Peace of cake
May 15, 2008
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Salam Cafe aims to bust misconceptions about Muslims, writes Sacha
Molitorisz.
THE format is hardly ground-breaking. As a blend of The Chaser and The
Panel, Salam Cafe aims
to deliver laughs via sketches, vox pops and a discussion of the day's
issues. The twist is
that the panellists and interviewers are Muslim, giving Salam Cafe — which
steps into SBS'
Wednesday night slot previously filled by Newstopia — an endearingly
subversive edge.
This edge can be seen on YouTube, where several clips survive from the
three seasons the show
spent cutting its teeth on Channel 31. One clip shows a series of vox pops
conducted in Frankston.
"What do you know about Muslims?" one interviewer asks a passer-by.
"Not a lot," says the young man. "But I know that their beliefs are pretty
dangerous"
"What do you think of Muslims?" another young man is asked.
"I hate 'em."
"What's Ramadan?" the interviewer asks a woman.
"Is that like a poppadam?"
The segment is funny but also poignant, giving an insight into the sort of
prejudices and
misconceptions faced by Muslim Aussies such as Susan Carland.
"Most of the misconceptions are about Muslim women," says Carland, a
regular panellist on Salam
Cafe. "A lot of them are about the headscarf. I'm often asked if I have
cancer. And I have a
badge that says, 'No, I don't wear it in the shower'. People really think
we're aliens. It's
just a piece of material, like a T-****rt. It doesn't have magic powers.
"For me, it's very im****tant that this show is about Muslims, not about
Islam. It's just
showing that Muslims are normal people. We're not from Planet Islam. It's
showing the human
face of the Muslim community, same as Acropolis Now did (for the Greek
community) in the '80s.
People will see that we won't eat their babies."
Since the World Trade Center attacks, Muslims have had a serious image
problem. "Obviously the
whole world was turned on its head post-September 11," says Ahmed Imam,
Salam Cafe's host.
"There was a lot of heat in the kitchen."
The Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005 didn't help. Which is ironic, given
that Islam — contrary to
the rantings of some extremists — is essentially a tolerant religion.
"Islam says to Christians
and Jews, 'We wor****p the same God you do'," says Carland. "Islam is a
continuation. We feel
the prophets all came with the same message."
So here comes Salam Cafe, hoping to give Aussie Muslims an image makeover
via humour — which in
Australia is usually the best way to make a serious point.
"People are probably not expecting the kinds of stuff that comes out of
our mouths," says Imam.
"Even (producer) Ted Robinson said, 'When I saw the show the first time, I
was laughing at what
you were laughing at. I couldn't feel any distance'. Humour is a
particularly Australian
characteristic, and we all originate from different places, but we're all
Australian. And the
humour is probably a reflection of the new kinds of Muslim in Australia,
who are comfortable
living and practising their faith and joking."
Humour also allows Salam Cafe to broach sensitive topics.
"We won't do anything we're uncomfortable with," says Carland. "But then
we do address some
uncomfortable issues because I think to ignore those issues is even more
offensive to people."
The regulars chosen for the 10 initial episodes of Salam Cafe — to be
filmed in front of live
audiences in Sydney and Melbourne — are an impressive bunch. There's
Waleed Aly, the young
lawyer who is a regular contributor to The Age opinion page and ABC radio.
There's the show's host, Imam, who is the acting chief executive of the
Islamic Council of
Victoria, a father of four and the son of the Mufti of Australia (Fehmi
Naji el-Imam). He sees
Salam Cafe as a potentially useful tool in bringing Islam into the
consciousness of mainstream
Australia.
"I was born and raised here in Australia," he says. "My dad came to
Australia in 1951 from
Lebanon, then he married my mother, who was of Anglo-Celtic background and
became a Muslim in
the '50s. The Muslim community in the '50s in Sydney and Melbourne was
incredibly small, and
only since the '70s has Muslim migration skyrocketed. So it's a changing
dynamic. Within the
Muslim community there are now more parents who have grown up here and who
understand the
environment and significance of the cultural values."
Then there's Carland, who is sharp, opinionated and has a stud in her
tongue.
"She has a touch of the punk about her," says Pamela Swain, who is
producing with Robinson.
"She's like a punk mum. She's got a bit of the rebel about her and is also
a feminist. But
she's amazingly down to earth, and so Aussie.
"I can't speak highly enough of all them. The thing that makes me really
excited is they're
really young. The oldie is Ahmed Iman, he's 38, but these are mostly
20-somethings, and that's
a generation we don't often see on television. This show is a big ask of
them, but I think it's
got great potential."
Also on the team are Nazeem Hussain and Aamer Rahman, comedians whose show
Fear of a Brown
Planet, winner of the best newcomer award at the Melbourne International
Comedy Festival, was
described by The Age as "beautifully distilled fury". Appearing beside
them are Ahmed Hassan,
Dakhylina Madkhul and Toltu Tufa.
With the help of Robinson and Swain, whose credits include Good News Week,
The Glass House and
The Sideshow, Salam Cafe on SBS will be more polished than it was in April
2005, when it
premiered on the community TV channel.
The idea for the show came over a game of Pictionary. "When you don't
drink it's just party
around the clock," says Carland. "Ahmed just said, 'Wouldn't it be good to
have a TV show?' We
thought it would be awesome, so we filmed four episodes in a local primary
school. It was all
very Wayne's World, but the Muslim community seemed to like it. Originally
it was just a panel
show, but then we brought in sketches."
For the initial episodes, the title was Ramadan TV. "We deliberated for
weeks over what the
name should be," Imam says. "And just like the word 'Islam', and the word
'Muslim', 'Salam'
comes from the word for 'peace'. And then we decided we wanted to create
the atmosphere of a
coffee shop. Because everybody loves a coffee shop, especially in
Melbourne. So this is the
Peace Cafe. We didn't want something overly Islamic or Arabic but
something where a Muslim sees
the name, they know, and when a non-Muslim sees it, they might just think,
'That's an
interesting name'."
As far as Imam is concerned, the image problem faced by Muslims in
Australia will soon pass.
"Everybody has their time," he says. "The Italians, the Greeks, the
Asians, they all had their
time. Now it's the Muslims, and probably even more so at the moment it's
the African community.
It could be someone else next. The Italians, Greeks and Asians have all
come through that, and
it's going to happen with Muslims, too, and hopefully this show will
assist with that process.
Not that we're sponsored by the Department of Immigration."
Salam Cafe screens Wednesdays at 10pm on SBS.
This story was found at:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/05/14/1210444510107.html
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