Rot the Casbah
Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran and removed an important US ally from the geopolitical chessboard, served as a natural foil for the irreverent spirit of Anglo-American pop culture and MTV in its inaugural decade. Killing Joke’s 1984 music video for “ Eighties ” simulates the Iranian firebrand’s assassination, and the grotesquely humorous 1986 Genesis video for “ Land of Confusion ” juxtaposes Khomeini with Benito Mussolini, implying a totalitarian equivalency. The Ayatollah also served as partial inspiration for Neil Young’s 1989 single “ Rockin’ in the Free World ” with its line “Don’t feel like Satan, but I am to them” [1]. U2 frontman Bono “offered shelter and support to [Salman] Rushdie while he was under a fatwa issued [by Khomeini] in 1989” following the publication of The Satanic Verses ; and, seeking “to publicly show support for the embattled Rushdie,” Bono “invited him onstage during a Zooropa tour stop in London in 19...