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Britz II(Jihad in the City) directed by Peter Kosminsky, United Kingdom / India, 2007 genre: Drama / Thriller This film features Manjinder Virk, Riz Ahmed and Chinna Wodu. It involves British, Pakistani and Pakistani (UK) cultures. The film "Britz" is about an important turning point in the lives of two British Pakistani siblings, Sohail and Nasima Wahid. The story deals with one time frame but is told from two different perspectives. Part I presents Sohail's point of view, while part II is told from the point of view of his sister Nasima. They have both been brought up in Bradford, West Yorkshire (United Kingdom), where there is a large community of British Pakistani people. Facing the anti-terrorism legislation of the new British government used against Muslims in the United Kingdom in the wake of 9/11, Nasima, a medical student, becomes increasingly alienated and angered by both the domestic and the foreign policy of her country. To help a Muslim friend, innocently arrested by the British police, she mobilises all of her friends from university for a peaceful demonstration against the unfair arrest. Her secret love for Jude, a black Christian, is doomed to fail. As a Pakistani woman, she is well aware that her family will never tolerate her having close contact with a non-Muslim. Frustrated by the powerlessness of her political protest, she decides to fight against her home country England and becomes a suicide bomber. Deliberately, she reveals her love for Jude to her father, knowing that she will be sent to Pakistan immediately. A marriage to her cousin, which is quite normal in Pakistani families (just as it was in Europe in earlier times), is in the offing. On the flight to Pakistan, a Pakistani terrorist organisation makes contact with her. Jude follows her, but after having found her, he is discovered by Nasima's family, who beat him up very badly. Leaving Jude possibly dead on the floor, Nasima flees from her family and accepts a new identity offered by the terrorist organization. Her family grieves for her, after a charred body is found (on which her clothes, necklace etc. have been planted). Meanwhile, Nasima is trained to become a suicide bomber, to launch her vengeance upon her former home country. The film ultimately asks us to question whether the laws that we think are making us safer are actually putting us in greater danger. But it makes no value judgements. We are shown events from the point of view of Nasima, who becomes bitter and alienated - understandably so. But this is almost bound to happen, given the fact that (like many Muslims) she identifies herself more strongly with the wider Islamic community (umma) than with her true home country, Britain, even to the point of eventually accepting traditional cultural values (including the oppression of women) that her brother Sohail views as backward and medieval. The following scenes showing aspects of intercultural matters have been analysed:
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