Dubai, June 03: A popular British soap opera is set to introduce a controversial storyline that will see one of its Muslim characters become gay, which is likely to ruffle some feathers among British Muslims and add fuel to an already heated debate about Islamophobia in the United Kingdom.
EastEnders, a long-running soap opera named “Best Soap” in the 2008 National Television Awards, will introduce the new plotline this summer and will see its Asian character Syed Masood find himself struggling with his Muslim faith and his sexuality.
” A gay Muslim is an oxymoron. If you submit to your lord by being a Muslim, then you must obey him. ”
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The character will then follow up on his feelings for an openly homosexual character and the two will share a passionate on-screen kiss defying his devout Muslim family and his mother’s attempts to set him up with women from “good families.”
News of the controversial plot comes just weeks after a Gallup poll revealed that British Muslims have zero tolerance for homosexuality as opposed to their non-Muslim counterparts.
“Normal friendly Muslim”
” There’s a lack of understanding of Muslims already and I think EastEnders really lost an opportunity to present a normal friendly Muslim character to the British public ”
Muslim Public Affairs Committee
A Muslim Council of Britain spokesman refused to comment to Al Arabiya but Asghar Bokhari from the Muslim Public Affairs Committee told British press: “The Muslim community deserves a character that represents them to the wider public because Islamophobia is so great right now.”
“There’s a lack of understanding of Muslims already and I think EastEnders really lost an opportunity to present a normal friendly Muslim character to the British public,” he said.
EastEnders’ executive producer, Diedrick Santer, however, argued there was too much political correctness when it came to black or Asian characters and said he believed it was best to tackle controversial plots head-on.
“Sometimes there’s a danger of being too careful with black or Asian characters that we might go into territories that might offend,” Santer was quoted by the British press as saying.
“But it seems to me if we steer away from any controversy, they don’t stand a chance of being a great EastEnders family – they’ll just be in their kitchen unit making curries for years and years and that’s not going to be very interesting,” Santer said referring to the Asian ethnicity of most Muslim characters on EastEnders.
EastEnders is considered one of the most popular soap operas in the United Kingdom and regularly tackles controversial subjects in a bid to attract viewership.
–Agencies