By Freemuse

Tuesday 13 April 2010 was quickly declared ‘the day the music died’ in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu.

“But who killed it and how was it killed?,” Freemuse’s correspondent, Abdulkadir M. Wa’ays, asks.

His own reply is: “The music was not actually killed by the Islamists; It was killed by the owners of the radio stations in Mogadishu. Their unanimous compliance with the Islamists's music ban represents nothing but shift of allegiance as well as a new alliance of convenience between them and the Islamist groups. In fact, the young journalists at these stations, who are now making most of the talking about the music ban, are innocents and victims of their employers”

Meanwhile, the name of the Hisbul Islam (also spelled: Hezb al-Islam) group of radical Islamic militia, which controls patches of the war-wracked Somali capital, has become known all over the world, after their top commander in Mogadishy, Ma'allin Hashi Mohamed Farah, announced the 10 days ultimatum to shut down socalled ‘evil’ and ‘un-Islamic’ music broadcasts.

On 14 April 2010, a Google News search on the name showed that 556 articles had been published about the militia group in the medias linked to the news provider.

15 minutes of (terror) fame
Freemuse Programme Manager Ole Reitov believes the music ban in Mogadishu primarily is a symbolic case which gives Hisbul Islam and their leaders attention and '15 minutes of fame' in the international media. He expects that there may be public reprisals against those who violate the ban, but he does not believe Islamists necessarily will resort to killing anyone.

“It's not likely they will murder anyone, but it may very well be that they need symbolic action. For instance, this could be to take radio journalists out in a public place and whip them. Part of the power of language is to create fear. And when this is the aim, then music is a good symbolic target,” told Ole Reitov to the Norwegian radio listeners in an interview with NRK, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. 16 people have commented the article on NRK's website.