The Sudanese Teddy Bear Saga

In a round about way the author is still placing blame of “ignorance” on the teacher. Pathetic, really. No one in a Catholic country would ask for someone’s neck for naming a stuffed monkey Jesus. How is that even an Insult? Isn’t Osama also Mohammad? The guy with blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands? Shouldn't he be asked to change his name?

Six weeks ago, a college buddy of mine was in Mexico and was assaulted by some villagers for wearing a T-shirt which read " Jesus is my Homeboy". While this caption usually elicits chuckles in the U.S and other parts of the world, it obviously offended the religious sensibilities of a certain strata of Mexican society.

Should my friend have known better? I honestly think so. In his defence, it can be said he was simply an 'ignorant tourist' the proverbial "Ugly American". Gillian Gibbons is an educationist who has a responsibility to be sensitive towards prevelant emotions in her host country. I strongly feel that her lack of judgement was a main ingredient in the entire episode alongwith illiteracy, Islamic fundamentalism and the growing resentment in less developed Muslim countries against the West.

Please refrain from swinging the "kulharee" on your own foot. Unfortuanately what's pathetic is your lack of comprehension of the written word.

The point homeboy is that there are no “laws” in Mexico to put the stupid American in Jail or to try him for wearing such a t-shirt or for naming his teddy bear. Muslims need to be less sensitive, for a change. These events should be seen as an opportunity for Ummah to reflect upon their collective inconsequentiality. What you termed as a “tragedy” is in reality a Genocide. Tragedy is when a bus goes down in a ditch and some school children die.

I totally agree with Kulharee.

If anything makes Muslims look like the laughing stock of the world, its the Sudanese Teddy Bear Episode.

What fascinates me is that how these people in Sudan were protesting with swords and clubs outside the presidential palace.

Makes you wonder, Dont they have jobs and better things to do.

Rather than call for the death of an innocent woman.

The prophet himself forgave countless people who insulted him, spit on him, threw trash on him.

Where is the following of SUNNAH in this case!

The Stupid idiots will keep beards, and pull their little pants above their ankles because its the Sunnah.

But what about following the example of mercy and compassion, the prophet showed those who wronged him.

Muslims who get all worked up over such things are surely perverted, and have no understanding of the true spirit of Islam.

Another thing:

Why do these stupid idiots who call themselves Muslims get insulted at every little thing.

Why would Muhammad really care if some insulted him fourteen hundred years after his death.

Why dont these people get insulted at their levels of ignorance?

Their Poverty?

Their lack of the will to change their situation?

The honor killings, the domestic violence?

The high incidence of child sexual and physical abuse?

Like people got all up and arms about the woman who wrote the Quranic verses on her body.

Last time I checked, Muhammad was carried to term within a female body.

How is lines written in ink more sacred than a human body?

It is all in the mindset. The priorities of these people are screwed up?

The human body that should be the most sacred of all things has no value?

Yet, people are willing to shed human blood over the same book that teaches,

"If you kill one human, its as if you killed the whole humanity."

Lord ahmed may have been a grocery store owner but, he is also a graduate as well. He is not very articulate but he’s improving, It is labour party policy to have peers from across the wide spectrum of society. Parliament should reflect the people it serves.

Baroness warsi is a shadow minister as well, she is very articulate, well spoken, as soon as I saw her in a T.V debate I knew she was going places, I think she would have had far better impact as a MP and then cabinet post, I suppose it’s her decision may be she was impatient to get into parliament.

kulharee I'd rather not get dragged in to a debate on Sharia'a law. The point that the author was trying to make was that illiteracy and overt religosity is a potent mixture that resulted in the Teddy Bear issue. Illiteracy and overt religosity are prevelant across the globe and incidents of both can be found all over the place. To blame Islam for purely human failings is unfair.

To your comment on how muslims need to be less sensitive, you need to understand that Islam is not just a religion but a way of life. It is hard not to be sensitive if your entire life is governed by an ideology that you feel is threatened. How would a strict vegetarian Brahmin feel if a nice juicy steak was forced down his throat and would'nt a Hassidic Jew be a little irate if his forelocks were threatened by a pair of scissors? Thats the main point Homeboy

Mahir Ali in Dawn:

WHEN she arrived in Khartoum four months ago, Gillian Gibbons couldn’t possibly have had any inkling that she’d be headed back to England some four months later, following a stint in prison.

In a statement issued last Saturday, the incarcerated 54-year-old Liverpudlian said she wasn’t keen to leave Sudan and would much rather return to work. “The Sudanese people in general have been pleasant and very generous,’’ she noted, “and I’ve had nothing but good experiences during my four months here.”

What makes the level of equanimity and goodwill remarkable is that the previous day, following Friday prayers, there were mobs baying for her blood, demanding that the 15-day prison sentence handed down by a Khartoum court be upgraded to death by a firing squad. So, what exactly did Gibbons do to inspire such demands for vengeance?

Well, a month into her stint as a teacher at the Unity School, where she was in charge of seven-year-olds, she came up with a device for engaging the kids’ interest in one of the designated topics: bears.

One of the children brought her teddy bear to school and her classmates were assigned the task of taking the teddy home, one by one, and writing about their experiences.

Before the project got underway, Gibbons asked the kids to choose a name for the cuddly toy. There were various suggestions, including Abdullah and Hassan.

A little boy called Mohammad put forward his own name for consideration. The teacher arranged a class vote and Mohammad won hands down. She accepted the democratic verdict.

Reasonably enough, the idea that anyone would find this objectionable appears not to have so much as crossed her mind. Two months later, police arrived at the Unity compound to arrest Gibbons for insulting Islam.

The school’s director, Robert Boulos, was told that some parents had complained to the ministry of education. It subsequently turned out that the sole complainant was in fact an office assistant at the school, who served as the main witness for the prosecution - or, to be more precise, persecution.

The verdict of 15 days in prison followed by deportation occasioned sighs of relief, given that it could have been worse: six months in prison and 40 lashes. At the weekend, two Muslim British peers were engaged in negotiations with the Sudanese authorities in Khartoum, and they were expected to fly back to London with Gibbons after obtaining a presidential pardon.

That’s all very well, but the point remains that the only insult in this case - an insult to common sense, if not to Islam - came from those who pursued a vendetta on patently absurd grounds. It has been argued that Gibbons erred inadvertently, that as a novice in Sudan she was unaware of cultural sensitivities.

That’s an unnecessarily patronising point of view; I suspect she erred only in failing to make an allowance for the idiocy of some Muslims.(DAWN)

Like Sherbaz miaN?

Well written by Mahir, but then she's a good writer. That's her opinion, mine has always been to try and see the issue from all sides and not be too judgemental.

Like that Nasah Mian?

Now here is my take on the issue:

"A British teacher faces jail and 40 lashes in Sudan for insulting Islam by letting her class of seven-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad."

If this not a diseased mental state then what it is -- these stupid religious morons of Islam don't even know that a teddy bear is one of the most affectionate cuddly security-blanket kind of toy for the kids -- and naming a teddy bear "Mohammed' is a sweet cuddly idea for the Muslim kids to love Mohammed.

The dedicated British teacher -- who took upon herself the self-torture and self-punishment to leave the comforts of a civilized society to go to this wild savage Godforsaken place called Sudan to teach the Mohammed-Worshipping barbarians -- how to read and write and teach their children how to show affection to Mohammed in a civilized way.-- ends up meeting this kind of cruel barbaric indignity.

And this is nothing compared to what the savages of the Saudi Sharia court did to that teenager girl who after being raped by 7 pious Saudi men as a punishment for going on a date -- was punished by the Sharia court with lashes and a long term jail sentence.

Are we Muslims normal? -- fit to live with dignity in this modern changing times among the otherwise civilized communities of the world? -- with our no-change medieval mind set?

The whole Muslim thinking process is weird, diseased, totally topsy turvy -- totally upside down -- what is night for the rest of the world is day for us -- we are a weird community with primitive savage moralities -- thrust suddenly among the norms of bewildered world communties -- by global migration.

And by God we have no plan -- no intention -- of ever learning from others -- changing ourselves -- and adjusting to the norms of the world around us. We would rather kill the norm and stay abnormmal -- than do any slef-examination.(Chowk)

.......... and what about all those teddy bears who are protesting at one of their own being named after a man with a reputation for violence and cruelty ? ........ what about their feelings ?

Re: # 11

Hamidm Sahib:

"........ what about their feelings ? "

Certainly the most ingenious support the underdog. Can't believe it can come from a hardcore republican.

Long live the Teddies.

"The only thing Ms. Gibbons can possibly be guilty of is being ignorant of the sentimentalities of Sudanese hard-line Muslims. This is no crime in itself, however it does reflect bad judgement on her part for which she has to take some responsibility. To better illustrate my point, if I was a teacher in a devoutly Catholic country, I would not name the class mascot "Jesus"."(author)

Hammad -- Even though you wrote a good-hearted article on Gillian episode -- but still you don't understand who was at fault.

The teacher was NOT at fault.

The class mascot Jesus and a cuddly security blanket kind of toy teddy bear named Mohammed -- that the kids hug, get huddled with and sleep with at night -- are not comparable -- No catholic kid sleeps with the class mascot named Jesus.

Mohammed the teddy bear and the class mascot Jesus are like comparing a rosy cheek smooth shiny apple with a thorny elephant-skin jackfruit.

The Muslim kid named Muhammad gave one of the most beautiful name Mohammed to his security blanket sleeping partner -- the teddy bear. Period. It was indeed such a beautiful name that all kids in the class agreed to pick it -- did it occur to anyone why? -- definitely not because they were Catholic kids!

Hammad -- Believe me we Muslims are weird -- chooiee to chooiee -- in our bizarre set of crazy senseless 'sensibilities'.

Hammad,

Here are my 2 cents on the topic (from my iLog)

MY dear muslims, don't hate on the teacher and the teddybear


Dear Sudanese brothers and sisters,

I understand that you respect the prophet (PBUH), and don't want to offend him, but you should not take it upon yourselves to police that no-one else ridicules the prophet either.

Prophets are always ridiculed by opposing religions. In fact, if your prophet is not getting bad mouthed or ridiculed, perhaps you are not backing the right prophet. Perhaps your prophet does not have enough attention in the world.

Which brings me to naming a teddy bear Mohammad.

I know that you guys are wary of teddy bears. I also know that you are wary of missionary white teachers. Especially if they name that suspicious teddybear Mohammad.

However, please consider that the Teddy bear was made by some poor innocent Chinese in a sweat shop somewhere. The prophet always spoke for the oppressed, and would have supported these workers. Furthermore, the prophet told his people to travel to China if they have to, for education. Do you think he would be offended by China coming to the people?

Lastly, a teddy bear is no match, in offensiveness than, say Mohammad Zia-ul-haque. That is where people should have been really offended and slayed the bastard for offending the prophet. There are many others that are named Mohammad, and they are despicable people. So please, instead of fighting with the Teddy bear, fight with those people first.

Thank you

with much respect,
thinking storm

Author sahib,

you miss a very fine point when you write

[To better illustrate my point, if I was a teacher in a devoutly Catholic country, I would not name the class mascot "Jesus".]

In a christian country, the people seldom go as crazy to start asking for death sentences, even in a devoutly Catholic country.

My NAME IS MOHAMMAD & I AM A MUSLIM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQXh20OuhIc