No one does agonising quite like Mobeen Azhar. In several BBC documentaries now, he’s set his face to pensive, gone off on an earnest quest to investigate a touchy subject and reached his conclusions only after the most extravagant of brow-furrowing. There is, however, a perhaps unexpected twist: the resulting programmes are rather good, creating the impression – or even reflecting the reality – of a man determined to get to the often dark heart of the matter.
For a while, it did look as if the programme’s main appeal might be as a comedy of liberal discomfiture
In the past, Azhar has applied his methods to such issues as the long-standing effect of the Satanic Verses controversy and why British Muslims joined Isis. On Wednesday he used them to tackle what at first sight appeared a less obvious cause for concern – the increasingly strange behaviour of Kanye West, or ‘Ye’ as he prefers to call himself these days.
One of the programme’s trickier tasks was to persuade us that a rapper saying weird things is something we should be properly worried about. After all, to the untrained eye, it might just seem that people like Azhar were perfectly happy when Ye was spouting the usual highly questionable left-wing stuff, but are now having a fit of the vapours at him making an album called Jesus Is King, proclaiming his belief in family values and apparently approving of Donald Trump.
For a while, in fact, it did look as if the programme’s main appeal might be as a comedy of liberal discomfiture. (Think Justin Trudeau in blackface with his arms around some hot chicks.) But only for a while – because before long two pretty damning facts were firmly established.
The first was that, as aggressions go, Ye’s certainly aren’t micro.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in