The Lesson Learned from Little Mosque from Prairie

There were 600,000 Muslims in Canada in the 2001 census, with the number now estimated around 800,000. Estimates for the American population are around 6 million and estimates the number of Muslim global population will increase 30% in 2025. With this information, we can see that Muslims are also one part of the global population and the number is increase.

I just saw the first 5 episodes of Little Mosque in the Prairie. And as people who not living in Canada, I think the show is a good inch toward the right direction towards exposing people more and more to real Muslims in the media, instead of the usual terrorist figure. The show can a little bit explain the Muslim behavior, or at least make Muslims seem less peculiar for those who not familiar with it. The show also fostering understanding between Islam and the West through humor.

I realized that some of the Muslims think that the show is particularly amusing and they said that show are not religious. What kind of a Muslim would lie about renting a room for a mosque? Some of the the jokes are also culture related. For example, in the first episode, the guy says something like, "Desperate housewives? Why are they desperate when they are only performing their natural womenly duties?" This makes it sound as if all Muslim women are nothing but slaves to men, which is comepletely wrong. The good thing is they do counter-act the ill-concieved jokes with a Muslim feminist, who portrays the majority of Muslim women today. We can see it in the the second epsode, she opposed the barrier in the mosque.

Despite all of the pro and contra, I just want to share what we can learn from the show, Little Mosque of the Prairie.

Hate is everywhere and it's around our personal life too. The show teach us about how to defuses hate with something fun. Sometimes humor is better way to create a window into another culture than a light hearted comedy which shows our similarities and differences alike.

Wide your point of view. In this non-bordered information era, all we ever hear are voices from the extreme end of the spectrum and don't know how is the real situation. The show give voice to ordinary people who look just like other ordinary people, including Muslims all around the world. Muslims are just like everyone else, and more similar than they are different.

It's all about how to integrate. Every country have their own culture. When we move and stay in another country, it mean that we also make some adaptation and integrate with the current situation. There are always be culture clashes, but it doesn't mean we just leave all our culture behind, but it's all about how to take the good things and make some advantages from it.

Decode the information. The show brought some pro and contra. Everyday there are so many information come to us and it's allbout how we process it and get a better summary from it. As example is The Cosby Show, which portrayed a well-to-do black family in the 1980s. The show was so successful because it "decoded blackness". And it's same thing with Little Mosque in the Prairie.