Bigoted. Nasty. Cynical. The BBC’s ‘Muslim Big Brother’ won’t unite cultures, it’ll divide them
AWOMAN in an elegant headscarf, knotted almost like a turban, is explaining her beliefs. Her name is Humaira and she is, she says, a sort of ‘radical moderate’. She seems articulate, educated, rational. And then her throat tightens, and she adds: ‘British values for me are colonialism, institutional racism and theft, and genocide.’
The disturbing fact is that Humaira really is one of the more moderate voices in Muslims Like Us, the two-part BBC2 reality show that puts ten Muslims in a house in York and gleefully films their furious arguments over faith and Islamic culture.
Most alarming of all is a 35-year-old extremist and convicted fraudster who calls himself Abdul Haqq, though he was born Anthony Small — a name he despises, because he feels his surname mocks his manhood.
Haqq is a former British and Commonwealth boxing champion, now a self-employed preacher, who had his passport confiscated by the security services after he was suspected of planning to join ISIS. He told the cameras openly on this programme that, if he were free to leave the country, he would be on the next plane to Syria, and that he envies the friends who have died fighting in the Middle East.
But even the least confrontational of the house guests holds views that to most people in Britain are deeply worrying. Mehreen, who likes glamorous make-up and nights out, spends much of the show trying to placate Haqq.
‘He’s not a nasty man, he’s a messed-up man,’ she pleads. ‘I’ve got such a soft spot for Abdul Haqq.’ She adds that whenever she speaks to him, she lowers her gaze to avoid giving offence.
That’s not enough for Haqq, who is a former member of hate preacher Anjem Choudary’s inner circle. In fact, he is no stranger to the courts.
Last year, he was cleared of a charge of preparing for acts of terrorism and conspiracy to possess false identity documents at an Old Bailey trial. But he was later convicted in a separate case of fraud and handed 32 weeks imprisonment, suspended for two years.
THIS charming specimen demands on this programme that Mehreen must cover herself from head to foot, and he refuses to look at or shake hands with any of the five women in the house. The show’s producer, Rich McKerrow from Love Productions, is eager to defend Haqq’s involvement in the documentary. ‘He holds some pretty questionable views and we thought hard about putting him in,’ he claims. ‘His voice is a legitimate voice, and is a voice that is challenged.
‘While he makes incredibly offensive remarks by “normal” standards, as is appreciated by people in there, he’s quite a sensitive guy.’
The implication is that, if we take offence at anything Haqq says, we are blinkered by our mindless ‘normal standards’ and we lack the delicate spirituality of the sensitive Mr Haqq.
At first, you might suppose Rich McKerrow is a typical middle-class liberal, tying himself in knots to be tolerant and broad-minded.
But is the reality more cynical than that? Love Productions is hugely experienced at reality shows that bring out controversies. It is the film company behind the provocative reality show Benefits Street, and TV reports on mass immigration with titles such as Make Bradford British and Why Don’t You Speak English?
When they invited Abdul Haqq to spout his bile for the TV cameras, they knew exactly what they were doing. Just a week after a government report by Dame Louise Casey warned of the segregation that has grown up in Britain between Muslim and white communities, this programme is hardly likely to help bridge that divide.
Much of the vile, twisted garbage that came out of Haqq’s mouth was based on dubious texts and shaky scriptures dismissed by many Islamic scholars. He told one woman she was a ‘five-star kuffar’ or unbeliever, who would burn in hell because she was a Shia Muslim, not a Sunni like him.
He forbade another man even to call himself a Muslim, because he was gay. And he watched footage of the Nice massacre in the South of France, in which more than 80 people had been murdered by a terrorist in a speeding lorry the day before filming began, with a cold eye — and then announced that the only victims who roused any pity in him were the fellow Muslims ... such as the killer.
McKerrow and fellow producer Mobeen Azhar surely knew exactly what they were doing when they brought Haqq onto their show. They wound him up and let him go, and rubbed their hands as he obliged with a fountain of bile.
Love Productions are the creators of The Great British Bake Off, a reality format that is dependent on tight editing and an ear for the revealing aside. That technique was to the fore here, capturing every shocking mumble and mutter.
Of course, they didn’t spell out their intentions at the start. The show opened with a promise to explore what it meant to be a good Muslim, in a modern Britain where 2.7 million people are now followers of Islam.
But it immediately descended into a brutal round of arguments, as Haqq sat aloof in the kitchen and stared pointedly away from people as they arrived. ‘I won’t shake your hand but I will give you one of these,’ he said, pressing a pamphlet into one woman’s outstretched fingers.
HAQQ was not the only one whose views shocked us as they were revealed. Saba was a politely wellspoken Englishwoman, who looked to be in her 60s and a former hippie — her faith, perhaps, rooted in the days of Flower Power.
Her favourite singer was Bob Dylan, and she was taking part in the show to correct ‘the bad impression that is so prevalent of Islam’. Saba seemed as though she wouldn’t be out of place making jam for the Women’s Institute, even if she might cause some tut-tutting by adding exotic pomegranate seeds to a good English raspberry compote.
But when Glaswegian Fehran stood up at breakfast on the second day and announced there was something he wanted to tell everybody about his sexuality, Saba’s reaction was quite odd.
As a gay man, Fehran could never be a good Muslim, she insisted, citing something quite revolting to do with male anatomy. Lesbians, she was eager to add, were much less sinful.
But of all the bigotry and nastiness that bubbled so easily to the surface during this hour-long first instalment, it was the group’s treatment of Syrian student Barra that was most distressing.
Barra, an obviously intelligent and amiable young man, was doing everything he could to get along with all his housemates. Whenever voices were raised and spiteful jibes were flying, which was every couple of minutes, Barra was making peace, with hugs and self-deprecating jokes.
Finding himself sharing a room with Abdul Haqq — a man who wanted to cause bloody havoc in Barra’s homeland — he clasped his hand and assured him they would enjoy many ‘interesting conversations’. Barra was naive and an idealist, and that’s admirable in a young man.
On a night out in the city centre
during the filming of the programme, Barra was approached by a hooligan in a hoodie. The youth announced himself as a member of the thuggish English Defence League [EDL], and for a moment it looked as though the young Syrian’s evening was going to end in A&E.
But the yobbo was disarmed by Barra’s joyful greeting. ‘You’re EDL? Let me give you a hug!’ For the student this was a chance to introduce himself, to break down prejudice and build friendships. It worked — the hoodie staggered away like a hyena that has been given a sloppy kiss by Bambi.
Back at the house, Barra couldn’t wait to describe his encounter. He was so proud that he might have helped change one racist idiot’s mind.
He hadn’t counted on the racist idiots he was living with. Stand-up comedian Nabil lectured him furiously, accusing him of shaking hands with a fascist, as though Barra were a wartime collaborator with the Nazis.
He didn’t stay to listen to Barra’s tearful apology, but stormed out of the room — intent on hatred, and livid that this Syrian idealist had jeopardised that in some tiny way.
It was Nabil, wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, who laughed until he could hardly breathe, when he heard that Fehran dreamed of having a family, even though he was gay. It was also Nabil who set up a soup kitchen, where homeless men (apparently, Nabil didn’t include homeless women) could be lectured on the glories of Islam while they tucked in to rice and chickpeas.
In the background, Abdul Haqq was boasting that, ‘Islam is superior in every way. We are the best nation because we believe in Allah.’
His presence was a catalyst, an ingredient added to an experiment deliberately primed to set off explosive reactions.
BBC commissioning editor Fatima Salaria claimed the show was ‘an opportunity to hear authentic voices from a range of backgrounds and opinions, so the viewer can gain fresh insights and not just have their prejudices confirmed’.
The truth was it was an exercise in stoking up rows and controversy. One day after the Nice attack, with timing that could not be more callous, the BBC launched this calculated attempt to set ten Muslims at each other’s throats.
It was a squalid, cheap game, but it certainly succeeded. And the divisions it provoked will run much wider than this one household.
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS’S regular TV review is on Page 57. Part Two of Muslims Like Us is on BBC2 at 9pm tonight.