Iraqi Metal Band Acrassicauda on Trump’s Muslim Ban: “It’s somebody with the mentality of a 5-year-old bully.”
If you’ve seen the 2007 film Heavy Metal in Baghdad then you’re already familiar with the band Acrassicauda, the Iraqi subjects of the movie. If not, here’s a quick refresher: Vice Magazine published an article on the band in 2003, then later returned to film the documentary. Vice ended up helping the band emigrate to the U.S. in 2009 from Syria, where they’d resettled after fleeing the horrors of war in their home country, and they’ve been living in New York ever since.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s immigration ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries (none of whose nationals have infiltrated terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, it should be noted), Rolling Stone caught up with Acrassicauda drummer Marwan Hussein to gauge his thoughts on the matter. Unsurprisingly he’s pretty upset: aside from the fact that his plans to bring his mother to the U.S. are now on hold indefinitely — he hasn’t seen her since 2011 — the widespread implications of the ban are extremely distressing and cut very, very deep.
Hussein offered disbelief in the interview’s opening:
What was your initial reaction to Trump’s executive order?
The whole thing is surreal. I think to myself, “Are we being punked in here? Where’s the cameras?” It’s ridiculous. It’s somebody with the mentality of a 5-year-old bully and just literally doesn’t know what the fuck to do. Who would do that?
What are you feeling now?
Mixed emotions of being disgusted by one man’s action and knowing America is a country for immigrants. Only natives can say, “I’m 100 percent American.” The rest are immigrants.
The whole slogan “Make America Great Again” never made sense to me. It’s kind of ironic because what makes America great again is people being able to stand up to their governments when they’re being fucking fascists and telling them to go fuck themselves. So there is a fucking irony [laughs]. I don’t think he knew that.
Hussein elaborated on what drew him to America in the first place, and on the harmful role of religion in general in today’s society:
What did you think of America [when you lived in Iraq]?
What made America special was that in spite of the war in Iraq – we knew there were no weapons of destruction in Iraq, and we knew the government and politicians lie – but it seemed like America wanted to fix things. America made mistakes and fucked up, but it wanted to fix things. And the slogan “Land of the Free” is what made America special. It wasn’t military power; it was immigrants. They opened their arms to anybody, and accepted people. And you can see that in New York more than any other place. Losing this [acceptance] will cost America a lot. This is a special thing about this country. If you take it away, it becomes a Death Star situation.
The reason I asked about fascism there is because your music wasn’t allowed for religious reasons, because you weren’t hailing and praising, as you said. What do you make of Trump turning this into something abouthow he thinks Christians are treated in the Middle East?
Nobody has more superiority in the Christian world than the Pope, and he’s saying Trump isn’t Christian. So enough with the religion. It worked thousands of years ago, but it’s like using a Nintendo or IBM or a flip-phone now, it doesn’t apply. You needed religion a thousand years ago because people were barbaric, just killing each other. Think about the way [conservatives] say “abortion is killing babies” – do you think this worse than sending your children to war when they have hopes and dreams and ideas for themselves? Once they’re born, you don’t give a shit about them. It’s a hypocrisy.
And he’s saying things like the Christian thing – Muslims and Christians have been living in harmony [in America], but what he’s trying to do is divide the country, making it a civil war all over again. When brothers and neighbors are turning against each other just for religious views, forget about any code for decency or honorable points of view. Basically, they’re saying, “I’m more superior than you are,” and that’s what he’s turning the country into. I’ve seen it from experience, and I can tell you the worst type of war is a civil war.
Read the full interview at Rolling Stone.
