Channel 4's 'My Week As A Muslim' Provokes Backlash
Channel 4's recent programme, 'My Week As A Muslim' has provoked
a furious backlash from muslims and non muslims alike.
The documentary went to the lengths of getting a white woman to go undercover in 'brownface' makeup in an attempt to show the prejudice faced by Muslim women. Katie Freeman, who previously supported banning the burqa faced abuse from many non muslims, including drinkers in a Manchester pub, asking her whether she planned to blow them up.
But many viewers were left wondering why Channel 4 felt that the way to show this so called Islamophobia was to find a white 'Christian' woman and put her in a hijab and ‘brownface’ make-up. Many asked pointed questions about why the documentary makers couldn’t have simply given a hidden camera to one of the hundreds of thousands of women in the UK’s 2.7 million-strong Muslim population.
The documentary went to the lengths of getting a white woman to go undercover in 'brownface' makeup in an attempt to show the prejudice faced by Muslim women. Katie Freeman, who previously supported banning the burqa faced abuse from many non muslims, including drinkers in a Manchester pub, asking her whether she planned to blow them up.
But many viewers were left wondering why Channel 4 felt that the way to show this so called Islamophobia was to find a white 'Christian' woman and put her in a hijab and ‘brownface’ make-up. Many asked pointed questions about why the documentary makers couldn’t have simply given a hidden camera to one of the hundreds of thousands of women in the UK’s 2.7 million-strong Muslim population.
UKIP's Integration Spokesman John Bickley said: "The
programme appeared desperate to prove that 'muslim good', 'white Christian
person bad'. Why didn't they, in the same programme 'whiteface' a female Asian
muslim and put them into a Muslim community, especially one with many males and
see what happened? I would wager that given time, similar levels of abuse would
have been levelled at the female 'whiteface' Muslim as was against the
'brownface' woman.
The most telling part of the programme was when Katie
Freeman discussed interfaith marriage with her Muslim lady 'minder'. Although
the Muslim lady was an extremely nice person, British born, she would not
countenance the idea of any of her daughters, or for that matter community
marrying a non Muslim. There in a nutshell lies the challenge ahead for our
country. With the growth of the Muslim population outpacing that of the
indigenous white British 'christian' community we are heading for parallel
societies which can only fill one with deep anxiety about our country's future
social cohesion. We have seen the consequences of a divided society in Northern
Ireland, where for hundreds of years Catholics and Protestants thought the only
way to settle their differences was with the bullet and the
bomb".
