The popularity of Metal with people of Arabic descent is very interesting. Ideas anyone? And do any of the fans from these regions have anything they can share with the rest of us about this?
Well Im Middle Eastern, Lebanese to be specific.
As much as Metal is a marginalized and frowned upon genre in a religious and conventional environment as the Middle East, it is this harsh fact for such a genre that attracts most of the fans, teens especially. Teenagers in the Middle East live a constant struggle between the traditions and hertiage of their society Vs. personal freedom and globalization. This shredding struggle leaves only a struggling option as well for most of these people, Metal.
Sadly, most Arab metal fans are posers or scensters who simply wish to look cool and fit in rather than actually feel the music and pick up on its truth and purity of expression and integrity. I guess this is the way it is for the Metal scene all over the world, you find it dominated by those materialist wannabes rather than the true fans.
Another thing is that most of the Metal scene in the Middle East is American and anything that has an American characteristic is considerred civilized and "cool" in the Arab region so you find a lot of people running after it.
Yet with all the growing struggles and the ongoing wars and political/religious/social clashes, backstabbed yet determined youth seem to have left the fanbase and became the Metal musicians themselves.
Youth is impervious to destruction and so there are two ways for them to disperse: 1) looks and materials...2)Devotion and sincerity.
Little by little it seems that Middle Easterners are crawling out of the materialistic shell and finding enough space to stand up and take things in their own stride. All the upheavals and social frustration have fruited and exploded to a wide-spread anarchy that resulted in the cultivation of many music genres and Metal is on top of the list.
It is extremely hard to be a hardcore metal fan in such an atmosphere because people in such areas are simply under-developed both socially and culturally, they are not prepared to face any different aspects or stand off-ish individuals yet, they fight them instead of taking them in. Sometimes just having long hair for a male makes it hard to walk down the street without people staring and making fun of you.
Middle Eastern societies still have a long way to go and a lot of things to do in order to rise up to the level where a different individual is no longer outcasted due to the music he likes or the way he wished to dress.
Metal is synonymous with devil worship and disobedience here, metal fans are clearly stereotyped as bad, evil, and perverse here more than anywhere else.
Anyways, Metal is still brand new here and has long years ahead of it. Metal still needs time to be taken in around here, takes a while.
One more thing, from watching Metal: A Headbangers Journey. It seemed like the first waves of Metal came as an attack against Christianity and its social obligations or rules, a rejection of religion and mostly the Christian faith and look how far it has gone.
What if one day, it started to be a fight against the dominant religion of the Middle Eastern region...Islam? Can you imagine how big that would be? In the west it was Vs. Christianity. In the Middle East it would be against Islam, this wave would be huge, unlike anything else.
Just the thought of it makes me shiver in exclamation, defying the world's biggest and most strict religion, how big of a revolution that would be.
