In the Name of Love
A dart player; a metro-goth; a third person who had just wandered into the world of pop rock; a fourth who was studying the techniques of song-writing; and a fifth who brought them all together. In the name of love they united – and love itself became the guiding principle of their music, and their lives.
Exactly twenty years ago, in 1986, four young schoolboys from Surabaya’s Public High School No. 6 decided to form a rock band. They named their group Dewa 19. Armed with big dreams and a name laden with significance [ed. note: Dewa means “god” in Javanese and Sanskrit], they moved slowly forward, not realizing how enormously their decision to form the band would affect their lives in the years to come.
Like many bands in the past, Dewa 19 has not been free of trouble, from personnel changes to gossip and legal difficulties. As the saying goes, ‘If something doesn’t kill you, it just makes you stronger.’ Here in the year 2006, Dewa 19’s flag remains firmly planted atop the world of Indonesian music.
Republic of Love, Dewa 19’s newest album, has just been released by EMI Indonesia. It’s reported that the contract for the deal was negotiated directly with EMI Southeast Asia, in Hong Kong. Dewa’s decision to abandon their old label was based on a desire to spread their wings internationally. “I never say ‘Go international’, but rather, ‘Go Asia!’ Going international is too high an aim for an Indonesian like me,” says Dewa 19 front man Ahmad Dhani, tongue in cheek. If any single artist can be said to be the favorite of [Indonesian] journalists, that artist is Ahmad Dhani.
Beneath his apparent arrogance, one recognizes the immense self confidence that accompanies Dhani’s smooth answers to journalists’ questions. His behavior also radiates confidence in the new artistic creations he’s introducing to the public. Although tempted by the phenomenal sales of a couple of recently-formed bands, Dhani claims to remain uninfluenced in his music. To illustrate his point, he offers an interesting analogy. “For example, a chair made by Da Vinci is art, while those made by Ligna [a popular brand of furniture] are purely functional, not art. Music that’s functional can be called entertainment,” he says. “If Dewa chooses to make music that’s like Da Vinci’s furniture, then it can't be compared to Ligna's product, whose sales will of course be higher.” This last sentence was reconfirmed by Dhani via telephone following our interview, to make sure there was no mistake in interpreting his analogy.
“Actually, in order to increase demand for this new album, we were tempted to make it a bit more ‘ugly,’ but we couldn’t! Because outstanding creations can’t be made to conform to market demand. That’s Indonesia. Sometimes we, too, can be tempted to push sales. If the lyrics to Warriors of Love [the lead single on Dewa’s eighth and newest album, Republic of Love] were changed to read, ‘Oh Nurlela!’ or ‘Oh Sweet Bird!’, then maybe there would be greater demand for the song, because it would be romantic, or funny, or conform to mass market tastes more than it does,” he says, while humming the song’s lead bars. [In fact, soon after its release, Warriors of Love became the #1 song in Indonesia, while its music video soared to the #1 spot on MTV Asia’s hit program Ampuh. The song’s lyrics were inspired by verses from the Qur’an and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.] “That’s temptation. My wife Maia even suggested that I use other lyrics to push sales.
“Why didn’t I change the lyrics like she suggested? Because I have a mission of promoting peace and tolerance, and that song is really suited to the mission,” he adds. Perhaps many listeners will be confused when they hear the song’s title, Warriors of Love, which is identical with that of Dewa’s previous, seventh album. Once again, Dhani claims that to be something perfectly ordinary, which was done by his favorite band, Queen. But in addition to the song’s title, confusion may also arise from the fact that the band has now reverted to using the number 19 after their name Dewa. It’s a shame Dhani did not explain his intentions more clearly, given the fact that there’s always a significant meaning, and message, hidden behind the title of each of Dewa’s songs and albums. “It’s just cool, huh?” Dhani answered, laughing.
When listening to the song Warriors of Love, one hears a strong Middle Eastern influence. In fact, some early reviewers have been surprised and made the mistake of assuming that Dewa has changed its musical style to resemble Arab and dangdut [an Indonesian style of music saturated with Arab and Bollywood influences]. “I don’t agree that the song falls into the category of Arab music. Rather, it’s world music that we’re experimenting with. The Arab style only accompanies the beginning verses; by the first refrain, the style switches to Latin,” says Dhani. “A song doesn’t have to be complex to be good, but that doesn’t mean we always have to make songs like Separuh Nafas, either, does it?” [Separuh Nafas, or Half (My) Breath, was a megahit from Dewa’s fifth album, Five Stars, which sold 1.8 million copies on the legitimate market and approximately 8.5 million copies nationwide.] “One always has to evaluate a song’s dynamics, and not be trapped into making the same old songs over and over again.”
Monday, February 23, 2009
Dewa-Muslim Rocker-Strong Drumbeat-Dewa Arabic-Against Terroris
This Muslim Rocker Preaches Tolerance to a Strong Drumbeat
"Why did I choose an Arabic beat? Because the Muslims think it's a Muslim song. It's not! It's a universal song."
So explained Dhani, the pony-tailed, baby-faced founder of one of Indonesia's most popular rock 'n' roll bands, Dewa, on a recent afternoon here. Blasting a track from the group's latest album, "Republic of Love," Dhani explained how his faith, Sufism -- a mystic, tolerant form of Islam -- informs his music. Despite appearances, Dhani, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, is a very different kind of rock superstar. He's promoting moderate Islam -- vocally -- in a linchpin country in the war on terror.
Crammed into the back seat of his minivan while Dhani lounges upfront, I struggled to scribble down his words, barely audible as the booming bass shook the seats. "Wahai jiwa yang tenang!" ("O serene soul!"), blared the opening riff from the first song, "Warriors of Love," with a strong drumbeat backing it up. The tune's title in Indonesian, "Laskar Cinta," is a play on "Laskar Jihad" ("Warriors of Holy War"), Indonesia's homegrown, al Qaeda-linked terrorist group. But the song couldn't be more different from what they preach; Dhani sings about religious freedom, weaving in Quranic references easily recognizable to Dewa's primary audiences in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, and neighboring Malaysia.
Dhani
It's a conscious strategy; a cynic might even dismiss it as a marketing ploy. Dhani explains that he tucks messages of tolerance and peace beside Western, straight rock beats and halting, syncopated Arabic rhythms. Western-minded types and even radicalized Muslims buy his albums -- and, one hopes, his tolerant vision, too. So far, so good: The group's new album is on track to sell a million legal copies in Indonesia alone; estimates put the volume of pirated versions at three to four times that number. The current disc's lead track was No. 1 in Indonesia for three weeks, running from last December to January, and the video reached MTV's top 10 chart. EMI plans to release an English-language version of Dewa's music into foreign markets soon.
It's ingenious, and infectious; indeed, some of Dewa's tracks could easily be mistaken for those of a Saudi Arabian pop band -- one whose members listened to Queen and classic rock as kids. But as the final verse of "Warriors of Love" fills the car, it echoes this holy verse: "O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another, and not to despise each other." A tad more thoughtful than "Bohemian Rhapsody," and not exactly what Dhani's hardline Islamic groupies are taught in their madrassas.
Dhani, 34, is an unlikely proselytizer for peace. His grandfather participated in the Daru Islam Islamist guerrilla movement, which counted among its members the terrorist group leader who plotted the Bali bombings a few years back. Dhani's father, Eddy, followed in his father's footsteps, figuring prominently in an organization bent on preaching Wahhabism. Dhani's Indonesian-born mother, Joyce, proved a more moderating influence -- she converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam when she married. (But "she learned Islam from me, not my father," Dhani confides quietly.)
As a youngster, Dhani attended a Wahhabist school. (Wahhabism, the prominent Muslim sect in Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, promotes a strict observance of Islam; Sufism is historically dominant in Indonesia, among Muslims.) But the Wahhabist message didn't sit well with Dhani: In his teens, the young rebel dropped out of high school and started Dewa, also sometimes called Dewa 19, a reference to a personnel change when the band members were 19 years old. The name, an acronym of the founding members'names, ironically means "God" in Sanskrit. The group's catchy tunes caught on quickly; today in Indonesia, Dhani is a superstar on par with Bon Jovi or Bono.
Yet Dhani's message is arguably far more powerful -- and meaningful -- than those Western rockers' ditties. Since the fall of Suharto's autocratic regime in 1998 and the advent of democracy, support for hardline Islamic political parties in Indonesia has grown. While such groups are by no means supported by the majority, mostly moderate Javanese, recent events -- such as public calls to impose sharia, or Islamic law, the prosecution of the editor of Playboy's Indonesian edition, and virulent anti-Western demonstrations -- speak to Wahhabism's creeping influence on the archipelago, as does a quick count of the scarves on women's heads in metropolitan Jakarta.
Dhani has responded not only through his music, but by joining a small -- but growing -- group of religious moderates who are trying to educate Indonesians about tolerant forms of Islam. Organized by LibForAll, a small U.S. foundation based in Winston-Salem, N.C., its members include former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, a great Sufi leader; Abdul Munir Mulkhan, a prominent former member of the governing board of the Muhammadiyah, one of the world's largest Muslim organizations; and Azyumardi Azra, an outspoken Islamic intellectual, among others.
The risks are great for vocal religious moderates like the ones affiliated with LibForAll. Last year, after Dewa released an album that featured the word for "Allah" in Arabic script on its cover, Dhani was labeled an apostate. Fearing for his wife, Maya, and their three children, Dhani moved them into a hotel. Only when Abdurrahman Wahid held a press conference supporting the rock star did Dhani feel safe enough to move them home again.
Dhani seems unperturbed by his mission. When I asked him about it, he laughed, talked about his faith (his children are named after Sufi saints), and turned the car stereo up.
As we crawled through traffic, one of Dhani's troupe reminded me that Dhani isn't the first to have this calling. In a neat historical parallel, Dhani's savior and mentor, Mr. Wahid, is a direct descendant of Siti Jenar, a 16th-century Sufi prophet who also preached tolerance in the face of a militant Islamic group in Java. He was executed for his faith, and legend has it that his blood sprayed "Allah is good!" in the sand as he died. He was later heralded as a true prophet of Allah. In the notes for his latest album, Dhani thanks Syekh Lemah Abang ("Reddish-brown earth") -- a reference to the town where Siti Jenar once lived.
Dhani laughed again when I asked him if the story of Siti Jenar's death is true, and if he's been compared to the prophet. He nodded, and smiled. And then he turned the music up again.
"Why did I choose an Arabic beat? Because the Muslims think it's a Muslim song. It's not! It's a universal song."
So explained Dhani, the pony-tailed, baby-faced founder of one of Indonesia's most popular rock 'n' roll bands, Dewa, on a recent afternoon here. Blasting a track from the group's latest album, "Republic of Love," Dhani explained how his faith, Sufism -- a mystic, tolerant form of Islam -- informs his music. Despite appearances, Dhani, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, is a very different kind of rock superstar. He's promoting moderate Islam -- vocally -- in a linchpin country in the war on terror.
Crammed into the back seat of his minivan while Dhani lounges upfront, I struggled to scribble down his words, barely audible as the booming bass shook the seats. "Wahai jiwa yang tenang!" ("O serene soul!"), blared the opening riff from the first song, "Warriors of Love," with a strong drumbeat backing it up. The tune's title in Indonesian, "Laskar Cinta," is a play on "Laskar Jihad" ("Warriors of Holy War"), Indonesia's homegrown, al Qaeda-linked terrorist group. But the song couldn't be more different from what they preach; Dhani sings about religious freedom, weaving in Quranic references easily recognizable to Dewa's primary audiences in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, and neighboring Malaysia.
Dhani
It's a conscious strategy; a cynic might even dismiss it as a marketing ploy. Dhani explains that he tucks messages of tolerance and peace beside Western, straight rock beats and halting, syncopated Arabic rhythms. Western-minded types and even radicalized Muslims buy his albums -- and, one hopes, his tolerant vision, too. So far, so good: The group's new album is on track to sell a million legal copies in Indonesia alone; estimates put the volume of pirated versions at three to four times that number. The current disc's lead track was No. 1 in Indonesia for three weeks, running from last December to January, and the video reached MTV's top 10 chart. EMI plans to release an English-language version of Dewa's music into foreign markets soon.
It's ingenious, and infectious; indeed, some of Dewa's tracks could easily be mistaken for those of a Saudi Arabian pop band -- one whose members listened to Queen and classic rock as kids. But as the final verse of "Warriors of Love" fills the car, it echoes this holy verse: "O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another, and not to despise each other." A tad more thoughtful than "Bohemian Rhapsody," and not exactly what Dhani's hardline Islamic groupies are taught in their madrassas.
Dhani, 34, is an unlikely proselytizer for peace. His grandfather participated in the Daru Islam Islamist guerrilla movement, which counted among its members the terrorist group leader who plotted the Bali bombings a few years back. Dhani's father, Eddy, followed in his father's footsteps, figuring prominently in an organization bent on preaching Wahhabism. Dhani's Indonesian-born mother, Joyce, proved a more moderating influence -- she converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam when she married. (But "she learned Islam from me, not my father," Dhani confides quietly.)
As a youngster, Dhani attended a Wahhabist school. (Wahhabism, the prominent Muslim sect in Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, promotes a strict observance of Islam; Sufism is historically dominant in Indonesia, among Muslims.) But the Wahhabist message didn't sit well with Dhani: In his teens, the young rebel dropped out of high school and started Dewa, also sometimes called Dewa 19, a reference to a personnel change when the band members were 19 years old. The name, an acronym of the founding members'names, ironically means "God" in Sanskrit. The group's catchy tunes caught on quickly; today in Indonesia, Dhani is a superstar on par with Bon Jovi or Bono.
Yet Dhani's message is arguably far more powerful -- and meaningful -- than those Western rockers' ditties. Since the fall of Suharto's autocratic regime in 1998 and the advent of democracy, support for hardline Islamic political parties in Indonesia has grown. While such groups are by no means supported by the majority, mostly moderate Javanese, recent events -- such as public calls to impose sharia, or Islamic law, the prosecution of the editor of Playboy's Indonesian edition, and virulent anti-Western demonstrations -- speak to Wahhabism's creeping influence on the archipelago, as does a quick count of the scarves on women's heads in metropolitan Jakarta.
Dhani has responded not only through his music, but by joining a small -- but growing -- group of religious moderates who are trying to educate Indonesians about tolerant forms of Islam. Organized by LibForAll, a small U.S. foundation based in Winston-Salem, N.C., its members include former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, a great Sufi leader; Abdul Munir Mulkhan, a prominent former member of the governing board of the Muhammadiyah, one of the world's largest Muslim organizations; and Azyumardi Azra, an outspoken Islamic intellectual, among others.
The risks are great for vocal religious moderates like the ones affiliated with LibForAll. Last year, after Dewa released an album that featured the word for "Allah" in Arabic script on its cover, Dhani was labeled an apostate. Fearing for his wife, Maya, and their three children, Dhani moved them into a hotel. Only when Abdurrahman Wahid held a press conference supporting the rock star did Dhani feel safe enough to move them home again.
Dhani seems unperturbed by his mission. When I asked him about it, he laughed, talked about his faith (his children are named after Sufi saints), and turned the car stereo up.
As we crawled through traffic, one of Dhani's troupe reminded me that Dhani isn't the first to have this calling. In a neat historical parallel, Dhani's savior and mentor, Mr. Wahid, is a direct descendant of Siti Jenar, a 16th-century Sufi prophet who also preached tolerance in the face of a militant Islamic group in Java. He was executed for his faith, and legend has it that his blood sprayed "Allah is good!" in the sand as he died. He was later heralded as a true prophet of Allah. In the notes for his latest album, Dhani thanks Syekh Lemah Abang ("Reddish-brown earth") -- a reference to the town where Siti Jenar once lived.
Dhani laughed again when I asked him if the story of Siti Jenar's death is true, and if he's been compared to the prophet. He nodded, and smiled. And then he turned the music up again.
Dewa-Gusdur Opinion-Dewa Songs-Dewa band
In Indonesia, Songs Against Terrorism by GUSDUR
The latest suicide bombings on the resort island of Bali appear to have been carried out by young Indonesian Muslims indoctrinated in an ideology of hatred. Once again the cult of death has proved its ability to recruit misguided fanatics and incite them to violate Islam's most sacred teachings in the very name of God. The only way to break this vicious cycle is by discrediting the perverse ideology that underlies and motivates such brutal acts of terrorism.
One of us, Abdurrahman Wahid, was Indonesia's president when tragic violence inundated the eastern region of Ambon and the Malukus six years ago. A seemingly trivial argument between a Christian bus driver and a Muslim passenger in early 1999 triggered a bloody religious war that eventually claimed 10,000 lives and drove a half-million Christian and Muslim inhabitants from their homes. Radical Muslims from throughout Indonesia flocked to the region to wage jihad on Indonesian Christians, backed by powerful Islamist generals and plenty of money.
The largest such group was Laskar Jihad ("Warriors of Jihad"), led by an Indonesian of Arab descent whose ancestors came from the same province in Yemen as those of Osama bin Laden. Jafar Umar Thalib is a veteran of the Afghan jihad and knows bin Laden personally. Backed by spiteful generals close to the disgraced Suharto regime, Thalib sounded the call to jihad, and thousands of young Muslims flocked to his green banner to slaughter Indonesian Christians in the name of God.
Enjoying powerful clandestine support, Laskar Jihad had actually established a military training camp less than 60 miles from the capital, Jakarta. When national police broke up the camp, Thalib promptly announced that Laskar Jihad would sail for Ambon and wage jihad there. I (Wahid) ordered the army generals in East Java to prevent them from sailing and ordered the navy to intercept them if they did. I also ordered the governor of East Java to guard the docks and prevent Laskar Jihad from boarding. But these presidential orders were ignored by a military that refused to accept civilian control in the newly democratic Indonesia. An unholy alliance of fundamentalist jihadists, Islamist generals and people close to the Suharto family ensured that thousands of Laskar Jihadists poured into Ambon and the Malukus.
Once there, they spread out in the Muslim communities and launched devastating raids on neighboring Christian enclaves, burning and desecrating churches; destroying homes; and slaughtering thousands of men, women and children.
All of Indonesia knew what was happening. It was in the news day and night. Laskar Jihad became a symbol and a byword for the suffering inflicted upon that region. The goal of its clandestine backers -- and those in parliament itself -- was to create chaos and block the reform that desperately needed to occur in the Indonesian government. They succeeded; the process of reform ground to a halt.
Then came the first Bali bombing in 2002, with jihadists incinerating a popular club and more than 200 people, mostly foreign tourists. Although that attack was the work of a different jihadist group, Jemaah Islamiah, it was obvious that the military -- by then in the hands of "red," or nationalist, generals allied to my successor, Megawati Sukarnoputri -- would crack down on all active jihadist groups. Immediately afterward, Thalib announced that Laskar Jihad had served its purpose, and he recalled its warriors to Java. Thousands of battle-hardened jihadists returned to Java's towns and villages to await his further call.
One of the people watching this tragedy unfold was a brilliant young musician named Ahmad Dhani. Leader of the immensely popular rock band Dewa, Dhani began to use his musical platform to influence millions of fans in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia to resist the tide of religious extremism.
In response to Laskar Jihad's atrocities, and to discredit the appeal of fundamentalist ideology, Dhani composed the best-selling album "Laskar Cinta" ("Warriors of Love"). Released in November 2004, it quickly rose to the top of the charts as millions of young Indonesians embraced its message of love, peace and tolerance.
Dhani and the other members of Dewa have presented Indonesia's youth with a stark choice, and one easy for the vast majority to answer: Do they want to join the army of jihad, or the army of love? In response, numerous radical Muslim groups have accused Dhani -- who is a devout Sufi, or mystically inclined Muslim -- of being an infidel, an apostate (code words inciting violence) and a Zionist agent. They have hauled him into court on charges of defaming Islam and seek to ban his use of rock music to promote a spiritual and progressive interpretation of Islam that threatens the appeal of their own Wahhabi-inspired extremism.
Yet rather than be intimidated, Dhani recently announced to the Indonesian press his plan to launch another "ideological smart bomb" -- in the form of a song that uses the revelatory tone of the Koran to declare: "Truth dwells in the hearts of those who love and are free of hatred; the hearts of those who hate . . . are possessed by Satan."
Dhani and his group are on the front lines of a global conflict, defending Islam from its fanatical hijackers. In a world all too often marred by hatred and violence committed in the name of religion, they seek to rescue an entire generation from Wahhabi-financed extremists whose goal is to transform Muslim youth into holy warriors and suicide bombers. For every young Indonesian seduced by the ideology of hatred and fanaticism -- including those responsible for the recent, awful attacks in Bali -- countless others see through the extremists' web of lies and hatred, in no small part thanks to the visionary courage of people like Ahmad Dhani. For as they listen to Dewa's music, the hearts of millions of young Indonesians have been inspired to declare: "No to the warriors of jihad! Yes to the warriors of love!"
The latest suicide bombings on the resort island of Bali appear to have been carried out by young Indonesian Muslims indoctrinated in an ideology of hatred. Once again the cult of death has proved its ability to recruit misguided fanatics and incite them to violate Islam's most sacred teachings in the very name of God. The only way to break this vicious cycle is by discrediting the perverse ideology that underlies and motivates such brutal acts of terrorism.
One of us, Abdurrahman Wahid, was Indonesia's president when tragic violence inundated the eastern region of Ambon and the Malukus six years ago. A seemingly trivial argument between a Christian bus driver and a Muslim passenger in early 1999 triggered a bloody religious war that eventually claimed 10,000 lives and drove a half-million Christian and Muslim inhabitants from their homes. Radical Muslims from throughout Indonesia flocked to the region to wage jihad on Indonesian Christians, backed by powerful Islamist generals and plenty of money.
The largest such group was Laskar Jihad ("Warriors of Jihad"), led by an Indonesian of Arab descent whose ancestors came from the same province in Yemen as those of Osama bin Laden. Jafar Umar Thalib is a veteran of the Afghan jihad and knows bin Laden personally. Backed by spiteful generals close to the disgraced Suharto regime, Thalib sounded the call to jihad, and thousands of young Muslims flocked to his green banner to slaughter Indonesian Christians in the name of God.
Enjoying powerful clandestine support, Laskar Jihad had actually established a military training camp less than 60 miles from the capital, Jakarta. When national police broke up the camp, Thalib promptly announced that Laskar Jihad would sail for Ambon and wage jihad there. I (Wahid) ordered the army generals in East Java to prevent them from sailing and ordered the navy to intercept them if they did. I also ordered the governor of East Java to guard the docks and prevent Laskar Jihad from boarding. But these presidential orders were ignored by a military that refused to accept civilian control in the newly democratic Indonesia. An unholy alliance of fundamentalist jihadists, Islamist generals and people close to the Suharto family ensured that thousands of Laskar Jihadists poured into Ambon and the Malukus.
Once there, they spread out in the Muslim communities and launched devastating raids on neighboring Christian enclaves, burning and desecrating churches; destroying homes; and slaughtering thousands of men, women and children.
All of Indonesia knew what was happening. It was in the news day and night. Laskar Jihad became a symbol and a byword for the suffering inflicted upon that region. The goal of its clandestine backers -- and those in parliament itself -- was to create chaos and block the reform that desperately needed to occur in the Indonesian government. They succeeded; the process of reform ground to a halt.
Then came the first Bali bombing in 2002, with jihadists incinerating a popular club and more than 200 people, mostly foreign tourists. Although that attack was the work of a different jihadist group, Jemaah Islamiah, it was obvious that the military -- by then in the hands of "red," or nationalist, generals allied to my successor, Megawati Sukarnoputri -- would crack down on all active jihadist groups. Immediately afterward, Thalib announced that Laskar Jihad had served its purpose, and he recalled its warriors to Java. Thousands of battle-hardened jihadists returned to Java's towns and villages to await his further call.
One of the people watching this tragedy unfold was a brilliant young musician named Ahmad Dhani. Leader of the immensely popular rock band Dewa, Dhani began to use his musical platform to influence millions of fans in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia to resist the tide of religious extremism.
In response to Laskar Jihad's atrocities, and to discredit the appeal of fundamentalist ideology, Dhani composed the best-selling album "Laskar Cinta" ("Warriors of Love"). Released in November 2004, it quickly rose to the top of the charts as millions of young Indonesians embraced its message of love, peace and tolerance.
Dhani and the other members of Dewa have presented Indonesia's youth with a stark choice, and one easy for the vast majority to answer: Do they want to join the army of jihad, or the army of love? In response, numerous radical Muslim groups have accused Dhani -- who is a devout Sufi, or mystically inclined Muslim -- of being an infidel, an apostate (code words inciting violence) and a Zionist agent. They have hauled him into court on charges of defaming Islam and seek to ban his use of rock music to promote a spiritual and progressive interpretation of Islam that threatens the appeal of their own Wahhabi-inspired extremism.
Yet rather than be intimidated, Dhani recently announced to the Indonesian press his plan to launch another "ideological smart bomb" -- in the form of a song that uses the revelatory tone of the Koran to declare: "Truth dwells in the hearts of those who love and are free of hatred; the hearts of those who hate . . . are possessed by Satan."
Dhani and his group are on the front lines of a global conflict, defending Islam from its fanatical hijackers. In a world all too often marred by hatred and violence committed in the name of religion, they seek to rescue an entire generation from Wahhabi-financed extremists whose goal is to transform Muslim youth into holy warriors and suicide bombers. For every young Indonesian seduced by the ideology of hatred and fanaticism -- including those responsible for the recent, awful attacks in Bali -- countless others see through the extremists' web of lies and hatred, in no small part thanks to the visionary courage of people like Ahmad Dhani. For as they listen to Dewa's music, the hearts of millions of young Indonesians have been inspired to declare: "No to the warriors of jihad! Yes to the warriors of love!"
Dewa-Dewa songs-dewa articles-dewa band
23 Februari 2009
Dewa Songs
Jakarta -- "Why did I choose an Arabic beat? Because the Muslims think it's a Muslim song. It's not! It's a universal song."
So explained Dhani, the pony-tailed, baby-faced founder of one of Indonesia's most popular rock 'n roll bands, Dewa, on a recent afternoon here. Blasting a track from the group's latest album, "Republic of Love", Dhani explained how his faith, Sufism -- a mystic, tolerant form of Islam -- informs his music. Despite appearances, Dhani, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, is a very different kind of rock superstar. He's promoting moderate Islam -- vocally -- in a linchpin country in the war on terror.
Crammed into the back seat of his minivan while Dhani lounges upfront, I struggled to scribble down his words, barely audible as the booming bass shook the seats. "Wahai jiwa yang tenang!" ("O serene soul!"), blared the opening riff from the first song, "Warriors of Love", with a strong drumbeat backing it up. The tune's title in Indonesian, "Laskar Cinta", is a play on "Laskar Jihad" ("Warriors of Holy War"), Indonesia's homegrown, al Qaeda-linked terrorist group. But the song couldn't be more different from what they preach: Dhani sings about religious freedom, weaving in Qur’anic references easily recognizable to Dewa's primary audiences in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, and neighbouring Malaysia.
It's a conscious strategy; a cynic might even dismiss it as a marketing ploy. Dhani explains that he tucks messages of tolerance and peace beside Western, straight rock beats and halting, syncopated Arabic rhythms. Western-minded types and even radicalised Muslims buy his albums -- and, one hopes, his tolerant vision too. So far, so good: the group's new album is on track to sell a million legal copies in Indonesia alone; estimates put the volume of pirated versions at three to four times that number. The current disc's lead track was No. 1 in Indonesia for three weeks, running from last December to January, and the video reached MTV's top 10 chart. EMI plans to release an English-language version of Dewa's music into foreign markets soon.
It's ingenious, and infectious; indeed, some of Dewa's tracks could easily be mistaken for those of a Saudi Arabian pop band -- one whose members listened to Queen and classic rock as kids. But as the final verse of "Warriors of Love" fills the car, it echoes this holy verse: "O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another, and not to despise each other." A tad more thoughtful than "Bohemian Rhapsody", and not exactly what Dhani's hardline Islamic groupies are taught in their madrassas.
Dhani, 34, is an unlikely proselytiser for peace. His grandfather participated in the Daru Islam Islamist guerrilla movement, which counted among its members the terrorist group leader who plotted the Bali bombings a few years back. Dhani's father, Eddy, followed in his father's footsteps, figuring prominently in an organisation bent on preaching Wahhabism. Dhani's Indonesian-born mother, Joyce, proved a more moderating influence -- she converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam when she married. (But "she learned Islam from me, not my father," Dhani confides quietly.)
As a youngster, Dhani attended a Wahhabist school. (Wahhabism, the prominent Muslim sect in Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, promotes a strict observance of Islam; Sufism is historically dominant in Indonesia, among Muslims.) But the Wahhabist message didn't sit well with Dhani: in his teens, the young rebel dropped out of high school and started Dewa, also sometimes called Dewa 19, a reference to a personnel change when the band members were 19 years old. The name, an acronym of the founding members' names, ironically means "God" in Sanskrit. The group's catchy tunes caught on quickly; today in Indonesia, Dhani is a superstar on par with Bon Jovi or Bono.
Yet Dhani's message is arguably far more powerful -- and meaningful -- than those Western rockers' ditties. Since the fall of Suharto's autocratic regime in 1998 and the advent of democracy, support for hardline Islamic political parties in Indonesia has grown. While such groups are by no means supported by the majority, mostly moderate Javanese, recent events -- such as public calls to impose shari‘a, or Islamic law, the prosecution of the editor of Playboy's Indonesian edition, and virulent anti-Western demonstrations -- speak to Wahhabism's creeping influence on the archipelago, as does a quick count of the scarves on women's heads in metropolitan Jakarta.
Dhani has responded not only through his music, but by joining a small -- but growing -- group of religious moderates who are trying to educate Indonesians about tolerant forms of Islam. Organised by LibForAll, a small U.S. foundation based in Winston-Salem, N.C., its members include former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, a great Sufi leader; Abdul Munir Mulkhan, a prominent former member of the governing board of the Muhammadiyah, one of the world's largest Muslim organisations; and Azyumardi Azra, an outspoken Islamic intellectual, among others.
The risks are great for vocal religious moderates like the ones affiliated with LibForAll. Last year, after Dewa released an album that featured the word for "Allah" in Arabic script on its cover, Dhani was labelled an apostate. Fearing for his wife, Maya, and their three children, Dhani moved them into a hotel. Only when Abdurrahman Wahid held a press conference supporting the rock star did Dhani feel safe enough to move them home again.
Dhani seems unperturbed by his mission. When I asked him about it, he laughed, talked about his faith (his children are named after Sufi saints), and turned the car stereo up.
As we crawled through traffic, one of Dhani's troupe reminded me that Dhani isn't the first to have this calling. In a neat historical parallel, Dhani's saviour and mentor, Mr. Wahid, is a direct descendant of Siti Jenar, a 16th-century Sufi who also preached tolerance in the face of a militant Islamic group in Java. He was executed for his faith, and legend has it that his blood sprayed "Allah is good!" in the sand as he died. He was later heralded as a true prophet of Allah. In the notes for his latest album, Dhani thanks Syekh Lemah Abang ("Reddish-brown earth") -- a reference to the town where Siti Jenar once lived.
Dhani laughed again when I asked him if the story of Siti Jenar's death is true, and if he's been compared to the prophet. He nodded, and smiled. And then he turned the music up again.
Dewa Songs
Jakarta -- "Why did I choose an Arabic beat? Because the Muslims think it's a Muslim song. It's not! It's a universal song."
So explained Dhani, the pony-tailed, baby-faced founder of one of Indonesia's most popular rock 'n roll bands, Dewa, on a recent afternoon here. Blasting a track from the group's latest album, "Republic of Love", Dhani explained how his faith, Sufism -- a mystic, tolerant form of Islam -- informs his music. Despite appearances, Dhani, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, is a very different kind of rock superstar. He's promoting moderate Islam -- vocally -- in a linchpin country in the war on terror.
Crammed into the back seat of his minivan while Dhani lounges upfront, I struggled to scribble down his words, barely audible as the booming bass shook the seats. "Wahai jiwa yang tenang!" ("O serene soul!"), blared the opening riff from the first song, "Warriors of Love", with a strong drumbeat backing it up. The tune's title in Indonesian, "Laskar Cinta", is a play on "Laskar Jihad" ("Warriors of Holy War"), Indonesia's homegrown, al Qaeda-linked terrorist group. But the song couldn't be more different from what they preach: Dhani sings about religious freedom, weaving in Qur’anic references easily recognizable to Dewa's primary audiences in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, and neighbouring Malaysia.
It's a conscious strategy; a cynic might even dismiss it as a marketing ploy. Dhani explains that he tucks messages of tolerance and peace beside Western, straight rock beats and halting, syncopated Arabic rhythms. Western-minded types and even radicalised Muslims buy his albums -- and, one hopes, his tolerant vision too. So far, so good: the group's new album is on track to sell a million legal copies in Indonesia alone; estimates put the volume of pirated versions at three to four times that number. The current disc's lead track was No. 1 in Indonesia for three weeks, running from last December to January, and the video reached MTV's top 10 chart. EMI plans to release an English-language version of Dewa's music into foreign markets soon.
It's ingenious, and infectious; indeed, some of Dewa's tracks could easily be mistaken for those of a Saudi Arabian pop band -- one whose members listened to Queen and classic rock as kids. But as the final verse of "Warriors of Love" fills the car, it echoes this holy verse: "O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another, and not to despise each other." A tad more thoughtful than "Bohemian Rhapsody", and not exactly what Dhani's hardline Islamic groupies are taught in their madrassas.
Dhani, 34, is an unlikely proselytiser for peace. His grandfather participated in the Daru Islam Islamist guerrilla movement, which counted among its members the terrorist group leader who plotted the Bali bombings a few years back. Dhani's father, Eddy, followed in his father's footsteps, figuring prominently in an organisation bent on preaching Wahhabism. Dhani's Indonesian-born mother, Joyce, proved a more moderating influence -- she converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam when she married. (But "she learned Islam from me, not my father," Dhani confides quietly.)
As a youngster, Dhani attended a Wahhabist school. (Wahhabism, the prominent Muslim sect in Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, promotes a strict observance of Islam; Sufism is historically dominant in Indonesia, among Muslims.) But the Wahhabist message didn't sit well with Dhani: in his teens, the young rebel dropped out of high school and started Dewa, also sometimes called Dewa 19, a reference to a personnel change when the band members were 19 years old. The name, an acronym of the founding members' names, ironically means "God" in Sanskrit. The group's catchy tunes caught on quickly; today in Indonesia, Dhani is a superstar on par with Bon Jovi or Bono.
Yet Dhani's message is arguably far more powerful -- and meaningful -- than those Western rockers' ditties. Since the fall of Suharto's autocratic regime in 1998 and the advent of democracy, support for hardline Islamic political parties in Indonesia has grown. While such groups are by no means supported by the majority, mostly moderate Javanese, recent events -- such as public calls to impose shari‘a, or Islamic law, the prosecution of the editor of Playboy's Indonesian edition, and virulent anti-Western demonstrations -- speak to Wahhabism's creeping influence on the archipelago, as does a quick count of the scarves on women's heads in metropolitan Jakarta.
Dhani has responded not only through his music, but by joining a small -- but growing -- group of religious moderates who are trying to educate Indonesians about tolerant forms of Islam. Organised by LibForAll, a small U.S. foundation based in Winston-Salem, N.C., its members include former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, a great Sufi leader; Abdul Munir Mulkhan, a prominent former member of the governing board of the Muhammadiyah, one of the world's largest Muslim organisations; and Azyumardi Azra, an outspoken Islamic intellectual, among others.
The risks are great for vocal religious moderates like the ones affiliated with LibForAll. Last year, after Dewa released an album that featured the word for "Allah" in Arabic script on its cover, Dhani was labelled an apostate. Fearing for his wife, Maya, and their three children, Dhani moved them into a hotel. Only when Abdurrahman Wahid held a press conference supporting the rock star did Dhani feel safe enough to move them home again.
Dhani seems unperturbed by his mission. When I asked him about it, he laughed, talked about his faith (his children are named after Sufi saints), and turned the car stereo up.
As we crawled through traffic, one of Dhani's troupe reminded me that Dhani isn't the first to have this calling. In a neat historical parallel, Dhani's saviour and mentor, Mr. Wahid, is a direct descendant of Siti Jenar, a 16th-century Sufi who also preached tolerance in the face of a militant Islamic group in Java. He was executed for his faith, and legend has it that his blood sprayed "Allah is good!" in the sand as he died. He was later heralded as a true prophet of Allah. In the notes for his latest album, Dhani thanks Syekh Lemah Abang ("Reddish-brown earth") -- a reference to the town where Siti Jenar once lived.
Dhani laughed again when I asked him if the story of Siti Jenar's death is true, and if he's been compared to the prophet. He nodded, and smiled. And then he turned the music up again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
