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According to Sandra Canas in her article, The Little Mosque on the Prairie: Examining
(Multi) Cultural Spaces of Nature and Religion, “Arabs and Muslims have a
long, often dark history of representation by dominant western media” (Canas
2008, 195). The television series, The
Little Mosque on the Prairie that Canas writes about situates a Muslim
community within that of a small Canadian town, with storylines portraying
their every-day lives, as well as challenges faced by Muslims living as a
minority in a non-Muslim country and community. Some of these challenges include finding a
public space for a mosque (199), the decision whether or not a young woman
should wear a hijab upon reaching puberty (201), and how to calculate the
beginning of Ramadam (201). The series also highlights “some of the most common
prejudices and assumptions associated with Islam and Muslims, propagated
through and reinforced by media and public institutions” with accusations of
terrorism directed toward some of the characters (199).
The series identifies diversity and disparages within the
Muslim community itself, namely that between the modernists and the
traditionalists (Canas 2008, 201) even within generations of the same family. As well as
that, members of the community originate from various different countries,
including Canadian born Muslims and a Canadian convert. An increase in
television programming containing images of Muslims in this context, or even
western language translations of existing Arabic language soap operas and
dramas, could aid in the reduction of orientalism in western media that mostly
portrays Muslims and Arabs in a negative light.
References
Canas, Sandra. 2008. "Little Mosque on the Prairie: Examining (Multi) Cultural Spaces of Nation and Religion." Cultural Dynamics 20 195-211.
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