Yet again, the old, tired “major” American Muslim organizations have come out in full force to object to something unobjectionable. This time, they’re angry about the storyline of 24, the highly popular TV drama on Fox: When the recent premiere episode ended with a terrorist network detonating a nuclear device in a Los Angeles suburb, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced its fear that “this would serve to increase anti-Muslim prejudice in American society.” The show had begun with a depiction of an America gripped in fear after an eleven-week run of suicide bombings, apparently by radical Islamist terror cells, in cities across the country.
As an American and as a Muslim, I find 24 to be not only a profoundly engaging program, but one whose portrayal of Muslims in quite fair.
For American Muslims, though, 24 offers an opportunity to address a key question: To the extent Muslims have a bad image on TV, what can we do to change that?
Perhaps we should be whacking them upside the head with it?
