Sunday, July 10, 2005
Huh?!?
Well, well! Ain't this sweet?
I Googled it because I saw it, today at the supermarket, worn by a young Goth girl one aisle over. (This being Brookline, a young Orthodox Jewish couple was in line ahead of her. I resisted the temptation to ask them what they thought of it...)
It turns out that Ramallah is a heavy-metal band --and, judging from their bio, one that's particularly clueless about international affairs; their knowledge of Ramallah, the city, seems limited to the notion that people sometimes die there. (I can only wonder if even one member of the band has ever visited Ramallah. They should. I found it an interesting place, and no doubt they would too.)
Okay, seeing "Ramallah" as a symbol of miscellaneous random bloodshed -- I don't agree with that, but I can understand it. But "kill a celebrity"? (Are there many better-dead celebrities to be found in Ramallah these days? Now that Arafat is dead, I'm not aware of any.)
My wife and I, chatting quietly in Hebrew, concluded that the young Goth girl with the facial piercings was expressing her "anti-everything" sentiment. You know the sort: "What are you against today?" "I dunno, what have you got?"
As if to underscore the message, they seem to have another T-shirt for sale:
How utterly adorable... a time bomb adorned with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim symbols. (For the record, time bombs have been used in the Middle East for several decades now... used, almost without exception, by adherents of one of those religions. The question of which one may be left as an exercise for the student.)
Have fun, boys. I hope your rage gets you somewhere. If not, I hope you someday contemplate the irony -- you're protesting the bloodshed of a region consumed in rage (at least, as you see it), and your response is... more rage. Do you really think that will help?
Or, to put it another way... is your music, and your rage, what Abraham really wanted?
