As for information, I am a writer living in the U.K. — My name is Ramsha Khan.
Conservatives and Muslims in the West are having the most interesting conversations.
When I saw a clip from the film Cuties, I was so repulsed that I could not continue watching past the first 30 seconds of it. The feelings of disgust completely engulfed me; I was repulsed by what I saw.
This was to be expected, as feelings of disgust are scientifically proven to be a natural emotional response to witnessing abuse, which in this case seemed like child abuse.
I asked myself “were these innocent children exploited in the making of this film?” I was left baffled and confused as to how a major streaming platform such as Netflix could agree to publishing something as grotesque as Cuties.
It felt like an attempt to normalize child exploitation. What was even more repulsing was witnessing leftists coming out of the woodwork to defend the film.
Left-leaning newspapers such as The Independent dubbed the film as “intelligent and moving” and then further defended it as being an important contribution of a “coming of age” film.
The Independent newspaper regularly opposes Islamophobia and is on the front lines of advocating for issues which concern Islam in the West. Consequently, the outlet has garnered a large audience and support of Muslims and others alike.
Interestingly, in the West, the political left holds a strong base of Muslim supporters. In the United Kingdom, the vast majority of Muslims vote for the Labour Party. In the United States, Muslims vote for the Democrats. Both are left-wing political parties.
Leftists claim to be allies of Muslims, and they claim to represent our values, causes and concerns. The truth is that any individual who can find a moral justification to defend a movie as inappropriate as Cuties cannot truly be representatives of Islam and Muslims.
Why should Muslims give away their sense of identity to vapid, woke liberalism on the Left, in exchange for representation which can be considered inauthentic and faux?
Indeed, Muslims with a conscience who have a grasp between morality and immortality could never support a horror story such as Cuties.
Conservatives, however, were open about their rejection of the film and proudly opposed it, with many leading petitions against the film that accumulated hundreds and thousands of signatures.
If Muslims to an extent disagree with the overall politics of the right wing, it should not mean that they cannot support or agree with them during a crisis of moral decay.
Muslims should also not fear of the consequences of supporting conservatives if they find themselves agreeing with them, especially in our religion where neutrality is considered a sin during a time of crisis.
Therefore, what are we to make of this argument?
First, it is clear that the idea that Muslims can only ally with leftists is foolish. It is disingenuous to believe so, but it is almost impossible to do so since our values are often in absolute conflict.
It is impossible to find a party where every political and social opinion can be agreed upon in one, perfect monolithic block. More often than not, politics is more complicated than that, as it consists of an array of cultural and social issues which often are not easy to understand or solve.
Secondly, it should also be questioned as to why so many leftist Muslim progressives remained so silent about the film, and yet again made an exception for the Left and its failure of representing its Muslim supporters.
To illustrate this further, a left wing Muslim journalist, who wished to stay anonymous revealed to me; “I feared supporting Conservatives about this issue, due to fear of being cancelled by the Left and even the organization I work with.”
Indeed, it is truly disappointing to see Muslims within the political Left who chose to not oppose Cuties, due to fear of career repercussions and being “cancelled.”
Cuties had a counterintuitive way of doing cultural critique. It displayed moral decadence in the creation of the film which was beyond any reasonable justification; and teaching 11 year olds to “twerk” is certainly not one of them.
The film makers of Cuties have failed every decent human being and every child. The controversy surrounding the film is justified, and the issue of child exploitation goes beyond conservatism and Islam.
This time, I found myself allying with Conservatives and I felt these people were in fact were in complete alignment; we both were displaying our values of social responsibility and were against something which in my opinion was beyond reasonable harm for society.
It is said that silence is compliance, especially when it comes to non-partisan issues, or issues which are causes for humanitarian concern. Therefore, it is time for Muslims and Conservatives to finally have an open and honest conversation with one another. They may find that we both have way more in common than we know.
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