Muslim Driving School

WTF?! Like seriously? Are you actually serious? On prime time BBC2 on a Tuesday evening? A TV programme about Muslims learning and teaching to drive. Bloody hell.


Are we that marginalized that a special series has to be made about us in cars? Cos we aren’t normal are we. I mean, pirates on ships and terrorists on planes, but now we are learning to drive? What is going on?


Imagine if there was a programme called Jewish driving school, or black driving school. Wouldn’t that make for interesting news press and various court cases. But that’s ok you see, cos us Muslims, we’re not normal people or anything, we don’t contribute to society or talk to people or live and work and go to school with others. So we have a special programme made all about us learning to drive. Fricking heck.


Shylock comes to mind:

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same
weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same
means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as
a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us
do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you
wrong us shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest,
we will resemble you in that.


But anyways, reservations, and initial disgust aside, curiosity enticed me to watch. I’d missed the first one and missed it from iplayer as well, so this was the second. And to be honest, it wasn’t all that bad. But I still feel my opening rant is totally justified. It showed Muslims learning to drive, and Muslims teaching others (Muslims) to drive (cos we can’t learn or teach from others now can we) in up north cities of Bradford and Burnley. So the context is different to what us southerners know and rightfully snobbily love here in London.


The programme focused on the stereotypes – oh joy. Recent immigrants who had settled here, young girls and forced marriage and looking for freedom, and the grandmother who has been here since she was 13 but still can’t speak English as one would expect. Or maybe it was that terrible northern accent. Haha. Yes I am in full snob mode and my mood dissuades me from being even one bit apologetic.


But it wasn’t all that bad. It was actually quite funny in places. It’s true that a lot of Muslim women prefer to learn from another female. That’s fine. But all the stories about arranged and forced marriages came out and led a lot of the narrative. Which yes is interesting. Cos that what we do – get married. And have babies. And then they get married. And have babies. And then we take over the world. Ha.


Ok, so we have the story of a husband and wife team who had set up a successful driving school, a divorced 18 year old finding her feet and looking for independence, the grandmother who runs the house and is now taking over her husband’s role as well. As the stereotypes became individual, it became more personal, and the stories became individuals. Funny, interesting, heartwarming, yes. But there’s something still unnerving about the whole concept. The other; the alien, the foreign…oooh lets see what they manage to do next.