I had these political/aesthetic frames of mind in my head around the time that it became obvious that the leftist Islamic militancy of the Seventies – that of the PLO, Gadaffi, and Saddam – was losing ground to the more Koranic militancy of Osama and his merry men. I related more to the leftist anti-imperialist rebel Seventies stance and thought it’d be great if there was an anarchist Islamic movement, hence the concept of Islamic Diggers.
I’ve been involved with the politics of the Arab world since I was eighteen. When we started recording music together, we decided to call ourselves that name. The militancy continued hand in hand with the music. The principal manifestations of this activism are the Cultural Intafadas against the so-called Islamic heretic, Hakim Bey, and against Bachir Attar`s Jajouka. Hakim Bey is a fake mystic and a fake revolutionary. Bachir Attar leads a commercial psuedo-Joujouka crossover act called The Master Musicians of Jajouka Featuring Bachir Attar. In both of those Cultural Intafadas, we are reasonably successful and they are both ongoing. As far as I’m concerned Islamic Diggers is an ongoing project which can’t be discontinued or prevented. We included a new track, El Fna, on the Destroy DVD. This was produced by Paul Schroeder, best known for his incredible work on the Stone Roses’ second album, Second Coming. A tragically underestimated album.
What are you working on now?
FR: Musically I am working on a project with Niall O’Sullivan which brings me back to my roots as a rock’n’roll singer, performer, and songwriter. We started working together on The Baby Snakes, when we were 17 years old, and it feels good to get back to that energy.
JA: I have my next book, Chelsea Hotel Manhattan, out in April. I’m very excited about it because this is something I’ve been working up towards for a few years. 
I think it’s my best book – I have total faith in it. It’s also my most unconventional book insofar as I’m normally a pretty conservative prose stylist.
Stylistically, it bears comparison with my first novel, Serious Time. I hope Chelsea Hotel Manhattan will make people laugh and cry. I`d like to work on something with Chuck Prophet again but Chuck has his own book to do and I`m sure it`ll be quite a book because Chuck is a cool customer in every sense of the phrase.
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