Mohammed's radio in Pakistan

Lyrics courtesy of the late, great Warren Zevon.

Everybody's restless and they've got no place to go
Someone's always trying to tell them
Something they already know
So their anger and resentment flow
But don't it make you want to rock and roll
All night long
Mohammed's Radio
I heard somebody singing sweet and soulful
On the radio, Mohammed's Radio

Ayatollah's got his problems too
And even Jimmy Carter's got the highway blues
I went to see the Governor 'cause I thought that he would know
(you see I knew him)
He's been up all night listening to Mohammed's Radio

This song is quite timely in 2006. (Note, these lyrics are from a live rendition recorded a few years after the studio version was released.)

London's Daily Telegraph has a story about what the Pakistani press are calling the "FM Mullahs," pirate radio operators in those now famous "tribal border areas" where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.

Predictably, violence has broken out as a result of these low-budget transmissions.

From the Telegraph:

The radicalising effect of unlicensed stations has been keenly felt in Bara village in the Khyber tribal agency. There, two "FM mullahs", as they were dubbed by the local press, one who followed a Sufic tradition and another, a newcomer who is a disciple of a more austere form of Islam, waged a turf war via their private channels.

After inciting their followers to bloody riots, a jirga (tribal council) ruled last week that both should be expelled from the area. Now the government is under pressure from secular-minded local leaders who doubt the commitment of President Pervez Musharraf's government to crack down on the stations.

"We have closed over 40 stations during the last four months as they are creating differences and sectarian issues," said the information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed. "There are still a few preaching jihad but we are closing them down."

Perhaps the Pakistani government ought to try a rock format on one of those FM frequencies.

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