The Infidel: a case of mistaken identity

It ought to have been right up my street, but the politics of David Baddiel's new film, The Infidel, just didn't ring true
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Still from David Baddiel's The Infidel
Still from the trailer for David Baddiel's religious comedy, The Infidel. Photograph: Revolver Entertainment

Oh boy, I'm gonna get myself in trouble for this one. So, a few weeks ago I went to a preview screening of new comedy The Infidel, out on general release tomorrow. The concept of the film: a Muslim discovers that he was born a Jew, and religious-based hilarity ensues. As the lights dimmed I was proper excited. Here was the utilisation of comedy as a tool to celebrate what makes us different and what makes us the same. This couldn't have been more up my street if it lived next door. As I sat there in the darkness enjoying Omid Djalili's performance and David Baddiel's jokes, I was gradually overtaken though with the sense that something wasn't quite right. Like a cracked bell, the whole enterprise wasn't ringing true.

The problem lay in the reality of this specific situation. There was too much that made us different and not enough that made us the same. This was role-reversal without an appropriate reverse. Man and woman, yes. Child and adult, yes. Muslim and Jew, no. As the film progressed I came to see that they are not two sides of the same coin, but rather separate coins of different denominations. Putting the monetary metaphors aside to avoid unwarranted antisemitism, let's just say that the criteria for defining a Muslim are not the same as that for defining a Jew.

Whilst in danger of getting myself stuck in the intricate identity web that exists between culture, ethnicity and religion, it's fair to say that the latter is a far more important aspect of being a Muslim than being Jewish. I don't like the term "moderate Muslim" as it implies that a "Muslim" without the prefix is somehow not, so let's just say that Djalili's character Mahmud is somewhat of a lapsed Muslim. And that's the crux of the problem – you can be a lapsed Catholic, even lapsed CofE, but you can't be a lapsed Jew. Whether you are an atheist Jew, an agnostic Jew or even a Buddhist Jew (Jubu), the Jew bit remains a constant. For the criteria of being Jewish isn't solely dependent on any kind of relationship with God. But to be a Muslim you should at least be on speaking terms.

Added to that is the fact that Mahmud is raised as a second generation Pakistani. I can't speak for all Jews here, I can barely talk for one, but after taking away the religious element, what real links do the culturally specific food, language, rituals and customs to which his parents might have exposed him have with that of a fourth generation Russian Jew – ie me? Not enough to construct a film around. Of course religious connections between us abound, but not any more or less than the connections that exist between Islam and Christianity, or indeed any grouping of the Abrahamic trio.

It would make me sad to think it were true that as the film suggests, the worst thing for a Muslim would be waking up to find themselves as Jewish. Especially as the worst thing for a Jew wouldn't be to find out he was a Muslim, rather simply that he wasn't Jewish anymore. This all ties into something that I've noticed over the last decade and let me preface it by saying that it's very much a personal observation rather than a trend based on anything provable. The paradigm seems to have shifted to "Muslims and Jews" from "Arabs and Jews". And this is where I really put my foot in it, because I miss those days. As "the other" to each other it made much more sense. Tribal peoples from the same patch of land who liked a bit of couscous and falafel, yes there were tensions and war and horrible things and there still are, but it felt like we were on the same coin. Even if not on the same side. They were simpler times. Someone should make a movie about it.

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