What can I say, apart from what I picked up hanging around Baghdad.
Seriously there was no real exploration behind Islam's reasons (or people’s twisted views of Islam) for suicide bombers, only the odd scene or two. It should have shown the "spiritual journey" a suicide bomber goes on. The idea that I picked up was that the girl turned to terrorism because her best friend hung herself after her treatment by the British State. Just doesn't happen that way, did you see many Catholics in Northern Ireland committing suicide bombings after their treatment by the British State or the ANC undergoing suicide missions? There has to be other reasons behind it. During her training it didn’t show any sort of indoctrination what so ever. I might be wrong, but I’m also pretty sure that an unveiled woman would not be able to train with militants in Pakistan (just picking this up as example of how the producers ignored the place of women in Islam).
Also why did they not explore how racism that exists in a lot of Muslim families contributes to extremism (for example the scene where the father went off it when she mentioned having a Christian boyfriend) and alienation from society.
I also thought the statistics at the end of the show about how British Muslims felt about British policy was just an excuse for the extremism that currently exists. Yes no doubt the recent policies of the British Government over the last ten years have accelerated the process of extremism but Islamist extremists have been on the rise for more than the last twenty years all over the world and in the UK since before the recent gulf war and September the 11th. I would never end this message if I went into the origins and reasons for Islamic extremism!
By the way I’m not anti-Islam as I realise that any religion can be twisted, but I just thought that channel 4 missed an opportunity to educate viewers to both sides of the argument.
