IRON MAIDEN And Ramadan: 'Sharing Is Good'

August 22, 2009

Hürriyet Daily News reports that Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate has hailed holy Ramadan with a poster featuring British heavy metal legends IRON MAIDEN.

Ahead of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, the Religious Affairs Directorate prepared a poster (see below) that shows a young, longhaired, bearded man wearing a black IRON MAIDEN t-shirt smiling to and hugging an old man wearing a cap. In the poster the old man likewise smiles to the young man. The directorate's motto for this year's Ramadan is: "It's good to share."

Ece Algan, a Turkish assistant professor of media and cultural studies at California State University in San Bernardino, writes on her blog, "With this picture, the Directorate is referring to the many rock concerts that took place in Istanbul this summer and even attracted the prime minister Erdogan's attention along with his strong disapproval. The poster illustrates how heavy metal is seen as a symbol of western capitalist culture where materialism is believed to be valued over spirituality. There is clearly a desire to rescue the western-music-and-clothing-worshipping youth from turning even more materialistic because the Directorate, just like the prime minister, operates under the fallacy that when you consume western cultural goods, you become western! Even if they don't completely believe it, they still use it whenever they have a chance as a great scare tactic to further the Islamist agenda!"

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