BBC doc on Luton's 'Hometown Fanatics'
Categories: Latest News
Thursday February 23 2012
BBC3 this week broadcast a programme called ‘My Hometown Fanatics: Stacey Dooley Investigates’.
During the one hour documentary, Stacey investigates minority extremism in her hometown of Luton from the likes of the EDL and Muslims Against Crusades. She interviews Stephen Lennon, the founder and leader of the EDL, as well as visiting mosques, meeting self-proclaimed radical Muslims and also Muslims trying to tackle extremism.
The Luton Today says that Stacey was “happy with how the show, which explored extremism in Luton, came across.”
The paper quotes her as saying, “To be honest, I think it would be ridiculous to say there are no problems in Luton because quite evidently there are.
“You’ve got organisations like the Al Muhajiroun and the English Defence League popping up but you have to bear in mind that they are a tiny minority.”
“I think it’s easy to put down organisations that are trying to sort out the situation because they haven’t been able to sort it out straight away, but you have to realise that these organisations are hell bent on getting their message across so it’s not going to change overnight and we have to praise anyone who is trying to sort it out.
“I think we have to not let them get anyone into their way of thinking. It’s a case of non-Muslims and Muslims together against extremists.”
One interesting blog review by Indigo Jo Blogs gives the overall impression that the documentary did not do justice to fairly analysing the issues at hand.
The programme will be broadcast twice more on BBC3 on Friday and Wednesday, and is available to watch on BBC Iplayer until the 7th March.