Gaga Forced To Cancel Indonesian Concert
There shall be no Born This Way Ball in Indonesia.
After clerics in Jakarta spent several weeks fuming and fretting over the social implications of allowing Lady Gaga, lover of sodomites and revealer of body parts, to perform in the world's largest Muslim country, Gaga's security team was so inundated with threats and portents that they forcibly canceled the concert.
The pop diva appeared to acknowledge [the situation] in a post on Twitter on Saturday: "There is nothing Holy about hatred."
Islamists and conservative Muslims have decried Lady Gaga's upcoming concert, saying her revealing costumes and sensual dance moves are forbidden by Islamic law.
The chairman of the Islamic Defenders Front, Habib Rizieq, said his group could not guarantee security if the concert were held.
Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world.
In March, the pop star got a thumbs-down by the country's highest Islamic authority, according to The Jakarta Globe.
Indonesian Council of Ulema chairman Cholil Ridwan was urging Muslims not to attend the controversial singer's upcoming concert in Jakarta, the newspaper reported.
"(The concert is) intended to destroy the nation's morality," Ridwan told the Globe.
I think Ridwan is correct: Lady Gaga probably did direct the Born This Way Ball toward Indonesia, in part, because she dislikes what passes for sexual morality there. What's mystifying is why Indonesian clerics, despite their vast power, would feel threatened by a 26-year-old pop singer from the Lower East Side. They've allegedly got God on their side, and righteousness, and culture and history and whatnot. With so much going for them, why should they become unmanned by a few pop tunes and a bit of latex?




Religion is just another object- a rather complicated and revered one but an object nonetheless and therefore has no inherent badness or goodness but takes upon one of these qualities depending on how it is used. Sort of like how a gun is good if it being used to shoot someone that is eating off your face in Miami but bad if it's being used to shoot up a shopping mall.
I've had the (dis)pleasure of knowing people involved with religion and using it as something genuinely positive and uplifting and I know it's been used to do awful things like this, the precolonial witch trials, the crusades, mormon child brides etc. Most all of the positives have been people going to religion and the negatives were religion fused with political strength and an unrelenting zeal toward something, anything that those in power feel the need to have accomplished.
Posted by: MaddM@ | May 28, 2012 8:49:42 PM
First, by my standards, "Lady" Gaga is no "Lady". Talent? Is in the eye of the beholder. A positive influence on the coming generation? HARDLY!
Posted by: Jerry6 | May 28, 2012 9:05:53 PM
Kiwi, I understand that you were provoked here, but why not just tell your antagonist to F*** OFF AND DIE! the way you do with me? From advocating that we poop on people's graves to advising ....necrophilia? Even though I realize you didn't mean this literally, it still sounds twisted.
And don't respond with venom, Raymond, we're on the same side now. I'm not a homophobe anymore so a little civility is in order. And no, I don't expect a verbal gold medal for "evolving." You wouldn't give me credit for having grown tolerant even if I became a minister of the United Church of Canada and started performing gay wedding ceremonies!
Posted by: Mary | May 28, 2012 9:43:20 PM
There is something else going on here - Beyonce was allowed to have a concert in Indonesia. Maybe Gaga didn't pay enough bribes or whatever.
Posted by: entrepoid | May 29, 2012 10:09:48 AM
Lady Gaga, who obtained fame and fortune by being provocative is shocked when she isn't allowed to perform in a Moslem country? I just don't buy it. I have a big problem with her and Madonna anyway. I am tired of straight women co-opting queer culture and then being proclaimed as heroes and making piles of money off of it from gay men. It's like african americans applauding white performers in black face and making them wealthy. It's really pathetic.
Posted by: entrepoid | May 29, 2012 10:24:57 AM