Proud and Prejudiced

Luton is a town in Britain where the Muslim community is fast becoming the majority and racial tension is at a big high. This has caused two hard line mentalities to form, in the shape of The English Defence League, led by Tommy Robinson, a far right group opposed to the 'Islamification' of Britain and Islamic fundamentalism, in the shape of Sayful Islam who leads a group of Muslim extremists who burn poppies, abuse soldiers on Remembrance Day and want Sharia Law implemented in Britain. This film follows these men and their groups as they target towns and cities across the UK, where what are meant as 'peaceful demonstrations' almost always erupt into violent clashes and gets up close and personal with these leaders to see what makes them tick and what they ultimately want to achieve. We are certainly living in troubling times at the moment, where economic hardship and uncertainty is causing us to fall apart instead of coming together and everyone's looking for someone to blame instead of working with each other to find a solution. This is a worrying indictment of human nature in itself, which makes this look at two disturbing mentalities no less easy. Thankfully, with Proud and Prejudiced, director Marc Hawker hasn't tried to lay all the blame at one door or even push his own political agenda, and presents a balanced, even handed look at what is ultimately a clash between two men living in and from the same town who are the fuel for each other's raging fire. Islam would appear to be the more educated out the two, but is doggedly convinced Sharia Law would make for the perfect Britain, without seeing that he's trying to make it the way without democracy, the hallmark for any civilised society and orchestrates some disgraceful behaviour in the name of this. Robinson goes to great pains to stress his anti-racist stance and that he's driven simply to stop what he sees as a fascist movement spreading, though he himself engages in some questionable behaviour and displays an arrogance that affects his likability, plus you can never shake the feeling he's the kind of guy you wouldn't want to run into down a dark alley. The big fear seems to be that he's created a beast that's out of control, that began to stand up to something corrosive that has spread to condemning an entire religion. Both the subjects at the heart of the film have been and will doubtless continue to be at the forefront of headline news for a while, and without getting carried away with his own sentiments, Hawker has delivered a short and sweet, but impressively balanced documentary that gets to the nitty gritty of the matter impressively and thoroughly. ****