SoutheasternOhioPreps.com

In a story that has garnered a lot of attention, CBS News anchor Katie Couric recently called for a Muslim version of the “Cosby Show” in order to combat what she sees is American Islamaphobia. It seems Canada already has Couric’s dream show.

Every Monday night at 8:30, Canadians can tune into CBC Television’s sitcom “Little Mosque on the Prairie.” The show is wildly popular — enough so that it’s currently on its fifth season. The audience watches as a new imam and his mosque try to assimilate into the predominately Anglican town of Mercy. Each episode is rife with jokes about stereotypes because, as the show’s website explains, assimilation “isn’t as easy as they thought.”

Take the first episode of the series, for example, which features a Christian church member calling the “terrorist hotline” on the local Muslims and the new imam being arrested at the airport for a suspect phone conversation:

“I thought it would be interesting to do a series about what life is like in a mosque in a small community,” the show’s creator Zarqa Nawaz told the BBC in 2007. She says the inspiration for the show came from her own experiences as a Muslim woman who moved to Canada to work in a Mosque. That has apparently produced a wealth of material. Back in 2007, CBC Director of Network Programming Kirstine Layfield defended that material and the jokes about racial profiling and terrorism to the BBC.

“It is daring in the sense that it’s bringing it out again and discussing it in kind of an honest but funny way,” she said.

But not everyone is laughing with the Muslim sitcom.

“Little Mosque on the Prairie tries to sell itself as ‘Muslim Lite,’” writes Kidist Paulos Asrat in a 2008 American Thinker article. “But some Muslim commentators have denounced the shows premises, from the strong presence of women (“The fact that the women were sitting so close to the men is an abomination”, writes one blog commenter), to the non-Muslims caste in Muslim roles.”

According to Asrat, the episodes are laced with jabs at the dominant culture and traditions. He explains:

In an episode on a discussion for a New Year’s Eve party, Amaar, the unconventional Imam (he’s young, has no beard and speaks with a clear Canadian accent, unlike those “terrorist” Imams) says “New Year‘s Eve isn’t really a big Islamic holiday”, and “Actually, in the Islamic calendar there is no last day of December”. His invitee responds, “There you go, it will be like [the New Year's Eve party] never happened” to accommodate Amaar’s tacit disapproval of the holiday. So much for the very Canadian sounding Amaar. In his telling classification, holidays are either part of Islam or not. Muslims’ celebrations are so intricately linked with their religion, that even non-religious, secular holidays such as New Year’s are not acceptable.

“Such anti-Western remarks are peppered throughout the program,” he says. “And despite their jovial, light-hearted air, the jokes are ultimately on the whites and non-Muslims of the community.”

NPR picked up on that slightly in 2007 when it covered the sitcom. It made sure to point out that many of the jabs are actually meant to mock America.

“But the show has a definite subtext, although Nawaz denies it’s intentional,” NPR reported. “Canadians love to laugh at their southern neighbors in the United States.”

The news outlet goes on to quote John Doyle, a TV critic for The Toronto Globe and Mail: “The kind of redneck attitudes from some of the locals in the small town toward the Muslims is very much reflective of an American suspicion of Muslims and not a Canadian suspicion.”

Katie Couric would probably chuckle and nod.

gahs4ever wrote:Is that anything like a halloween mosque?

FIDO wrote:

Burg_Grad_77 wrote:

Change your mind, BG-77?? :122245 :122245 :122245

Burg_Grad_77 wrote:

FIDO wrote:

Burg_Grad_77 wrote:

Change your mind, BG-77?? :122245 :122245 :122245

Yeah, I thought it best to stay out of this one. KII's buddies are lurking.

FIDO wrote:Maybe the outrage against MUSLIMS wouldn't be so furious if they didn't act like a bunch of KKK folks or the Hitler's of the world. If you disagree with them, you die!!! Pretty dang radical view isn't it?

FIDO wrote:...........and that dude will forever have a mark on his back until death!!

kantuckyII wrote:Well, if you'd carry on an intelligent discussion instead of just attacking someone personally you don't agree with, you probably wouldn't be censored nearly as badly. However, I do understand that taking the side you have on many issues, it's very difficult to defend your position which often defies logic and common sense. Where as, if you want to embrace your stand, as ludicurious as it often is to most intelligent people who possess good common sense, it's your right to do so..no matter if people think you're stupid for doing so.

Space Cowboy wrote:

FIDO wrote:Maybe the outrage against MUSLIMS wouldn't be so furious if they didn't act like a bunch of KKK folks or the Hitler's of the world. If you disagree with them, you die!!! Pretty dang radical view isn't it?

Couldnt have said it any better. AMEN, FIDO! I thought I was done dealing with these two-faced cockroaches back in the mid eighties, but Ive been having to deal with them, once again, on a daily basis over in Athens. They are very hateful people.

BTW, FIDO, I didnt think BG77s comments would have been towards me.

FIDO wrote:Maybe the outrage against MUSLIMS wouldn't be so furious if they didn't act like a bunch of KKK folks or the Hitler's of the world. If you disagree with them, you die!!! Pretty dang radical view isn't it?

Burg_Grad_77 wrote:

FIDO wrote:Maybe the outrage against MUSLIMS wouldn't be so furious if they didn't act like a bunch of KKK folks or the Hitler's of the world. If you disagree with them, you die!!! Pretty dang radical view isn't it?

There are nutjob radicals just like you described right here in the good ole US of A that were born and raised here and think the same as the ones you mentioned. If you ain't white and don't believe in what they say they would just as soon kill you as look at you. They blow up Federal buildings, send out letter bombs, and write long manifestos. They stockplie weapons of all kinds, live in highly fortified compounds, and brainwash their members. You are going to have nutjob extremists no matter where you go.

Burg_Grad_77 wrote:

Space Cowboy wrote:

FIDO wrote:Maybe the outrage against MUSLIMS wouldn't be so furious if they didn't act like a bunch of KKK folks or the Hitler's of the world. If you disagree with them, you die!!! Pretty dang radical view isn't it?

Couldnt have said it any better. AMEN, FIDO! I thought I was done dealing with these two-faced cockroaches back in the mid eighties, but Ive been having to deal with them, once again, on a daily basis over in Athens. They are very hateful people.

BTW, FIDO, I didnt think BG77s comments would have been towards me.

No, they weren't made toward you or anyone else. It's just that I got a warning a while back saying I was "stalking" KII so I thought it best to just delete what I said and let it go but then he puts on his snide little post. That's okay though.

caglewis wrote:Your outrage about a "proposed" TV show reminded me of the recent furor over the use of a building near the site of "ground zero" in New York City. You're a little younger than i am, but all the stuff you say about Muslims strikes me as the same stuff that was said about African-Americans, and Irish-Americans, and native-Americans in the past.
What the heck would be so fundamentally, intrinsically, unconstitutionally wrong with a TV program depicting a Muslim family??? Other than your own prejudices - that is? You remind me of my grandparents who proudly owned one of the first TV sets in the '50's, but were appalled by the inclusion of Negroes [not the word they used] in programs and commercials in the '60's and '70's.
Mercy - let's not go back there!!