'Re-education' and forced haircuts for Indonesian punks

Frightening tale from Indonesia of repression of young punks at hands of Islamists:

/Dozens of young men and women have been detained for being "punk" and disturbing the peace in Aceh, Indonesia's most devoutly Muslim province. They are being held in a remedial school, where they are undergoing "re-education". Rights groups have expressed concern after photographs emerged of the young men having their mohawks and funky hairstyles shaved off by Aceh's police.They look sullen and frightened as they are forced into a communal bath.

But Aceh's police say they are not trying to harm the youths, they are trying to protect them. The 64 punks, many of whom are from as far away as Bali or Jakarta, were picked up on Saturday night during a local concert...

Aceh police spokesman Gustav Leo says there have been complaints from residents nearby. The residents did not like the behaviour of the punks and alleged that some of them had approached locals for money. Mr Leo stressed that no-one had been charged with any crime, and there were no plans to do so. They have now been taken to a remedial school in the Seulawah Hills, about 60km (37 miles) away from the provincial capital Banda Aceh. "They will undergo a re-education so their morals will match those of other Acehnese people," says Mr Leo.

But activists say the manner in which the young people have been treated is humiliating and a violation of human rights.Aceh Human Rights Coalition chief Evi Narti Zain says the police should not have taken such harsh steps, accusing them of treating children like criminals. "They are just children, teenagers, expressing themselves," she says. "Of course there are Acehnese people who complained about them - but regardless of that, this case shouldn't have been handled like this. They were doused with cold water, and their heads were shaved - this is a human rights violation. Their dignity was abused."

...Aceh is one of the most devout Muslim provinces in Indonesia, and observers say it has becoming increasingly more conservative since Islamic law was implemented a few years ago' (BBC News, 14 December 2011).

Islamism vs. Dance

Earlier this week, five people were found guilty of plotting bomb attacks in the London area. One of the convicted had apparently been heard to talk of the Ministry of Sound as a potential target, saying: "No one can turn around and say, 'Oh, they were innocent', those slags dancing around. Do you understand what I mean?".

No evidence was presented that there was a definite plan to attack the South London club - the comment might have expressed a fantasy - but it does indicate a misogyny and hostility to dancing that is common in radical Islamism (but by no means in Muslim cultures more generally). In this it shares with other fundamentalist forms of religion, including Christian variants, a profound hatred of the female body in pleasurable motion.

For instance Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s, proposed in relation to women: "a campaign against ostentation in dress and loose behavior... private meetings between men and women, unless within the permitted degrees of relationship, to be counted as a crime for which both will be censured ... the closure of morally undesirable ballrooms and dance-halls, and the prohibition of dancing and other such pastimes...".

Beyoncé Knowles, freedom fighter notes how this conflict between Islamism and dance is playing out across the world, quoting for instance the case of Indonesia where 'a 24-year-old singer from East Java named Inul Daratista (pictured) unleashed a sexual revolution simply by rotating her lower body onstage in such a way as to cause millions of men to worship her and millions of women to emulate her. Inul's dance style, which she calls "drilling," is indistinguishable from a move that has been ubiquitous in hip-hop clubs and videos for years, and which Beyoncé recently brought to the mainstream, called "booty popping." Islamic authorities in several Indonesian provinces have banned the dance, Muslim clerics have called for a national boycott of Inul's performances and pray for rain to keep fans away from her shows'.