Christina Patterson: Moderate Islam must find its voice
For the Independent, Christina Patterson discusses the “Inspired by Mohammed” posters, as well as a new film on the Journey to Mecca, and the Muslim heritage exhibition at the Science Museum, and says, “Muslims really couldn’t be trying harder to present their religion in a positive light. The trouble is, it isn’t working.” Ultimately, these seem to be token gestures, she argues, in comparison to something truly bold, like screening Three Lions in a mosque.
Co-funded by the Saudi King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies, and endorsed by the Dalai Lama and a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Journey to Mecca is, according to its producers, an attempt “to promote a better understanding of Islam in the West”. The scenery, on the 20m high IMAX screen, is spectacular. The plot is minimal. The acting is embarrassing. But if the sight of millions milling like ants around the cube-shaped Ka’bah (the 14th-century re-enactment is interspersed with real footage of the Hajj today) tends to inspire feelings of faint repulsion in the Western breast, one can certainly admire the challenge. “It is almost impossible” said one of its producers, Dominic Cunningham-Reid, “to communicate how hard it is to get something like this done in Saudi Arabia, because you have to remember we’re trying to make a film in the land that has no movie theatres and no art galleries”. No art, in other words. Just art as propaganda.
