February saw the broadcast in the UK of two separate in-depth documentaries taking the English Defence League (EDL) as their theme.

Long overdue, these programs both shared two particular characteristics. First, an almost allergic unwillingness to square up to or cite the easily-verifiable realities of Islamic doctrine, in any way. Second, an attempt by the respective filmmakers to use both editorializing and film-editing to present a slanted picture often at considerabe odds with the facts.

The first program was a childish, bordering on the infantile, effort by the BBC which purported to cover the subject of extremism in Britain in general, and Luton in Bedfordshire in particular; which is the hotbed of Islamic radicalism that gave birth to the EDL.

BBC3’s Stacey Dooley, a young lady clearly not recruited into documentary making because of her brains, failed to draw any evidence-based conclusions in her “examination” of both Islamism, and the English Defence League (EDL); which originated in her home town.

Dooley has considerable experience as a documentary maker and the format of her “investigations” are identical. They consist of the naive and ditsy Stacey being confronted with very serious issues indeed, in order to do little more than present her shallow emotional responses to the matter in question. That’s it. Simply, she doesn’t make films about issues, she uses issues to make films about herself.

However, no matter how hard the program-makers might have tried, in typical BBC fashion, to obscure the truth: much of the footage speaks volumes about the reality of life in Luton; and will prove eye-opening to many international viewers about what many working-class areas in England are like.

But some of the more laughable scenes include:

• Stacey putting on a niqab to “understand” how Muslim women feel… While ignoring the issues of choice, force and consent; let alone honour killings and gender segregation; which are inherent in Islam.
• Trying for the entire program to get an interview with the leader of the EDL, Tommy Robinson. Then, having succeeded in doing so spending all their time telling him about her views on a subject she knows nothing about (rather than asking him any questions and listening to his answers).
• Not covering the question of the demographic replacement of native Britons in Luton by South Asians, as anything other than (a) completely normal, or (b) absolutely wonderful.
• Taking at face value the pronouncements on Islam from individuals who clearly have a very strong vested interest in presenting a particular and distorted picture. And the usual crop of Muslims who do not even know the content of their own religion. (e.g. Islam “condemns the killing of the innocent”. Yes it does, but it also defines the unbeliever as necessarily guilty.)
• Not confronting preposterous statements and situations. A particularly breathtaking segment is where a community leader says that none of the remaining native residents have complained about the call to prayer being broadcast through loudhailers in their former neighborhoods. Hmmm… what always happens to people who complain about Islam?
• To say nothing of the young Muslim lad chatting up Stacey being presented as indicative of the community’s normalcy. I wonder what response a male non-Muslim program maker trying to pick up a Muslim girl would have elicited?
• Dooley also chides Tommy Robinson as unreasonable for wanting to end any discussion premised on accepting the imposition of Sharia in his country (!): this while he and Dooley are being physically intimidated by “youths” because they are talking publicly and critically about Islam; and despite this, she insistently repeats the assertion that only a “tiny, tiny” minority of Muslims are extremists. (For the record, repeated surveys have pegged support for Sharia amongst Britain’s Muslims at 60%.)

Dooley’s final conclusion suggests that what is at fault in Luton, is “ignorance” as ignorance causes extreme feelings…

Sure Stacey, because people only hate Nazism until they find out more about it.

Though “My Home Town Fanatics” inadvertently reveals much about modern Britain there is an enormous amount that it deliberately conceals. Here’s footage from Leicester for example, a town slightly further down the Islamic demographic path than Luton, to give you an idea of what I mean.