/ 27 November 2001

The banned played on

On the outskirts of the Pakistani border town of Peshawar there’s a run-down concrete block, decorated on the outside with posters promoting the names of its publicity-seeking-yet-somewhat-nervous residents.

They are all refugees from Afghanistan — musicians who were forced to flee because they were banned by the Taliban from playing their music. Non-religious music was deemed unIslamic. Those found performing could expect to be jailed and have their instruments smashed.

About 200 professional musicians working in more than 20 bands are based around the dusty Khalil complex. Some local stars are here, including the singer Sultan Hamahang, who once performed across North America and Europe. Others are young bands trying to make a living by playing for the exiled Afghan community. There are about three milllion Afghan refugees in Pakistan, many living near Peshawar, and those who have money and want musicians for weddings or parties come here to hire players.

There is constant music in the building.

It’s a wildly cheerful sound, but this is not a cheerful community. The musicians complain about the tough life they lead and how little they earn. And when I mention the state of the war in Afghanistan, they ask not to be quoted by name, and explain why they are so worried. The Taliban may be on the run in Afghanistan and music can be heard once again in Kabul, but along these border regions their ideas live on.

“When there are anti-American demonstrations,” I am told, “the crowds break the glass in our shop-fronts as they go past. And the religious scholars from the madrassas [holy schools] complain that our music is unIslamic and threaten to break our instruments, the only source of our income.”

I am shown a smashed tumbor and told that one of the “scholars” was responsible.

There should, of course, be no restrictions on the Afghan musicians of Peshawar. But life here is difficult, at times dangerous for them, for Peshawar is still a strong Taliban-supporting town: most inhabitants are Pashtun, from the same tribe as the Taliban.

There is now a clash of Islamic ideas within Pakistan and music is one of the battlegrounds. In the west there is a creeping Talibanisation and disapproval of popular music. In the east, in the Punjab and around the easy-going, academic centre of Lahore, there’s a more liberal tradition that gave rise to qawwali, the glorious ecstatic music of the Sufi mystics for which Pakistan is renowned. The city was home to the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the finest qawwali singer of recent years, best known in the west for his experimental adventures with the likes of Massive Attack. It is home, too, for his nephews, who are members of the rousing Rizwan Muazzam Qawwali.

The dividing line between the two cultures runs roughly between the capital of Islamabad and the bustling twin city of Rawalpindi. In their Afghan quarters the music shops are busy. But here, too, there is a growing unease. I attended a cheerful wedding party of Afghan exiles in Islamabad at which there was a band playing, and some of the women even took off their veils as they joined in the dancing. But the groom suddenly decided that the television team with me must leave. Supporters of the Taliban might get to see what had been going on.

Public anxiety has increased as the air strikes continue, and the Northern Alliance is seen as no friend to either the Pashtun or Pakistan. If there is a backlash, it could be cultural as well as political.