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On September 20th, 2002, the Pakistani rock band Junoon appeared before a full house at the Indocenter for Art and Culture in New York City celebrating the launch of Junoon for Peace, a DVD tribute to the victims of the WTC attack.
The evening featured screenings of excerpts from the Junoon for Peace DVD as well as the video premiere of “No More,” Junoon’s first English song. Band members Brian O’Connell, Ali Azmat, and Salman Ahmad (UN HIV/AIDS Advisor for Pakistan) reflected on their role as artists in the aftermath of 9-11 and took a number of questions from audience members about their linkages with artists in India, the story behind "No More" and their ideas around the war against terrorism.
Junoon for Peace, presented by Breakthrough & WalledCity Media, was recorded live at the Alliance Française in New York on October 27, 2001. The DVD features powerful live performances of popular Junoon songs such as “Saeen,” “Dosti,” and “Sayonee.” It is a tribute to the victims of the tragedy and a call for an end to the subsequent discrimination faced by Arabs and South Asians in the United States. Junoon for Peace was directed by Sameer Butt and produced by Abraham Castillo.
The message of Junoon for Peace is that the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center on September 11 did not speak for Islam or for the vast majority of peace loving Muslims of the world.
Junoon (“Passion”) is one of South Asia’s most popular rock bands. The New York Times popular music critic Jon Pareles has described Junoon as “the South Asian answer to Santana.” The Boston Globe declares: “Junoon sounds like Led Zeppelin with Sufi Muslim poetry.” Junoon’s music, mostly in the Urdu language, blends Western hard rock with Sindhi & Punjabi folk and the Sufi devotional music known as Qawali. The band’s message is emphatically political: speaking out against corruption and religious extremism in Pakistan, nuclear proliferation in South Asia, and the intermittent conflict between Pakistan and India.
Breakthrough is an international human rights organization committed to increasing public dialogue and awareness about human rights and social justice issues through the use of education and popular culture. For more information, visit our website.
WalledCity Media LLC is a New York-based film and concert production company with close ties to South Asia. WalledCity co-produced Islamabad Rock City, a television documentary about popular culture and politics in Pakistan that premiered on VH1 in late November 2001.
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