Censorship has always been an issue with music in our own country, but looking at Afghanistan's history on the subject I now know that it is something a lot more serious.
During the rule of the Taliban more musicians were murdered for their music than authors and journalists during the same period of time. Musicians have been and still are being threatened and persecuted, but now, at least, they are able to bring the issues to the table and discuss them. In 2005 the organization Afghanistan Music Foundation was formed by 130 musicians in order to promote self expression without the restraints of censorship.
It is shocking how much Afghan musicians have had to go through and it really puts it into perspective how much freedom we have here.
2 comments:
I was glad I cam across this post because I was unaware of this. I kind of knew about the mudering of authors and journalists, since that seems to be more publicized, but not that of musicians. I cannot believe people would go to those lengths to kill musicians. I am glad that that kind of thing does not happen in the U.S. Granted there are musicians who get killed for other reasons, but I would be completely disappointed in this country if what happened in Afghanistan (?) happened here.
I love this post! I've been studying Afghanistan a lot recently and it really is interesting and sad how much censorship went and still is going on there. During the Taliban rule things like tv, books, art, music and much more were completely ban.
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