Recently, when I heard the allusion to the show, Little Mosque on the Prairie, I thought I was getting in on a joke. I initially believed that some television muckety mucks were spoofing religious tensions in North America and that the entertainment in question was a comedy. If only that assumption had proved correct, I would feel less chilled today.
How could the values in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic, American, children’s book, Little House on the Prairie, be compromised into forming the basis of an apologia to Canada’s burgeoning Muslim population? Modern Canada’s roots lay in a federal dominion, not in an insidious cultural coup. How could advertisers, and by dint of extension, audiences, call for such make-believe for six seasons? Canada is the home of many prestigious think tanks from The Fraser Institute to The Public Policy Forum. Canadians are far from stupid.
Nonetheless, the program exists, is popular, and has, for more than half of a decade, flouted Judeo-Christian ideology. Consider the words of Kidist Paulos Asrat, who writes in American Thinker, that this series intends to
introduce, as unobtrusively as possible, the Muslim presence to the Canadian public. By borrowing well-recognized and often beloved Canadian symbols to advance their show, Muslims can be portrayed as being just like any other Canadian -- in fact they are now the new pioneers of the vast, empty prairies, building their societies like Laura and her family had done.
[Yet] contemporary Muslims, their large numbers exempting them from assimilating into the dominant society, are not only ignoring [North American] values, but are subtly using mainstream imagery and cultural symbols and trends as a strategy to assimilate Canadians into their Islamic culture. They have no real attachment to Laura Ingalls'' lovely family, the true pioneers and nation-builders of the Midwestern prairies. Instead, they are using her cultural influence surreptitiously as a way to get to the Canadian soul (and soil). And given the international popularity of Little Mosque on the Prairie, the agenda is to do the same world-wide.
That is, we ought to consider that this show’s creators mean to conscript their viewers into the great Ummah. Scary.
The only “funny,” as in “unexpected,” thing about this broadcast is that most North Americans were taught that the media safeguard, not destroy, public freedoms. Consider the USA’s Constitution’s First Amendment, the second section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and, more recently, publications such as The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s “Decision CRTC 90-772,” and as the USA’s Center for Democracy and Governance, Bureau for Global Programs, Field Support and Research’s “The Role of Media in Democracy: A Strategic Approach.”
Decision CRTC 90-772 states that the “framework applicable to the exercise of freedom of expression is imposed through specific statutory requirements for high standard and balance, and licensees must ensure that this framework is respected in their programming.” “The Role of Media in Democracy” asserts that media ought, allegedly, to enable citizens to: have access to objective information, for the purpose of making informed decisions; allow multiple opinions to surface; mobilize an entire population in social transitions; and “[m]ultiply the impact of transition activities by disseminating information on successful local peace and participatory efforts.” Neither historically nor recently does either Canada or the USA officially regard the media as conduits for sinister discourse.
Regardless, government documents, famous, and less known, alike, sometimes amount to so much balderdash. While we politically correct folk laud the “sensibility” of our many channels’ gatekeepers and of our central governments’ media watchdogs, our action-oriented Muslim peers, such as the forces forwarding Little Mosque, are taking advantage of our corresponding lapse in mindfulness, and are, perhaps, laughing that “the emperor” does, indeed, have clothes on; that we foolishly continue to pretend that our realties match our ideals.
Even in the relatively safe haven that is North America, there remains a clarion call for the West’s downfall.
It is indeed incredibly unfortunate to see Muslims in America, who arguably possess the highest potential for bringing the most change in the world due to their unique position of both understanding the worldviews of the East and West as well as living in the country with the most power and influence over the world, become muted as their energies drain into the endless spirals of the American Dream.
In other words, Muslims believe it is other Muslims’ duty to orchestrate democracy’s demise. The media are a handy tool for that end. What Islam is Not is friendly to “nonbelievers.” Similarly, Islam is intolerant. Islam is not interested in embracing the freedoms we enjoy and for which the forefathers of both enormous democracies gave their lives. Islam seeks dominion.
Thus, the popularity of Little Mosque on the Prairie leaves me simultaneously shocked, flabbergast, uneasy, and numb. I accept that media mavens work specifically to make money (see: The Canadian Center of Policy Alternative’s For Sale to the Highest Bidder), generally to better their careers, often to disseminate information, and usually to set the agendas for other news sources, but I’ve been blissfully unaware that such makers exert themselves, as well, to promote the politics of people keen on destroying the way of life that has empowered North American denizens for more than two centuries.
We can not tolerate the proliferation of shows like Little Mosque, or of any other widely disseminated communication, the products of convergent media instruments included, which engage in rhetorical prestidigitation. As the media get more and more saturated with such self-acclaimed “funny and heart-warming” offerings, the media (hopefully unintentionally) aid in building for citadels for dangerous, Islamic covenant theology. Subsequently, the world’s population gets pulled away from adjudicating frightening Islamic practices such as the genital mutilation of countless young girls and such as the violent aspects of Sharia. As well, the more that such tripe, as is presented by such shows, becomes integrated into the global psyche, the less that nations find reason to befriend the Jewish Nation and the Jewish People.
Fairy tales and other twists of veracity are for dimwits or for the very young. Functional adults need to embrace suasory barzel, to decry treacherous communication, as exemplified by Little Mosque, even when we come upon such creeping and creepy ideas belatedly. Such programming does not promote families trying to live in harmony, but rather the opposite.