British Muslims should protest teddy lunacy
Oh come off it, I thought yesterday afternoon, when I heard that the Sudanese authorities had actually gone ahead and charged her. Surely they are out of their minds.
When the news broke yesterday teatime that poor Gillian Gibbons was facing prosecution in Khartoum for inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs, I am afraid my normal good humour momentarily deserted me.
How dare they! I spluttered, and for a brief undignified moment, I had fantasies of a return to the age of Palmerston.
Here is an innocent British citizen, a good and patently well-meaning 54-year-old British teacher. She has decided to make a new life for herself by giving instruction to children in one of the poorest countries on Earth. She has got herself into a muddle over the name of a teddy bear – and now she is facing 40 lashes or six months in jail.
There was a time when Britain would have sent a gunboat to rescue her. There was a time when MPs would have been holding furious debates on the matter, and bandying phrases such as “civis Britannicus sum”.
In the old days there would have been demarche from Britain to Sudan, warning that His Majesty’s government would not suffer a hair on her head to be disturbed.
Well, folks, that time is past. We must accept that the world has changed, and our place in the world has changed, too.
We must ask ourselves what earthly good we can do, and how we can persuade people to come to their senses. We need to encourage reasonable people in Sudan to get Gillian Gibbons out of jail as soon as possible and I have a feeling, alas, that there is not a lot to be gained by just quivering our jowls and invoking the spirit of Don Pacifico; or at least, not a lot that will help Gillian Gibbons.
Of course it is demented that this teacher should now have spent four nights in jail for calling a teddy bear Mohammed.
It is utterly bonkers that she should face the possibility of some barbaric punishment, for what was so obviously a complete misunderstanding.
She did what thousands of teachers do across Britain, and asked her class to come up with a name for their teddy bear mascot.
Her class, which included Muslim children, voted for the name of the prophet – which they themselves seem to have thought a pretty uncontentious choice, since millions of Muslim boys bear the same name.
She did not mean to imply that she thought the messenger of Allah was in any sense a cuddly toy. It simply did not cross her mind that there could be some idolatrous or blasphemous implication.
In so far as she caused offence to some of the parents, there must have been a thousand better ways to sort out the problem. She could have apologised; she could have instantly changed the name of the mascot to Paddington, or some other name less offensive to Muslims.
She could have called it Aloysius, like the chap in Evelyn Waugh, and though Aloysius is a pretty emetic name for a teddy bear, no one would have suggested locking her up.
She wasn’t given the chance to do any of those sensible things, and the result is a mess; and it is worse than a diplomatic embarrassment. The jailing of Gillian Gibbons is helping to confirm people’s worst prejudices about Islam.
It may be that the judge will simply spring her today, in which case all will be well. But if he doesn’t, and if this business drags on, then there is one group that must speak up.
There’s no point in the British government raging from afar, or rattling an empty scabbard. There’s no point in us jumping up and down on the sidelines, and shaking our fists at Khartoum. Any such posturing would only help, of course, to deepen the intransigence of the Sudanese.
No, the voices we need to hear now belong to Britain’s vast, sensible Muslim majority. If British Muslims speak up decisively and loudly against this lunacy, then they can achieve two good things at once. Their arguments will be heard with respect in Khartoum, since they cannot be said to be founded on any kind of cultural imperialism, or to be actuated by Islamophobia.
More importantly, a strong protest by British Muslims against the imprisonment of Gillian Gibbons would help to contradict the growing ranks of pessimists and neo-cons – the people who say that the real problem is Islam, the religion itself.
There is a body of commentators who say that we are deceiving ourselves about the scale of the problem. Islamism, they claim, is not the fault of a few extremists.
These people claim that difficulties we are experiencing are intrinsic to the religion itself – because it is in essence a religion of war, unreformable, medieval. I think they are completely wrong, and they can be proved wrong.
To his credit, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain has already issued a statement calling for the release of Gillian Gibbons. Let’s hear more of the same. Let’s see Muslim MPs on the news, appealing to Sudan to show reason.
If you want grounds for despair, read the entries on the BBC website, in which some British Muslims say that she should be punished; or read the entries from people in Sudan saying that the children should be punished.
It is tragic and incredible that we can allow people to take offence over such a simple misunderstanding. If this goes any further, it will entrench prejudice and misunderstanding.
But if British Muslim leaders are able to seize the opportunity and speak up for common sense, then they have a real chance to show that there is all the difference in the world between Islam and the ludicrous fanaticism that has incarcerated Gillian Gibbons.
This morning I made my morning coffee, switched on the BBC News and was dismayed to hear Dermot Monahan say that British school teacher Gillian Gibbons is due to be tried for “inciting religious hatred against Islam”.
This is not what she is being charged with at all. She is being charged with “Blasphemy” and “Insulting the Prophet of Islam”.
By reporting this story using the linguistic terms of our own culture’s values and standards of behaviour, the BBC are shamefully lending respectability to a primitive, intolerant society which doesn’t deserve it.
Shame on you BBC, for seeing five fingers when there are four!
This latest “teddy bear” incident has nothing to to with respect for religion and everything to do with narrow-minded extremists who are only to happy to kick up a storm to promote their own warped view of the World. To seriously be debating the legitimacy of what this school teacher has done is absurd.
The way our New Labour government is behaving is shameful too. Government exists primarily to defend its own peoples rather than telling them how to live their lives. Ours should be denouncing Sudan in the strongest possible terms. We should be throwing out Sudanese diplomats, closing down their embassy and cutting off all diplomatic ties. Most importantly, we should never be made to feel that we have to panda to rotten cultural values that are not just “different” but blatantly wrong.
We should be demanding that this woman be set free, setting a deadline for her release and then we must send in the SAS to get her out if the Sudanese government does not comply with our wishes. A show of strength is needed rather than a half-hearted attempt to appease. We need to roar like a lion not meow like a pussy cat with its tail between its legs.
Religion screws up everything, it’s just a socialy acceptable psychosis.
It’s very sad that Muslims in this country want a fellow citizen to receive an incredibly serious punishment for letting a child at school name a teddy bear.
Here, Here, Boris. It is indeed a shame that the tiptoeing diplomacy we exhibit and politically correct climate is such as it is. Can’t you get in Cameron’s ear and invoke some proper passionate debate in Parliament?
As much as your calling-to-criticise from UK Muslims is theoretically correct, I cannot help but feel that this can only be expected if the leaders of our country make the standards we expect of other nations unequivocally clear.
Giving a (bad) example, a rogue teacher is giving answers to his students. How can a student be expected to complain to the headmaster about his teacher if he has not heard the headmaster stating clearly that cheating is immoral.
Sitting back and expecting our local Muslim friends to stick their neck out is, in my view, simply not good enough.
Seen this:
From Electro-Kevin’s blog with figures from http://bbc-biased.blogspot.com/ which has comments that quote from… Boris Johnson.
…we have to panda to rotten cultural values (Benjamin Osler)
Sorry, couldn’t resist it.
Benjamin also calls for diplomatic sanctions, sending the SAS etc. I really don’t think this would help. After all, [Ed: …,] if I may say, a little naive not to have spotted this cultural clanger and asked a few questions before going public with the bear’s name.
That is not to condone their actions for a moment. We’ve had umpteen opportunities over the years to challenge extremism on our own soil but failed to do so in Britain’s suffocating climate of Muslim appeasement.
This is not the time suddenly to change tack.
[Ed: sorry to edit this one, Paul, but the case is in the Sudanese court.}
Fair doos, Ed. She hasn’t been convicted yet.
Boris, you seem surprised by the situation the teacher in the Sudan finds herself in, and yet the same type of situation has been faced by British citizens on their own soil. Admittedly not with the threat of 40 lashes hanging over them, but the stress and discomfort of having their collars felt by the thought police. Remember the English pub landlady who got a visit from the police for allowing her customers to fire toy arrows at a Welsh flag on St George’s day – apparently a possible race crime? Just one example of the madness of the current regime. So, all in all, our own banana republic isn’t in any position to protest against, or criticise the Sudanese Government.
“There is a body of commentators who say that we are deceiving ourselves about the scale of the problem. Islamism, they claim, is not the fault of a few extremists.
These people claim that difficulties we are experiencing are intrinsic to the religion itself – because it is in essence a religion of war, unreformable, medieval. I think they are completely wrong, and they can be proved wrong.” (Boris)
Well I think Sharia law and Islam quite plainly is the problem here. When a 1300-odd year old legal system, that is full of condtradictions and has no binding case law, is implemented through system of local courts in a nation with a poor infrastructure what on Earth do you expect to happen?
It’s all well and good for Muslims to believe their prophet is beyond all criticism, however they must accept that they are humans and do not share this infallability themselves.
A good example is chess. The Prophet Mohammed banned the playing of a game that historians believe was a kind of chess played with dice, a cross between chess and backgammon, because people were gambling on it. Whilst some Muslims think chess is OK as long as you don’t gamble, but backgammon is wrong, others teach that chess is wrong fullstop. There is no Islamic consensus on the matter.
Here is a quote from an Islamic website about chess:
“The playing of chess is Haraam. If the playing of chess is accompanied by gambling than its prohibition is unanimous. If it is played without gambling then there is a difference of opinion in its prohibition. Where Allah Ta�aala declared alcohol and gambling as forbidden, he explained the reason for this prohibition. Allah says in the holy Quran that Shaytan desires to create an ill feeling amongst you. He desires to create hatred among you, and to direct your attention from Salaat and Allah Taa�las remembrance. So wherever this is present, the prohibition will come into force, and that practice will become Haraam. All are aware of the degree of absorption in these games. Absorption in this game (chess) is so much, that we seek the protection of Allah Ta�ala. The truth of the matter is that when someone becomes rooted in some practice and this practice penetrates his very blood and veins, then until death it remains overpowering, and in this very practice a man finally dies.” (http://www.inter-islam.org/Prohibitions/Chess.html)
This is how this poor womans trial will be conducted no doubt, with a bunch of narrow-minded religious zealots that have been appointed by the courts debating tripe like this.
This is a perfect example the clash of civilisations that these neo-con commentators rant about. If people the world over were free to play chess and to name teddy-bears Mohamed (which is one of the most common boys names in the UK) I believe the world would be a better place.
Churchill said it better than I ever could:
“�How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.�
�Sir Winston Churchill, from The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
StevenL said:
November 29, 2007 8:37 PM
‘…Sharia law…is full of condtradictions and has no binding case law’
It’s the word of God.
That’s where the debate falls down. It’s a genuine ideological difference, not a matter fo negotiation (although secular and even ecumenical pressures can occassionally induce blindness in even the most devout believer, but that’s another matter. Render unto Caesar, etc).
I happen to think that what they are doing (and the laws they are doing it under) are wrong, and ridiculous. But they may well think the same of ours. As an example:
The poor Saudi girl who was gang-raped and then sentenced to 200 lashings. Imagine that had happened here. WOuld we countenance freeing the men? who did that, and offering the girl up for punishment, simply because it was not against the law of their home country?
As Boris says, it’s a different age, and those going to live abroad should learn and live by the local laws. They certainly can’t depend on a gunboat any more. On the other hand, local justices should take account of the circumstances of an accused (or convicted) party, and frame the punishment accordingly. From what I have heard, it appears Sharia recognises distinctions depending on the status (religious and “unknowing”) and intentions of the offender, and decrees that punishment should be handed out accordingly, which in this case would suggest a fine. Which might not be entirely unreasonable, seeing as being well-meaning is not an excuse for breaking the law.
Any punishment greater than that would be unmerited, and, as far as I can ascertain, unjustified under Sharia law, and could therefore be seen as an overt poilitical affront, as well as an obviously unnaceptable abuse of a (morally) innocent individual. If I have been given a proper understanding of Sharia law’s application in this case, the judge would be acting in direct contradiction to the sense of the Prophet’s (and therefore God’s) teachings, and a simple legal appeal on those grounds should be enough to clear it all up without an ugly international stand-off leading to further international. inter-faith and inter-racial dispute.
Unless, of course, that’s what everyone wants. In which case she has my sympathy. Much good that’ll do her.
“Fair doos, Ed. She hasn’t been convicted yet.”
You were saying….?
And I see the administrators of this site won’t publish my post about what I’d like to name after the ‘prophet’. So much for free speech in the 21st century.
Its pretty simple really, the sudense government can’t let her go as they face potential unrest (ie violence and deaths) from the extremists. The extremists have been looking for an excuse to close the school and this teacher blundered into it.
Comments about Palmerston and sending in the SAS don’t help anyone (Anybody read anything about Iraq). Maybe Boris advocates shelling the cities of those people who refuse to trade with us (China/Malta) or maybe harvesting the Afghan opium and selling it on? You can’t pick and choose the bits of imperial history which suit.
In the end the Sudenese have trod a delicate line and given her 10 days inside (where I bet she will not be in a normal prison cell), to appease the extremists and avoid innocent people being killed. Is it right, probably not, has anyone been blown up or flogged, no.
“The poor Saudi girl who was gang-raped and then sentenced to 200 lashings. Imagine that had happened here. WOuld we countenance freeing the men? who did that, and offering the girl up for punishment, simply because it was not against the law of their home country?” (oetzi)
In this extreme circumstance public opinion in the UK would prevent such appeasement. If we look at less extreme, non-Islamic, cultural practices such as arranged marriages, public opinion errs towards the appeasement of traditional values that Europeans find sexist and distasteful.
Many traditional British Asians consider inter-racial marriage to be wrong. A middle-aged anglo-saxon man who said that white men should not be allowed to marry black women would probably not be appeased by public opinion to the extent that a middle-aged Pakistani man would be who claimed that white men should not be allowed to marry Pakistani women.
The British public have appeased a lot of cultural and religious practices that are entirely alien to them. When it has gone too far (i.e. forced marriages, honour killings and public displays of support for our enemies) public opinion has dictated that this tolerance ends.
This is why the British should not be afraid to speak freely about these difficult issues, to be prepared to listen to differing views but not to be afraid of condemnation where cultural or religious practices are deemed incompatable with the values of equality, fairness and tolerance that we are being constantly told that we must uphold.
The Sharia system dictates that everyone must behave in accordance with the laws of Islam, those that do not are to be punished, for those that renounce the religion the death penalty is prescribed . In twenty-first century Europe our laws dictate that every man must be allowed freedom of conscience and religion.
Countries that want to go down the route of religious intolerance in our globalised world will become isolated in the changing tides of public opinion and will ultimately fail.
Compare Germany (a nation with no oil or gas) to Saudi Arabia (a nation with the 25% of the worlds oil and vast reserves of natural gas). Which has the bigger economy? Where would the majority of people in the world (women especially) rather live?
Bar the usual shouts of indignation and sending gunboats, which would admittedly do my sense of national pride no end of good but little else. This seems to me another nail in the coffin to the theory that Islam is in anyway reconcilable with the modern world at home or abroad. There has to come a point where we say enough is enough, and we should do what we can within our liberal democracy (read – pandering saps) to bring pressure to bare on these countries by withdrawing all aid, not one pound of our taxes should go to these regimes, it is clear that a policy of engagement/appeasement is not working.
Funny you should mention Brideshead Revisited and the underlying plot of the acceptance of God. Religion seems to be doing nowt but shooting itself in the foot at the moment. People are becoming increasingly distrustful of accepted religious teachings and quite rightly so. It’s about time that we ditched the old mumbo-jumbo and embraced a new spiritualism, one where the true value of belief was anchored in something tangible and believable, where the blinkers of racism, regionalism, narrow-mindedness and unfounded hatred were removed and we could look at our world with love and amazement.
She gets 15 days which isn’t exactly justice but it is very far from what happened to the Natwest 3. She will probably get a lucrative deal from the press (officially they aren’t allowed to cut deals with convicted prisoners but I am sure the PCC will make yet another exception).
I was interested in Benjamin’s point about it being blasphemy. The Islamic religion, unlike Christianity, makes a great deal of the “no graven image” rule regarding God & the prophet so I can see how a teddy bear could give serious offense.
Boris is somewhat older than I am. So when he was at school he would have had a thin blue Philips atlas that had a page that showed the world’s religions. The page didn’t display population numbers etc for the world’s Muslims – it showed the numbers for the world’s Mohammedans. Why? Because the editors correctly held that the followers of the teachings of Mohammed of Mecca held their prophet in deep veneration and concluded that the followers of Mohammed should be named Mohammedans.
Mohammedans are no more entitled to claim exclusively the appellation of Muslim (he who submits to God) than Roman Catholics have the exclusive right to call themselves Catholics. Which believer in an all powerful God does not contend that he submits (or tries to) to the will of God? Anyone can call themselves a Muslim if they submit to the will of God. Thus, the Koran refers to the apostles of Jesus of Nazareth as declaring that they are Muslims (submissive to God).
Most Shiite, Sunni and Sufi teachings are only loosely based on the Koran, and also of course on the Old Testament, in the same way as much of Roman Catholic dogma is only loosely based on the four Gospels (and on the letters of Paul of Tarsus).
In the end, religious beliefs are no more beyond criticism than any other beliefs. If one can criticise JS Mill liberalism, Castro Marxist-Leninism and the rantings of bover boys in badly tailored copies of the uniforms of the Bavarian National Socialists, then one can criticise the teachings of the Church of Rome, the Church of England and the Church of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.
Gillian Gibbons is a hero. In her innocent gesture of allowing her class to rename an Edward bear as Mohammed, she will have helped the world unshackle the chains of religious belief just as once did another passionate teacher named Rousseau.
What worries me seeing all the protests by the Muslims on the streets outside the prison where Gillian is being held is how we are going to get her safely out of Sudan when her prison sentence is served?
Will we have to swoop the SAS in to do so? So much for Islam being religion if peace, they’re not happy even when she has been sentenced…it all just seems a little too blood thirsty – and I noiced there were no other women baying for her blood on the streets – only Muslim men! Shameful behaviour.
This is an outrage. There was an article in the Sun yesterday about the jail they’ve put her in. It’s like the black hole of Calcutta in there. Hundreds of people crammed in, flies, excrement in an open hole in the ground, babies dying in the heat.
Margaret Thatcher would never have stood for this. If she were still PM, the SAS would already be back in Britain with Ms. Gibbons. But today’s political leaders have no backbone whatsoever. They are not worthy to lead the great nation of Britannia.
Is is any wonder the Government in Sudan been forced to lock up this morally innocent lady with the trumped up charges of allowing a small child to name a teddy after one of his class mates. It seems to me a very nasty school secretary is the root cause of this particular farce. The situation could have been avoided with a few words of support and advise from this School Secretary !!! instead of the condeming a fellow memeber of staff to the violent back lash she created. I assume British citizens will be thinking twice about giving a helping hand in Sudan and other countries, due to the weak position of Governments and the growing threat of similar situations to Gillian’s becoming more frequent. Disgusting.
A British schoolteacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting Islam’s Prophet, 26 Nov.
The spokesman said the naming of the teddy happened months ago and was chosen by the children because it is a common name in the country.
“This happened in September and the parents did not have a problem with it,” he said.
BBC, 26 Nov.,
“This is an outrage. There was an article in the Sun yesterday about the jail they’ve put her in. It’s like the black hole of Calcutta in there. Hundreds of people crammed in, flies, excrement in an open hole in the ground, babies dying in the heat.” (Sam)
You hit on an important point here. In a poor nation, with an economy unable to meet the demands of its populations’ basic needs, surely corporal punishment and public humiliation is the best option to maintain law and order.
Flogging and caning might upset our Western sensibilities, but you can hardly fine poor African peasants, likewise if prisons had better conditions than on the outside there would be an incentive to commit crime and be locked away.
Now I’m not advocating the use of the cat-o-nine tails, but in terms of petty crime surely there is no harm is using safe (but painful) corporal punishment in public to maintain law and order, if economic circumstances dictate that it is actually the most humane and effective way of dealing with the problem?
“Fair doos, Ed. She hasn’t been convicted yet.”
You were saying….?(Ed W).
I said that she had broken the law. Ed modified this as the teacher hadn’t been convicted at the time. Quite right in theory (I was hardly expecting a knock at the door from men in white robes!).
She has now been “pardoned”. I wonder, is this the same as an acquittal? Over here, you are pardoned only after being convicted.
Belated reply as the site’s been down again.
[Ed: thankfully, back up again! Thank you for your understanding)
What a non-story. So someone in the world gets imprisoned for no reason? Surely there are more tragic examples of this even in our own country, let alone in the wider world. Take the situations of those wrongfully imprisoned in Russia and Pakistan for example – of much more significance globally.
Is this not just another example of our media misrepresenting the facts to generate a big story?
Lordy, lordy, don’t you see? It’s all God’s fault for giving us humans brains the size of cabbages. We have the capability of inventing nukes but not one iota of common sense to go with it.
Religion? The greatest ever source of human misery.
Why? Because the more of ourselves we give to any cause or belief, the less of ourselves remains.
[…]
At the very least, a ludicrous sentence, apparently ‘terrifying’ according to Ms. Gibbons.
How much more terrifying might have been arrest without being told of the nature of her offence, nor of the date of her release? I wonder if these two types of justice, Sudanese and Gitmo-style, might in any way be related as another organ would put it?
I read of a lady that brought her teddy from Harrods and named it after Mohammed (Al fayed…)
anyway…thats is what happens when you change names..Teddy already has a name and was named after Roosevelt!
I guess the honouring thing got lost in translation!
by humouring the sudanese, let alone by providing the platform for lord ahmed and baroness warsi to glow in the limelight, we’re just playing into all their hands… and asking for it to happen again (in Sudan as well as elsewhere).
so, how much did we have to pay in ransom money to get her back?
this is a simple case of bribery, corruption and kidnapping. the people who ‘arrested’ her in sudan (as well as ahmed and warsi) must be laughing all the way to the bank; their egos well stroked.
we are being made to look fools; and not only by foreigners.
britain’s a soft option with weak leadership… bring back maggie: antoagonists would think twice before meddling with a maggie.
Boris… when you say a return to Palmerston’s days, do you mean you’d like to force yourself onto one of the ladies in waiting to The Queen al Messer Palmerston ? I think Boris that might be beyond the pale even for the voters of London.
Was Mr Osler (November 29, 2007 7:19 AM ) being deliberately ironic when he wrote “Most importantly, we should never be made to feel that we have to PANDA to rotten cultural values that are not just different but blatantly wrong.”(my emphasis) – thereby mixing black/white racial issues up with what was a purely teddy-ursine case?
oh it was a peach…
i live in an area with a lot of muslims…
[the only way i can tell they are muslims is by their dress: the birds are wrapped up – half or wholly – and the blokes wear skirts and beards… much the same way you can tell who is jewish (skull cap) and who are sikhs (turban), etc… otherwise, i can’t tell and have no interest.]
anyway, i went into my local NHS Health Centre the other day (which is frequented and served by ‘all sorts’)…
and there, on the reception counter was a teddy bear…
we were being invited to ‘Name the Teddy’ and donate a £1 in aid of charity.
[i believe the competition had started before all the sudan palaver]
oh the temptation to put “mohammed” was enormous…
but… i don’t think the joke would have been appreciated by the birds in black behind the counter – i probably would have got mugged on my way out; and, i’m not sure i would have got in to see the doc…
so, i resisted the urge.
shame, really, because it was this kind of ‘stoic humour’ that got us through the wars and made britain great… and it’s with the help of cartoonists like Matt that we get through the daily press today.