BLUF:
If people are suspicious of Islam, Rizwan Wadan could fight that by confronting, rather than perpetuating, the perception that claims regarding Islam being peaceful are disingenuous and based on an incomplete reading of the relevant texts. Instead, he has produced yet another deceptive endeavor that is just going to create more of the “Islamophobia,” in the sense of suspicion of Islam, that he claims to be trying to stamp out.
Here’s something you’ve all been waiting for: A Muslim filmmaker has produced a documentary hitting “Islamophobia.” Rizwan Wadan, who was part of the technical crew for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Churchill and The Favourite, has directed a documentary entitled Error In Terror about “Islamophobia,” and is now traveling around with it, spreading peace and tolerance. The only problem is that Error in Terror itself only reinforces why some people are suspicious of Islam in the first place and wary regarding its growth in Western countries.
The problem starts with the term itself. “Islamophobia” is a fraught word, because while it is thrown around all the time these days, few of those who use it to defame and smear others bother to explain what they mean by it. It is most commonly used for two quite distinct phenomena: vigilante crimes against innocent Muslims, which are never justified, and honest analysis of the motivating ideology of jihad terror, which is always necessary. Islamic advocacy groups and their leftist allies have been insisting for years that such analysis, too, constituted “Islamophobia,” and continue to try to drive such analysis outside the bounds of acceptable discourse by conflating it with those attacks on innocent Muslims.
Rizwan Wadan doesn’t appear to take any pains to explain what he means by the term, either. According to a report from Britain’s ITV News Saturday, Wadan is “a talented filmmaker who has worked on blockbusters including Star Wars and The Favourite,” and has now “produced a hard-hitting film which highlights terrorism and Islamophobia in the UK. It is part of his Error In Terror campaign, which he is bringing to different parts of the country to inspire communities and effect change.”
“Growing up as a Muslim, living in the UK,” Wadan explained, “I’ve seen our relationships within the communities deteriorate. And that’s kind of happened – from my perspective – through how Islam and Muslims have been perceived. A lot of that has come through our representation in films, in the news, in newspapers.”
Now come on, Rizwan. Honestly, when did you last see a negative portrayal of Muslims in films, in the news, or in newspapers, except in the case of jihad terror attacks in which the identity of the perpetrator was impossible to conceal? The international media goes to immense lengths to make sure that no one gets a negative view of Islam or Muslims.
One notorious example of this is the fact that in the British media, gangs of Muslims who sexually abused and exploited thousands of British girls for years were universally referred to as “Asians,” despite the protests of non-Muslim Asian groups and the fact, which some of the rapists openly confessed, that this activity was based on Islamic principles.
