Saturday, December 23, 2006

The benefits of totalitarianism

Saparmurat Niyazov, the authoritarian President of Turkmenistan, died this week of a heart attack. During his rule, Niyazov reportedly banned, amongst other things: listening to car radios, young men with beards, smoking in public, circuses, ballet, opera, video games, lip-synching on TV, and recorded music at weddings, (www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2495871.html). So he wasn't all bad then. Personally, I wouldn't ban listening to car radios per se, but, given the opportunity, I would ban the following types of music: hip-hop, R 'n' B, UK garage, drum and bass, and rap. A society in which these forms of music are permitted is clearly a society in which liberty and tolerance has gone too far.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I entirely agree Gordon. Rap is a serious vexation to my spirit. I worked with children for a number of years and it drove me nuts to have to listen to it. It is anti-music for antichrists.

Anonymous said...

I think you might like this, Gordon...
http://newsbiscuit.com/article/descendents-of-slave-trade-apologise-for-rap

I certainly did. Merry Christmas.

Gordon McCabe said...

Merry Christmas Clare! And that article did make me laugh! I don't think anyone should really start apologising for Phil Collins; as an old boss of mine used to say, we don't want to disappear down that particular rabbit-hole.

Gordon McCabe said...

I've always been perturbed, Shifty Loner, by talk of anti-christs. Is this concept inspired by particle physics? If, for example, we took one christ and one anti-christ, accelerated them in opposite directions around CERN (for I presume they have opposite electric charges), would they annihilate each other when they collide, creating a new universe, (containing both good and evil), in the process?

Anonymous said...

What is UK Garage music? What they play while you're waiting for the oil change bill?

Gordon McCabe said...

Sadly, Susan, most UK garages fail to see the potential here for experimental irony, and tend to play a conventional 'music mix' from their local radio stations.

Anonymous said...

surely you're not counting Busta Rhymes in this ban? the man who can produce lyrics like:

Yeah, my whole entire mindstate deeper
than astronomy and mathematics like Galileo
Smash you niggaz like mashed potato

is worthy of great attention.