Here in the U.S., our indie rockers may not be on the right side of a lot of political issues, but at least they’re not subject to fines and flogging:

“What we do in Iran is not as easy as it seems,” Raam said, with a verbal swagger belying the risk, in Iran, of [rock music] performances that can lead to arrest, large fines and even a public flogging. Rock music has been officially deemed contrary to the Islamic republic’s moral code. In December 2005, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, banned all Western music from state-run airwaves in a reversal of reforms made under his more liberal predecessor.

Where’s Williamsburg’s sneering hipster outrage when you need it? I did find one bit from the article somewhat hopeful:

Raam said he saw rock as a force for social and political change in a country of 70 million people, where the median age is 25, access to satellite TV and the Internet is widespread and ineffectively censored, and the ideals of the Islamic revolution have less hold over a younger generation. Young people in Iran “just want to do things that normal kids do around the world,” Raam said. “They just want to listen to music, they want to dress nice, to party.”

Not surprisingly, I tend to think that Islamic totalitarianism–the kind that seeks nukes, denies the Holocaust, and bans indie rock (among other things)–is one of the central challenges the world faces in coming years. I often suspect, however, that a large part of the solution will simply be the passage of time, as the younger generation grows into power and, unwilling to give up Western rock music or cell phone flirting, rejects a lot of the extremism we see now. I suppose it’s almost the opposite view of D’Souza, in that I tend to think that Western culture and technology, whatever problems they definitely have, will ultimately be a civilizing, moderating influence on Islam, at least in the next generation.