I visited Hajj and Abdullah again on Wednesday. Abdullah took us all out for fish and chips in his people carrier. Again I kick myself that I didn't do this with Mr. Hamza around. We talked for a long time about what we believed. It's much harder without a camera as I have to justify my own beliefs rather than just soaking up someone else's. When we got back to Hajj's place Mr. Abdullah tried hard to make me understand his views about God and about homosexuality. I told them a lot about my life too.
It was great being so honest with no one taking offence. Hajj told me that when his neighbours had seen him on TV next to Hamza they were worried. As he had been living there for such a long time he had been able to convince them neither he nor Hamza were terrorists. I'd like to speak to them for my doc.I spoke to Hajj before about Mrs. Ujaama. Apparently she is in this country and I wondered if she would have anything to say. They believe that Mr. Ujaama has sold Hamza to the Americans because he wants to see his 3 year old child again. A fucking sad story I would be very unlikely to get from his wife.
Abdullah has a lot of respect for Mr. Bin Laden, he doesn't believe he was resposible for september 11th, he thinks all the Jewish people working in the world trade centre took the day off and Mossad did it. I think all this is contraversial enough in itself to get on TV. Balanced with some views of people who hate Hamza and I've got a seriously emotive documentary I would be proud to present. He was still understandably touchy about TV and told me that Patrick (from Idealworld now IWC Media) had tried to arrange a meeting with him without me, ie. he was trying to cut me out of my own doc.
I haven't spoken to Patrick for a while as I don't want to waste his time without something more solid. I don't want to believe he would fuck me over, I hope it was just a misunderstanding. I can't imagine Patrick posting on www.shootingpeople.org which has 40,000 members with an official call for new directors, only to cut them out of their own projects. I told Mr. Abdullah that he had two choices. We could go the independent route, where I would make a film which may get a small scale cinema release which would be viewed by a small number of people who were curious or sympathetic, or we could go the TV route, where he would risk being re-edited to look bad, but he would also get a huge audience of curious Muslims and the sun newspaper's fans who fucking hate Abu Hamza. I told him that I would like people who hate Abu Hamza to watch it, and fully intended to include their views in it. I want to interview people from the sun as well. I would also get a budget which would cover getting news footage to contrast with my own etc.
On Friday Mr. Abdullah was preaching, as he has done a couple of times against people with Mohican's, coloured hair and rings through their ears and noses.
" That's you that is!" said an attentive policeman I was standing next to.
" Same time next Wednesday? " I asked Mr.Abdullah afterwards.
" Yes OK. "
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