It's standard in political journalism that you only look at the side of the question that suits you, and this is a very surface-level look at the issue of Islam in America (and, by implication, the West in general). It focuses on individual Muslims who have attracted unpleasant attention from white Americans. That is bad, of course, but there is no consideration of how far the ideological traits in Islam justify anxiety, ill-directed though it may be.
For example presenter/director Deeyah Khan seems to feels she has trumped the, er, Trumpists when she reveals that a local police chief accused of wanting to introduce Sharia law is actually Christian. Okay, it shows you shouldn't jump to conclusions about people's background, but how would a Muslim police chief feel about introducing Sharia law? That, and that alone, is really the point - not whether he is a nice guy, not whether somebody has been mean to him, and not whether Trump is looking for scapegoats to distract people from the real evils (the standard Left-wing conspiracy theory, and a strategy I don't actually think Trump is self-controlled enough to pursue consciously).
I sympathise with the people in this programme. They're in much the same position as British and Irish Catholics in the early modern period, suffering (and they suffered far more than modern-day Muslims) because of the Inquisition and Papal claims of supremacy, when all they really wanted was to live and practice their faith in peace. In both cases ordinary people are the unfortunate collateral damage of an ideological struggle, the crux of which is that ultimately you can't tolerate what won't tolerate you. Perhaps, in both cases, the worries are ill-founded, but if we're going to look at this issue then that's what we need to look at. Otherwise there will be, as here, a dangerous failure to recognise that there's more to it than simple-minded racism or xenophobia.
For example presenter/director Deeyah Khan seems to feels she has trumped the, er, Trumpists when she reveals that a local police chief accused of wanting to introduce Sharia law is actually Christian. Okay, it shows you shouldn't jump to conclusions about people's background, but how would a Muslim police chief feel about introducing Sharia law? That, and that alone, is really the point - not whether he is a nice guy, not whether somebody has been mean to him, and not whether Trump is looking for scapegoats to distract people from the real evils (the standard Left-wing conspiracy theory, and a strategy I don't actually think Trump is self-controlled enough to pursue consciously).
I sympathise with the people in this programme. They're in much the same position as British and Irish Catholics in the early modern period, suffering (and they suffered far more than modern-day Muslims) because of the Inquisition and Papal claims of supremacy, when all they really wanted was to live and practice their faith in peace. In both cases ordinary people are the unfortunate collateral damage of an ideological struggle, the crux of which is that ultimately you can't tolerate what won't tolerate you. Perhaps, in both cases, the worries are ill-founded, but if we're going to look at this issue then that's what we need to look at. Otherwise there will be, as here, a dangerous failure to recognise that there's more to it than simple-minded racism or xenophobia.
