Poland: DJ faces death threats for 'Mekka' song

Poland: DJ faces death threats for 'Mekka' song

The song is available on YouTube.


Islamic fundamentalists posted death threats against a Polish disk jockey soon after he published a song that he says was supposed to be a tribute to the Muslim culture.


It started on Christmas Eve.


Jakub Rene Kosik, a 27-year-old DJ from Poland excused himself from the dinner table and checked his Facebook. Word of his newest composition, Mekka, was out. And it was ill-received.


“You messed with Islam,” the first message read. “We’ll never forgive what you did to our religion,” read another. “You played with us, now we’ll play with you.” “We’re everywhere. Forget your international career.” By morning he had more than 300 such messages.


Fundamentalists reacted to the piece, placed on an internet music store website, because it included backing music of an Islamic prayer.
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“I smiled stupidly and told my girlfriend “I think they want to kill me for this composition”. In the first instant, she didn’t react. Afterwards she was hysteric,” Kosik said.


“I had mixed feelings. My first thought was, “great, publicity”. Later I started thinking if I didn’t in fact really hurt these people. But my composition was supposed to be a tribute to their culture.


“I’m atheist. But I was raised with respect to different religions and philosophical opinions."


The threats and negative comments, including one from an 8-year-old French boy – “Jakub Rene Kosik – die dog” – resulted in sleepless nights for the artist. He replied to the threats, each one individually, apologized and explained it was never his intention to offend anyone’s religious sentiment. But it wasn’t until he removed the piece from the sites that the taunts subsided.


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Director of the Middle East and North Africa Faculty of the University of Łodź, Prof. Marek Dziekan also doesn’t consider ecumenism possible.


“Dialog between Islam and Christianity isn’t possible on a global scale. We talk about similarities, the belief in one God, but the Christian God appears in three persons (in the Holy Trinity). People who aim for dialog are at most individuals, but not the whole Islam world. Christians can be lead by the Pope, but who should lead Muslims? An Imam?” the Professor said.


But Grzegorz Bogdanowicz of the Warsaw Faith Community Muslim Religion Union (Warszawskiej Gminy Wyznaniowej Muzułmańskiego Związku Religijnego) said the reaction to the composition was the result of the negative treatment of Muslims in Western European nations where they feel like second-class citizens. “In Poland the situation is a lot better,” Mr Bogdanowicz said.


“Last year common prayer took place in a mosque. Three hundred people, Muslim and Catholic, intermixed in pews, read the Koran and the Bible, they prayed to Allah and to God in the Trinity.”


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Source: The Outlook (English), h/t T&P

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