Mini-festival a showcase for Muslim youth

IPE Admin: Here is a great web article by Mari Sasano of the Edmonton Journal, published Thursday, February 14, 2008. And a quick update to the article: if you visit the Mosquer’s site, you’ll find the winning videos online. Great stuff. Enjoy.

EDMONTON - There have long been misconceptions about the Muslim world, portrayed in the West as decadent, violent, exotic and utterly “other.” Things haven’t changed much, especially following 9/11. Some members of the community say it seems like the only time Muslims appear in the media these days is in the context of terrorism, as oppressors of women, or as stubborn foreigners who require “accommodation” into Canadian society.

Born Into Poverty

A group of young Edmonton Muslims wants to change that. The Mosquers Awards, now in its second year, is a grassroots mini-festival initiated by the Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations, the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities and a group of filmmakers dubbed The Axis of E-Town. It’s meant to be a way for Muslim youth to tell their own stories and show what their lives are truly like.

Imran Quereshi, one of the organizers, notes that the most striking thing about what he’s seen is the diversity of voices.

“There is no archetypal or prototypical Muslim. We all come from different backgrounds, and we want to show the plurality of our community to those who might not be familiar with that, to allow different faces to come to the fore,” he says.

The films/videos are independently made by local artists. There are 10 film entries this year, ranging from comedy to drama to documentary. The hope is to provide more accurate and positive images of Muslim-Canadians, to build bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims, and to initiate dialogue within the community, says Quereshi.

“A lot of Muslim youth, their parents are immigrants who might see a negative stereotype and, instead of reaching out, they enter a siege mentality. Young people who are born here, raised here and live and work here are saying, ‘Look, this is not the way it’s supposed to be.’”

This year’s awards, hosted by the CBC’s Portia Clark, will be judged by a celebrity panel headed by Little Mosque on the Prairie creator Zarqa Nawaz. Winners will be selected following the screening.
© Edmonton Journal 2008
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About the Mosquers:

As an organization whose aim is to eliminate racism, The Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations approached a few Muslim youth (now called The Axis of E-town) to work together and develop a creative tool to decrease the misunderstanding, stereotypes, and challenges of Muslims. The Mosquers is this tool - a Muslim video contest encouraging young Muslims to tell their story about how it feels to be a Muslim in Canada and what kinds of challenges and stereotypes they face. This is an opportunity by Muslims themselves to voice their feelings, experiences or opinions.