Junoon’s interview by COREY LEVITAN pubished in the NY post
November 25, 2001 – Most rock musicians are either supporting the United States’ bombing of Afghanistan or holding their tongues. Not the members of Junoon.
“By bombing Afghanistan immediately, that was kind of jumping the gun slightly,” said Salman Ahmad, the band’s 38-year-old songwriter and lead guitarist.
Junoon is the biggest rock band in Pakistan, where anti-American demonstrations have gained in number and ferocity since the bombing began in neighboring Afghanistan last month.
Following Sept. 11, the long-haired rockers - whose groove blends Led Zeppelin and U2 with Ravi Shankar and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - have been touring North America, and on Oct. 24 became the first rock band to perform before the U.N.'s General Assembly.
Junoon also is the subject of a VH1 news special, “Islamabad Rock City,” airing Thursday at 10 p.m.
But don’t expect them to support the United States’ approach to uprooting the Taliban.
“I think that there still is another option, in which you can still put the same pressure on the Taliban without bombing them,” said Ahmad.
“I think there should be an international terrorist court. Obviously, the whole world community has to be a part of it. But it can’t be seen as just one country acting as judge, jury and executioner, because in the long term that backfires on you.”
Formed in 1990, Junoon - whose name means passion - lives in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Its members sing mostly in the national language of Urdu.
But Ahmad speaks in perfect English peppered every three or four sentences with the word “dude.” That’s because he grew up in Rockland County in the 1970s; his dad worked in the city for Pakistan International Airlines.
“I think what happened in the United States was a huge tragedy, and no way can that be condoned by any nation, any religion, any people,” said Ahmad. “But the fact is, you want to kill terrorists. What you don’t want to do is start a larger war.”
Ahmad follows the Sufi Islamic tradition, which preaches tolerance. Bassist Brian O’Connell, Ahmad’s classmate at Tappan Zee High School, is the group’s only non-Sufi. He’s an Irish Catholic from Queens who went to Pakistan in 1992 to help record Junoon’s second album.
Although he says he’s against U.S. policy (“I don’t believe in war at all,” he clarified), Ahmad is eager to spread the word that the terrorists did not act on behalf of Islam.
“The hijackers didn’t just hijack planes, they hijacked a religion,” he said. “The killing of innocent men, women and children is prohibited in Islam. So is suicide. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban have perverted the religion, and the 1.5 billion people who follow this religion are in a crisis of identity because of 9/11.”
Ahmad explained that many Pakistanis - even Junoon fans - are of the opinion that Muslims everywhere are being attacked by U.S. imperialist bombs.
“Setting them straight is like walking a tightrope,” Ahmad said. "It’s a misconception that all Pakistanis are these angry people screaming, ‘Death to America.’
"What you see on CNN is 30,000 people at most coming out to the streets. But the country has 140 million people, so it’s a real small percentage.
“Having said that, they are a nuisance. They are really loud and armed to the teeth.”