy Page and Jimmy Hendrix. How does rock-n-roll fit into Pakistan culture? Is it something American music fans could relate to? SALMAN: Junoon's music is different. We're really fo lk musicians. Our inf luences are not only Western rock, but Pakistani fo lk music, provincial folk music, South Asian classical, and Islamic sufi poets like Rumi who sang about freedom, self-empowerment. Like the way Jim Morrison sang Break On Through to the Other Side, we [Junoon] want to focus on the need for youth culture to break through the shackles of mainstream society. Really that whole American counterculture of the 60s, which was tied into social activism, in a sense happened in Pakistan thirty years later, in the 90s. It's almost a time warp. I feel like I am in a Star Trek episode. What is the general view of the young Pakistanis toward peace? SALMAN: They crave for it, they yearn for it. What is their view of the USA? SALMAN: The love their Mtv, and they love Britney Spears. But I think they are resentful of American foreign policy, which on the one hand prides itself on protecting the civil liberties of it's own people, but looks the other way when its allies around the world strangulate human rights in their own countries. Your music has been called beyond East, beyond West, beyond nationalism. But your lyrics are prima- rily in Urdu and Punjabi. Do you feel like you're reaching American audiences? BRIAN: Yes, definitely. A couple of years back we did a show in New York's Central Park-we sang completely in Urdu and Punjabi- and we broke attendance records for the Summer Stage series. Sure, there were Junoonies around- there are Junoonies everywhere you go. But the bulk of the people had never been exposed to Junoon. I was looking at a sea of humanity out there, 14,000 peo- ple, who were being moved by this music. And they did- n't understand the lyrics. Hell, I didn't even understand half the lyrics I was singing about ! At that moment that I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that t his kind of music could work here in the West. lUNOON, continued on page 73