People are all different, not stereotypes

kentonline news editor

Ten Muslims walk into a house... and that’s the BBC’s latest documentary, Muslims Like Us. I’m ashamed to say I watched the two-part series after reading the MailOnline headline: ‘Bigoted. Nasty. Cynical. The BBC’s ‘Muslim Big Brother’ won’t unite cultures, it’ll divide them’.

‘What a laugh’, I thought, but what I viewed was something far more thought-provoking, because none of the participants were the same or even similar.

There was a gay man, a glamorous and bright young school teacher and then there was Abdul Haqq, a British-born former boxing champ who converted to Islam, developed utterly repulsive views and now says he’ll go to Syria... if he ever gets his passport back.

They all set about trying to work out what makes a ‘good Muslim’ – very unsuccessfully.

The question ‘are you British or Muslim first?’ was even more divisive. One housemate compared it to asking ‘are you a female or Asian first?’

Enter four non-Muslims: a decidedly plain young bloke, an eccentric and pompous young bloke, a generic elderly woman and a patriotic Indian man.

I think this is where the show really excelled — because I couldn’t relate to any of them.

I found myself screaming: “Who the hell does Jason in his bow tie, boater and mauve chinos represent?”

Well, Jacob Rees-Mogg and no one else. He was curious but also irritating. He sneered at one woman because she preferred London to York and insisted on calling Fehran Fernando, because his name was ‘just too difficult.’

The others, while less offensive, were also nothing like me. That’s when I realised that if I’m angry at how unrepresentative these people are, imagine how a Muslim feels?

Whether intentional or not, Muslims Like Us certainly achieved something.