I suppose everyone who pays attention to the so-called War on Terror knows about the British school teacher who is imprisoned in Sudan for naming a teddy bear Muhammad. This has turned into an international incident and I hear that a delegation of British diplomats are enroute to Sudan to attempt to secure her release and return her to her home in Britain.
Meanwhile, the Religion of Perpetual Outrage, Islam, is calling for her to be executed.
KHARTOUM, Sudan — Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear “Muhammad.”
Gibbons’ son reports that he has talked to his mother and that she is holding up quite well. He also reports that she doesn’t want anyone holding a resentment towards mulsims.
“One of the things my mum said today was that ‘I don’t want any resentment towards Muslim people,”‘ John Gibbons told The Associated Press. “She’s holding up quite well.”
I wonder if she’ll feel the same way when she and the teddy bear are standing in front of the mob that is out for her head.
The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gibbons, who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes.
They massed in central Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace, where hundreds of riot police were deployed. They did not try to stop the rally, which lasted about an hour.
“Shame, shame on the U.K.,” protesters chanted.
Calls by FOXNews.com to Sudan’s permanent mission to the United Nations were not returned Friday.
The protesters called for Gibbons’ execution, saying, “No tolerance: Execution,” and “Kill her, kill her by firing squad.”
The left is strangely silent about this. Their outrage apparently is only reserved for those who are not lethal. First we have this ludicrous reaction to a naive and silly woman who chose to go to a muslim country in complete ignorance and got herself at the center of an international and cultural storm. Then we have calls to tolerate their intolerance. It defies common sense and is the height of arrogance that we should not expect civil behavior from people who are from that part of the world.
Several hundred protesters, not openly carrying weapons, marched from the square to Unity High School, about a mile away, where Gibbons worked. They chanted slogans outside the school, which is closed and under heavy security, then headed toward the nearby British Embassy. They were stopped by security forces two blocks away from the embassy.
The protest arose despite vows by Sudanese security officials the day before, during Gibbons’ trial, that threatened demonstrations after Friday prayers would not take place. Some of the protesters carried green banners with the name of the Society for Support of the Prophet Muhammad, a previously unknown group.
Many protesters carried clubs, knives and axes — but not automatic weapons, which some have brandished at past government-condoned demonstrations. That suggested Friday’s rally was not organized by the government.
A Muslim cleric at Khartoum’s main Martyrs Mosque denounced Gibbons during one sermon, saying she intentionally insulted Islam. He did not call for protests, however.
“Imprisoning this lady does not satisfy the thirst of Muslims in Sudan. But we welcome imprisonment and expulsion,” the cleric, Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karouri, a well-known hard-liner, told worshippers.
“This an arrogant woman who came to our country, cashing her salary in dollars, teaching our children hatred of our Prophet Muhammad,” he said.
I certainly hope this has a good ending. I hope Gibbons gets to leave Sudan alive and well and return to Britain in one piece. Not to belabor the point, I have to wonder what someone like that expects when they go to a nation that is known to be a cesspool of radical islamic activities. A Western woman would certainly have little to no power in a place like that. Another aspect of this that defies reason is, as I mentioned before, the expectation that the West will tolerate the intolerable. Its as though the left doesn’t believe people from under developed countries have the capability to behave with any law and order.
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Planck’s Constant wonders when will Westerner’s learn.
The outrage shown by the Sudanese wasn’t simply a few hundred people, but thousands streaming into the streets demanding Gibbons’ head on a platter or shot to death for allowing her young students naming a teddy bear Mohammed.
Other reports showed thousands demanding Gibbons be executed. The demonstrations in Britain were muted and responses were virtually nonexistent among feminist groups or human rights groups.
Newsbusters - can we predict that someone would come along to say that WE need to be more SENSITIVE. Sheesh.
Check out Raim’s cartoon.
More at: PC Free Zone, Blogs of War, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin
It´s a nightmare…
You have here a cartoon about it.
http://raim.blogspot.com/2007/11/gillian-gibbons-nightmare.html
Greetings, I am young Muslim American and I am against this. Please see my post about this:
http://www.mujahideenryder.net/2007/12/02/to-the-sudanese-teddy-bear-protesters/
What is the good and funny thing in all of this is there is a company this created an opportunity for others. There is now an official “Teddy Bear Muhammad” that is being sold and I just bought 4 of them http://www.teddybearmuhammad.com
What’s cool is that these people are not bashing Muslims, there are just defending the right for children and others to have a teddy bear that they can call whatever name they want, and because of this situation they created a teddy bear named Muhammad. When i saw these guys, I had to get some. I hear of tons of people getting them from all over just to prove the point.
Support Gillian, get a teddy:
http://www.cafepress.com/mynameismo
Tammy Bruce Calls Out Feminists…
Where are the feminist while women’s rights are being openly and savagely violated by the islamic radicals throughout the world? Its a question I have wondered frequently in the years since we became aware of the islamists self declared war again…
Let’s face it: Muslims are violent, reactionary ASSHOLES
This is another example of poor igronant people trying to stir public attention ..the Sudan is a dreadful country without anything
Most Emabassy around the world have special lines and appointments for the people from this country to be quickly shuffled thru the system to get them out of that country and into other countreiws where they can have a life
It is a shame that the Islamic religion takes such beatings from people that don’t understand what this religion is all about ………….I know this religion ia not to have hatred and killing and has never been this way …seems people igroant to it’s teaching keeps the world upset with the muslins
It’s time for people to understand that this is no different from any religion in the US and thank God we have a choice what to believe
Culturism is defined to say that majority cultures have a right to define, protect, and promote themselves. This means Sudan and England both do. (Genocide is not part of Sudanese traditional culture - but that argument is not so relevant here).
Why was an Engliish teacher in Sudan? Was she trying to win hearts and minds? If so she was following the multiculturalists refusal to acknowledge diversity. Deep down, multiculturalists say that we are all the same. She expalins the merits of our nuance, they explain the merits of theirs, and we all agree. Culturism takes diversity seriously.
Sudan is Islamic. Islam has no separation of church and state. It is, as Forest Gump said of Vietnam, this whole other culture. Even if she is just teaching supposedly neutral language skills, does she not realize that literacy in Islamic countries is taught out of the Koran? The purposes and understanding of language are different? Naming a bear Muhammed is not just neutral and cute to them. Cultural differences are real. She should know what side she belongs on. She had no business teaching Muslim children in Sudan.
The Western world has a distinct core culture and tradition. Hopefully you are aware that the Greeks fought the theocracy of the Persians. Rome spread this vision. Christ helped us separate church and state. There were the Dark Ages. Christianity helped make the separate conscience sacrosanct. We instituted liberal democracies based on the idea of the reasoning, conscientious individual. This is not humanities historical lineage. It is not the Islamic or Asian vision. It is a Western vision.
Just as Sudan protects their culture, we need to protect ours. Protecting ours must be done in a way that does not undermine ours. We cannot start killing unbelievers or whipping them as Sudan does. That would destroy our traditions not save them. But not allowing muslim immigrants, as they are not a part of our traditional core culture in, would not undermine our culture. They have their countries. There are no “international human rights” to be undermined in this story. Sudan takes care of hers, Britain takes care of hers.
Multiculturalists will tell us that Britain has no core culture. Britain is a multicultural state with no particular history. While Britain did not fight Muslims as long as the Spanish, they must be aware that Europe and Islam have been combatants for 1400 years. Certainly Britain has some diversity, but it is a Western country. It is not an Islamic nation.
The next time this teacher wants to teach children about Western culture and visions of the function of literacy, she should get a job in a Western nation. It will not upset an Islamic nation. It will not blur the lines of soveriegnty and culture. It will uphold a Western nation’s investment in its culture. And peaceful co-existence will not have to give way to strained international relations.
http://www.culturism.us
Britain Prince Edward Lectures the United States on Foreign Policy…
Britain’s Prince Edward has decided to run his silly royal mouth about what the United States should and shouldn’t do in regards to the Global War on Terror. He claims that the British tried to advise us about the Battle of Iraq and if onl…