Lady Gaga has canceled a concert in Indonesia after religious bullies (Islamist chapter) threatened violence against her.
Attaboiz – you do that – get together in a big bunch and threaten a woman for performing, and express a wish that she be tortured for eternity. Sucks to be you.
Police in Indonesia had refused to issue a permit for the US pop star after Islamic groups objected to her show, claiming it was too vulgar.
The hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) had threatened to try to stop Lady Gaga getting off the plane.
Islamists 1, secularism 0.
The Islamist FPI had threatened violence if the concert went ahead, calling Lady Gaga a “devil’s messenger” who wears only a “bra and [underpants]”.
Habib Salim Alatas, the group’s FPI Jakarta chairman, said the cancellation was “good news” for Indonesia’s Muslims.
“FPI is grateful that she has decided not to come. Indonesians will be protected from sin brought about by this Mother Monster, the destroyer of morals,” he told AFP news agency.
He added: “Lady Gaga fans, stop complaining. Repent and stop worshipping the devil. Do you want your lives taken away by God as infidels?”
Because he knows that’s going to happen. Habib Salim Alatas, stop complaining. Repent and stop worshipping a bigoted puritanical misogynist shit. Do you want your life taken away by god as a bullying asshole?
Indonesia’s conservative Religious Affairs Minister, Suryadharma Ali, also welcomed the cancellation.
“I strongly believe this cancellation will benefit the country,” he said.
“Indonesians need entertainment and art which have moral values.”
This is not the first time that Lady Gaga has faced objections during her Asian tour.
Her concert in South Korea in April was made an adults-only event following protests from Christian groups.
Protests also took place in the Philippines, with Christian groups accusing her of being blasphemous.
Comrades!
She’s good people.
She is good people. And has time and again stood on the side of equality and human rights.
I kind of wish I could like her music…
But I still like her!
I am so rocking my Alejandro shirt after reading this.
I really like Gaga and was worried she would cave in and tone down the show to appease these idiots. I’m glad she canceled.
It’s too bad that someone as talented as she appears to be devotes all of her artistic effort to the production of least-common-denominator corporate swill.
I’m glad she canceled.
Sometimes that is the best option.
If it’s a choice between that and caving in to the bullying asshole, then hell yes. I’ll fight the fucker from the afterlife, too. That’s the only moral option.
:- )
Yes but the bullying asshole in that rhetorical question is you, not god, to parallel the Islamist guy’s “Do you want your lives taken away by God as infidels?”
Der, quoted the wrong bit. Meant to get the one with infidels.
It has always puzzled me that, according to the Bible/New Testament/Koran, the character that Jews, Christians and Muslims recognise as God is stupid and evil. Satan does not appear to malevolent at all, why is he cast as the bad guy?
As for Lady Gaga, I actually like some of her records and I was pleased to see that she had cancelled shows rather than tone them down. I would assume that this stance is costing her money, so good for her that she is prepered to stand up against religious prudes.
I kinda wish she’d cancelled before the threats or, better still, had never planned to go there in the first place.
I think her decision was the correct one in the but I don’t think that cancelling due to threats is admirable – I’d reserve that for those who risk their lives going where they are not wanted (e.g. Peter Tatchell)
“I don’t think that cancelling due to threats is admirable”
It probably wasn’t so much the threats that were an issue though. Authorities refused to issue a permit if she didn’t tone down the show, due to pressure from Islamic fanatics. So, her only choices were either tone down or cancel. Toning down the show to please the repressed fanatics would have been a terrible decision.
Sadly, it is better this way. We might otherwise have been seeing the concert organizers apologizing for the part they played in causing death and mayhem in the streets, which is becoming an all-too-common occurrence: “sorry we allowed one of your sacred books to burn and made you kill a bunch of people”, “sorry we allowed someone to draw a cartoon you didn’t like and made you commit murder and destroy property”. It is so sad to see the bullies getting their own way again, with the threat of madness and popular insanity on their side.
The last thing I read about Indonesia, islamist hardliners, a mob of several hundred with the police on hand standing idly by, were throwing bags of urine at church goers at a place just outside their capital city. Nice lot.
mother a woodford being marie ashley poems
This is the same Indonesia held up by many as an example of a moderate and tolerant Islamic state, a model of the new modern viability of non extremist Islam, right?
Indonesia is also a reeking environmental diasaster where public transit and sidewalks are considered “socialist”. needless to say, American politicians and “business leaders” love them some Indonesia, especially since the Indonesian military (using American supplied bullets) killed hundreds of thousands of leftists.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/17/take-a-train-in-jakarta/
“Since 1965 (the year of brutal US-backed military coup which brought general Suharto to power and took between 800.000 and 3 million lives. Murdered were the leftists, intellectuals, people of Chinese minority, unionists and atheists were or simply those who had more beautiful wife, better plot of land or fatter cow) the government worked hard to make sure that Indonesian cities would have no public transportation, no sizeable parks and no sidewalks. Public places in general were considered very dangerous, as that is where the people used to gather discussing ‘subversive’ issues like their plans for the country.”
“In South America the right-wingers used to shout: “Jakarta is Coming!” to frighten left-wing governments in Chile and elsewhere in the world. Jakarta is now here, in its full glory; a monument to unbridled capitalism; the monster, the warning, and the case study for those who want to understand how low the elites could sink in their overwhelming greed and selfishness.”