When sane people read about a comedy show called Little Mosque on the Prairie made by a notoriously liberal public broadcaster they assumed it was a clever self-parody.
The CBC had at last found a sense of humour, they assumed, and was making fun of its own reputation for political correctness and plodding leftism.
A spoof, they thought. A clever ploy to fool us into believing our national broadcaster would not be so predictable and crass as to actually run with such a weak and cringing idea. But then they realized this is Canada and this is the CBC.
Then they saw it. The usual visual drudgery. Awful Canadian actors mouthing lamentable dialogue packed with cliches and telegraphed attempts at humour. The bland leading the bland. And all paid for by your tax dollars—including the huge advertising campaign for the project. Public money that could otherwise have been spent on something trivial like a nurse in an intensive care ward.
The obvious first. It goes without saying that no such comedy will be made in this country where Christians are portrayed as a misunderstood community and all of the non-Christians around them as buffoons and extremists. Also goes without saying that we’ll never see an episode of Little Church in the Desert on Saudi TV.
From beginning to end the show thumps us over our non-hijab wearing heads with a clumsy hammer. Any fears about Islam, we are told, are based on our own ignorance and bigotry.
Everyone is a caricature in Little Mosque, but some caricatures are more obnoxious than others.
The Muslim characters are nice and kind and ordinary in that quintessentially Canadian way. Some of them may be silly and old-fashioned but they’d never hurt a fly, let alone kill an infidel.
The non-Muslim caricatures, however, are repugnant. Especially if they’re cops.
You know cops. The poor fools who have to put their lives on the line during a terrorist attack. A terrorist attack which, naturally, could never have anything to do with Islam.
By the way, in the month of December alone there were 249 jihadist incidents around the world, resulting in 1,794 deaths and 1,589 people being critically injured.
About the only compassionate and apparently informed non-Muslim anywhere to be seen in the program is an Anglican priest. The usual witless literary device who makes us feel good because we’re obliged to identify with his good sense and humanism.
Does he, one wonders, ask his Muslim friends if they follow one interpretation of the Koran’s teaching that apostates from their religion should be killed?
He might also want to ask them if the Koran allows a husband to beat his wife. Something which is not denied even by those Muslims who are uncomfortable with the passage.
Or he might want to monitor the sermons in the Little Mosque to make sure that, unlike many of those in Gaza, Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, Islamabad and even a few in Canada, they’re not applauding the Sept. 11 massacres, calling Jews monkeys and pigs who should be slaughtered, demanding that Christians be killed in a holy war or that homosexuals should be put to the sword.
Genuine understanding might be possible.
But only after genuine truth, genuine criticism and, well, genuine comedy.
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