The New York Times recently featured an article on a new sitcom being made in Canada: "Little Mosque on the Prairie." (I'm not making this up.) They report that it's the brainchild of Zarqa Nawaz, a Canadian Muslim of Pakistani origin whose own assimilation provides much of the material. It's about the challenges of a Muslim family living in North America, post-9/11.
The examples of situations and dialogues quoted in the article are very funny, but of course the show's creators and CBC are nervous about how it will be received in the Muslim and non-Muslim communities. (And if you're thinking, "Muslims? In Canada?", it turns out there are about 800,000, and about six million in the United States.)
I'm sure that even those of us outside of Canada will be able to see the show, or at least clips from it, on the Internet. It may be good, it may not, but for now the good news is that obviously there are still people out there who are willing to push the boundaries--and that's exactly what sitcoms need right now if we want to bring them out of their current moribund state. And who knows, it might even promote a bit more understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.
