An online comedy series about suicide bombers has caused outrage, but the maker of 'Living with the Infidels' says he is fighting extremism by ridiculing it, writes FIONOLA MEREDITH
'I AM NOT a geek. I'm a level 9 warlord," announces Abdul, one of the stars of a new online sitcom, Living with the Infidels, about a group of suicide bombers living in Bradford. The five-part series is not the most sophisticated piece of satire: in the first brief episode, the hapless jihadists are caught between the promise of 72 voluptuous virgins awaiting them in Paradise, and the rather more immediate, Western-style charms of leopardskin-clad "Ample Abi" from upstairs. But, aside from all the jokes about lead-lined codpieces ("to protect [one's] manhood in the event of a suicide bomb," according to crazed fantasist Psycho Ali) and the best way to shoot a martyrdom video ("you've got to think showmanship!" flaps the director), it's the perceived audacity and tastelessness of making a comedy about terrorists – especially Muslim terrorists – at all that has disturbed many people. Relatives of those killed in the 7/7 attacks on London have reacted with incredulity.
Veronica Cassidy, whose 22-year-old son Ciaran was killed in the explosion on the Piccadilly underground line, asked “if it happened to one of their children, would they be as keen to put something like this on YouTube?” And Dr Abdul Bary Malik, of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in Bradford, has expressed concern that it could stir up anger and damage community relations.
Perhaps striving for a measure of credibility, the show's YouTube page claims that Living with the Infidelshas been "developed with the support of a senior member of the Muslim Council of Britain." But writer and director Aasaf Ainapore – a former advertising commercials director, who comes from a Muslim background – admits that the sensitivities around Living with the Infidelsmean that it was always headed straight for the internet, destined never to be seen on television screens.
Maintaining that he is “acutely aware” of the concerns of 7/7 victims, Ainapore nonetheless insists that comedy is the best way of dealing with “the huge elephant in the room” of terrorism: “I truly believe that it is only by ridiculing these extremists that you can hope to persuade young Muslims to turn against radicalism.”
Ainapore is not alone in his belief that mockery can be an effective way to expose the absurdity of extreme ideologies. And there’s certainly plenty of material to choose from. As American writer Bill Roggio points out, “like the Nazis, al-Qaeda and Islamist terror groups have a plethora of ludicrous symbols and situations to mock.”
But does portraying suicide bombers as inept bumblers, rather than ruthless killers, let the real-life version off the hook? Certainly, in choosing to lampoon militant jihadism, albeit rather crudely, Ainapore is operating at the limits of satire; entering highly volatile territory where many others – perhaps through a reluctance to be perceived as inflammatory or prejudiced, or even out of a sense of self-preservation – fear to tread. Last month, the Palestinian al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of the Fatah movement, took grave exception to being ridiculed in Sacha Baron Cohen’s film Brüno, and chillingly threatened to “respond in the way we find suitable”.
While it seems that Christianity can be parodied quite safely in the name of gritty subversion, it takes a lot more chutzpah, or recklessness, to tackle Islam. When a Scottish art gallery recently provided pens for visitors to scrawl their own personal comments on a copy of the Bible, there was a moderate outbreak of tut-tutting, and the Catholic Church wondered aloud “whether the organisers would have been quite as willing to have the Koran defaced”. But, in 2005, when Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed 12 satirical cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, there were violent protests all over the world.
Many see a kind of wilful hypocrisy at work here. While acknowledging that it's "open season on Jesus", Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the controversial cartoon South Park, take issue with television networks' claim that their reluctance to show mockery of Islam is a mark of religious tolerance. Stone believes that the truth is rather more fundamental. "You're afraid of getting blown up."