Punkfighting

As Geertz makes clear in Deep Play: notes on the Balinese cockfight, a culture can be understood through the various “texts,” as he calls them, contained within the culture.

Looking at Tawqacore in this way, the first step would be to identify texts. Two immediately come to mind: from Punk, the Taqwacores’ outlandish clothes and hair, and from Muslim, the daily ritual prayer.

The second step would then be to analyze the emotional meaning of each text.

Quite obvious is the way in which the Taqwacores individualize themselves and separate from the larger society – their image. The very act of wearing a Mohawk or getting a tattoo is a way of expelling oneself from mainstream society. The Taqwacores are essentially breaking off, that is to say, separating themselves not only from non- Taqwacores, but also from each other. Looking at Jehangir next to Yusef, it would probably be hard to imagine that they should have anything in common.

In sharp contrast, prayers embody the spiritual, displaying the self containment and recognition of oneself as a smaller being in a larger universe. Each prayer is a way of bonding oneself not only with Allah, but also with other people. These people may be strangers, as when the many bands camped at the house and held mass-group-prayers, or one’s closest friends, as when the Taqwacores pray together on a daily basis. However, there’s always contained in this act a sense of greater unity.

This simultaneous separation and unification within the Taqwacore culture forms a central mode of being; the two acts balance each other out to create what is uniquely Taqwacore.