Did you watch the first episode of Amir Khan’s Angry Young Men last night on Channel 4? “Over four intensive weeks, Amir and his team take six young men with a history of violent and criminal behaviour, and use the discipline of boxing to try to channel their aggression and turn their lives around.”
“Amir Khan also introduces the men to the values of his family and faith, to give them a sense of right and wrong. It’s an opportunity none of them can afford to miss. The police, courts and anger management classes have all failed to keep the six youths away from fighting. This is their last chance to get off the track that leads to prison or death on the streets.” [Watch the trailer]
The religious element is introduced by having some of the ‘angry young men’ talk about their disdain for religion and then contrasting this with Khan’s quiet, polite, supportive experience of religion and a faith-based youth worker and a local priest who are on his team.
In itself this dimension of the rehabilitation is fine – it’s part of who Khan the mentor is and if it works in sorting them out great: they will “try out different churches in Bolton, as well as learning about Islam from Amir Khan. They may not to pursue this when they go home but it helps them to think about their future and the values they want to embrace when their four weeks of intensive training finish.”
But although the Channel website does state that the men “come from a variety of religious traditions” the way this element is set up it perpetuates sterotypes of the degenerate, binge drinking, nihilistic, unreligious youth set against those of the pious, family-orientated, hard working Muslim. Of course the latter stereotype is better than the extremist Muslim sterotype but it a stereotype nonetheless.
To be fair, one of the angry young men is a Muslim and his presence as a (teetotal) violent, swearing figure certainly breaks the media’s saint/ sinner sterotypes (Skins’ Anwar comes to mind as another – also from Channel 4), but so far the narrative is a generally hackneyed one. Then again what can I expect from a reality TV show? I’ll keep watching though as the narrative and participants could well develop in positive ways.
“Wife Swap continues with the Ahmed family, a strict Pakistani Muslim family who pray five times a day and choose to wear the hijab. The backbone of their family philosophy is based on Islamic principles and their three teenage children are well-mannered, work hard and are very respectful of their parent’s wishes. Supermum Nuzhat works full time, studies, manages all the cooking and household chores, and keeps a keen eye on what her children are doing. Deborah Escott works as an admin director for a theatre company and is the sole breadwinner in her liberal family. Husband Andy is a musician and house husband who looks after their three-year-old daughter Emily and 16-year-old Becky, Debs’s daughter from a previous relationship. Becky has recently come out as a lesbian. Will these two very different mums ever see eye to eye? How will husband Shakil react when Deborah arranges for his two teenage daughters to attend a live music gig and how does Nuzhat deal with a rebellious teenage daughter whose sexuality is a direct challenge to her religious beliefs?
Tonight in Channle 4’s The Trouble With Atheism Rod Liddle (left) argues against those who turn to atheism for a rational and moderate approach to today’s problems, and says that atheism has high priests and dogmatic beliefs, just like fundamentalist religion. See Discussion page on 
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