Britz « Inner Reflections Transcribed

Britz

November 1, 2007 at 12:17 pm | In Drama, Television | 13 Comments

I managed to catch the first episode of Britz which is a drama based around a brother and sister duo post 9/11 events. Both siblings are pulled in opposite, polarised positions – with one (Sohail) becoming an MI5 recruit, and the other (Nasima) a political activist.

Part one showed series of events from Sohail’s POV. And part two is based on Nasima.

Did anyone (based in the UK) catch it last night? For those who missed it, I believe you can watch it again. See the C4 website for details.

What did you make of it? I have mixed feelings about it, both regarding the content and the overall “message” its trying to convey and other things in a larger context. I was particularly quite frustrated that British Muslims are depicted as extremists (again), on the verge of becoming ”jihadists” due to becoming disenfranchised. The two dimensional characters in the drama also annoyed me - whereby you either demonstrate loyalty for your country by working for Intelligence, or for your religion by becoming a suicide bomber. These may not seem to be terribly overt but were underlying themes central to the storyline which in itself simply feeds on people’s already misplaced paranoia of Muslims and their faith.

So yes it was a little far fetched at places, believable in others but nevertheless overall I found it intriguing and interesting as far as drama’s go and so will tune into part two tonight.

Interview with Riaz Ahmed (Sohail) available at Muslim Cafe (as are other interviews on topics such as love and r’ships, women and more!)

An interesting interview with the director in the Independent

Discussion on this drama going on over at Unique’s blog too

13 Comments »

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Salaam Alaikum,

To put it bluntly, I was not impressed.
I’ve done a review of the first episode on my blog.

Comment by safiya — November 1, 2007 #

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Thanks for this news. I didn’t know about it and would like to watch it although it is not aired here.

Comment by Achelois — November 1, 2007 #

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i watched it and we wer ejust laughing at the stereotypes.
it was good drama though, i liked the twist at the end

Comment by hema — November 1, 2007 #

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Watching it now…looks good so far. How nasima’s transformation is taking place realising that protesting politically gets u nowwhere. How shes getting in touch with her religion. Wil post more opinions of it after ive seen it all. Her freinds just died.

Comment by Azza05 — November 1, 2007 #

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Just watched the second one about to explode into another rant, but you’ll see that in the morning probably – for now, slumber cals! But yes, totally agree with you, such generalisations it was a joke! We’ve done our analysis on Part I (I think you already saw it on silent-rant).

Comment by freewriters — November 1, 2007 #

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I can not watch the movie so. But i read the post in Unique blog.
I think based on what i read in Unique blog, if the Soheil is not a practicing muslim, so no difference if he be shown as muslim or non-muslim.

I mean in this movie, the example of muslim is not complete. If they would show he is a person that based on islam, doesnt drink and doesnt have relationship with women out of marriage, practice islam completely and also is not terrorist, it could make sense.
Otherwise, i agree with Unique that it is just a psychological warfare!

Comment by Shahrzad — November 2, 2007 #

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I missed the second part, but from what I have seen in the first part it seems like poorly researched drama where the producers failed to articulate anything useful.

The real issue or question that was not raised is whether its the ideology or the foreign policy which is politicising the Muslims. If it is the ideology than surely the people willing to give away their lives would be devout Muslims and not circumstantialy turning to Islam. The question of foreign policy was cleverly off the plot and concentration put on Islam/Muslims doing this becuase their religion teaches them! Absurd.

Comment by Tia — November 2, 2007 #

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Just finished watching part II, I beleive the conclusion was pretty descent considering how far fetched the plot was. What was the Eastern European skirt wearing, motorbike riding woman doing amidst MEN in Pakistan? And Nasima lived with non-mehram men and she travelled without Mehram too… how very moderate considering they were extremist!

Comment by Tia — November 2, 2007 #

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The second part showed inconsistencies with what she was doing and her reason for doing so. We got the impression she was becoming more religious and this was coupled with all the things that happened to her friend, the racism and being treated like dogs. They were showing it was a combination of all of these issues – when infact it wasn’t. She was driven to doing what she did due to the latter (the racism blah blah) – not because she was religious, or became practising or even believed Islam encouraged such a thing – despite querying the purpose of “jihad” it was more a fleeting enquiry that a real driving force. That was my perception of it anyway.

On a side note, if the other “jihadists” were as practising as we percieve these people to be, they wouldn’t be mingling amongst the women as freely as they were.

Near the end we actually got the feeling she wasn’t doing it in the name of religion. Far from it, that was the last thing she was doing it for. She was fed up with the hypocrisy, the demonisation, and feeling all her campaign efforts being of no use. Despite all these reasons, her purpose for undertaking the task that she did and going through all those steps in order to do so (for redemption IMO) weren’t believable. I certainly didnt think they were.

The ending I agree Tia, was pretty decent considering how absurd the entire storyline was.

Comment by Sumera — November 2, 2007 #

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I did’nt watch the first part, but watching the second part naseema seemed troubled and confused……..normal teenage issues (well not exactly teen issues but you get what i mean!

Comment by azza05 — November 2, 2007 #

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Sounds like another british show I would have to download. I find the range and depth of British shows so good – American shows are dumbed down.. perhaps reflecting the caliber of the viewers.

Comment by Haleem — November 3, 2007 #

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O great, another show that we can’t watch across the pond. :\

Comment by jahandost — November 5, 2007 #

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Didn’t watch it, but heard an interview with the producer on the radio – he said he was trying to put across the point that British Muslims are angry at foreign policy and whatever else, and he kind of sounded on side. From programmes like this though, people don’t take the message that Muslims have reasons to be disillusioned – they just go ‘omg! moslems are suicide bombers!‘. Turns out my cousin got abused on the train as a direct result – some guy saw a hijabi and started ranting about not wanting to sit next to that paki suicide bomber etc etc.

Comment by mcpagal — November 6, 2007 #

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