Fortunately, aggressive diplomacy kept British teacher Gillian Gibbons from spending more than a matter of days in a jail in Sudan. At one point in the appalling misunderstanding over a teddy bear that her 7-year-old students had named Muhammad, Gibbons risked being punished with up to 40 lashes, six months in prison and a fine. Thousands of Islamic hard-liners even rallied to have her executed. Regrettably, the ordeal of the “teddy bear teacher†may deter others from going abroad to do such cultural exchange work.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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16 Comments
The next teacher that goes ‘abroad to do cultural exchange work’ might want to know something about the others’ culture first. Islam is both a way of life and a religion.
This is one reason we have a problem understanding the hard line Muslim mentality. They are basically stuck in the dark ages, and will never join the twenty-first century. They are barbarians. Look how they treat raped women. I can garner no respect for any religion that condones such treatment. All the more reason to wean ourselves off foreign oil. And to get the hell out of the region.
Oh yes, lets talk about Bush’s weak ass stance with the Sauds about that woman who was gang raped and then sentenced to being beaten. Now the Saudis are attempting to disbar the man who represented her in the case.
Bush fumbled all over himself when a reporter asked him during his speech if he spoke with the Sauds over it. Short answer..No. He said “they already know our position”.Yet with as pathetic his response was, the conservative news is giving him kudos for his ‘tough stance”. Yeah, right. He probably doesn’t want to disturb our export on human whips.
Pmom,
Although I agree with your statement what could Bush do other than say he didnt like it. The bottom line is it is their country and their laws like it or not. I’m sure there our laws of ours that other countries think are wrong, and realisticly how would we like it they told to change our laws?
Was the offending teddy bear decapitated or given lashes?
When the non-Muslim World starts pointing at the Sharia Laws and inhumane and enforcing sanctions against countries that use the middle age barbaric laws, things will change.
But we are talking about the U.N., the spineless, two faced, talk out both sides of their mouth organization aren’t we?
I fear for what happened to teh children who actually named the bear. This is just an other example of how the concept of persoanl freedom and democracy will not fly in the Middle East…we’re just pissing in the wind if we think we can make it happen.
I agree JM, we need to dissolve our dependancy on their oil and then do what Richard Nixon advised back in the 60s…”We can do nothing for these people…we need to just leave them alone”.
Jeus..I need more caffiene…to many typos again!
I don’t understand what the hub-bub was about this.
I worked in a Muslim country for three years. Mohammed, Muhammed, Mohd. are common given names for boys.
Most Muslims I know would think it’s ridiculous to assume that a teddy bear named Mohammed is a slam at the Prophet, (PBUH).
Sounds to me like the hard-liners were just looking to trump something up against the foreign gaffihr.
This is just another example of how religions makes people stupid, and another mark on the religion of “peace”
Those people are very extreme; I saw photos of a 4 yrs. old boy having his arm crush by the wheels of a car just for stealing some food.Now that is pretty bad to do that to a 4 yrs. old.
Bush didn’t even say to the Sauds anything about it! What could he have done? He could do a lot of things. He could say you’ve got to change your human rights issues with women or we’re going to stop doing business with you.
He should do the same to China.
“Those people are very extreme; I saw photos of a 4 yrs. old boy having his arm crush by the wheels of a car just for stealing some food.Now that is pretty bad to do that to a 4 yrs. old.”
Posted by: Wiseman | December 05, 2007 at 02:37 PM
Wise, that photo was a hoax…just another example of how you can’t trust anything you read or see on the internet. There is so much bull out there and too many people take it for gospel…just like the tabloids.
I agree Pmom..by not standing up against such abuse means we condone it. Bush had a responsibilty to do condemn their actions…but he doesn’t want to piss off his friends.The fact that we trade with China makes me sick…just goes to show how much this country really cares about human rights. We talk the talk but don’t walk the walk unless we have something to gain by it.
Maybe it wouldn’t matter, but I wonder how our Christian hardliners would feel if a Muslim who was teaching our precious kids decided to name the class teddy bear God, or Holy Father, something like that. I doubt we would call for lashes, but I do not doubt that there would be those calling for this teacher to be fired, and more than likely, the teacher would be fired.
I always thought about naming one of my cats “Jesus”.