The Story of Haroon Bacha

Mr. Haroon Bacha, 36, is a Pashtun, the Muslim ethnic group of the mountainous northwest of Pakistan and southeast Afghanistan, and a musician. At home, he is a star, with dozens of albums, slick videos and regular television appearances. However, a year ago he began receiving threats. In the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, the Taliban has intimidated musicians and record store proprietors; recently dozens of music shops have been bombed, reportedly by pro-Taliban militants. As a result, he fled to the U.S.

Two months ago Mr. Bacha escaped from his home near Peshawar, in Pakistan, and came to New York, leaving behind his wife, two young children and an extended family. If he goes back, he said, he will be killed. With a sharply reduced audience in the United States, Mr. Bacha faces an uncertain career, but on Saturday he sang at a small but lively benefit concert in Queens, organized by the Pashtun immigrants who have adopted him and held at an unlikely place: the Forest Hills Jewish Center.

In the first songs of the night he declared his love for the Pashtuns’ land and traditional lifestyle: “Our mud houses are like palaces to us.” But soon his lyrics, which are drawn from old and new Pashto poetry, turned to topical struggles. “This is not my gun/This is not our war,” he sang, “They are bringing it to us.” The small crowd roared and clapped along, as men danced and threw money on the stage, in a sign of praise and approval.

There is a historical precedent for the Taliban’s cultural clampdown. After taking power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, it banned public performances of most forms of music — some religious chants were permitted — and symbolically hanged musical instruments in effigy. Many musicians went into exile in Pakistan, but since the American invasion of Afghanistan and establishment of a new government there, most have returned.