More nuts to Mohammed

Well, it’s happened. The decision has finally been handed down.

The Age didn’t carry anything on the day so I looked further abroad for a different perspective. This is from The Washington Post

LONDON, Nov. 29 -- A Sudanese court on Thursday convicted a British schoolteacher of inciting religious hatred by allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad and sentenced her to 15 days in jail.

She’ll serve 10 more days because she’s already been in custody for 5 days. That’s big hearted of them isn’t it? But, so it is that a woman is being punished for letting a group of 7 year olds name a teddy bear, and an educator has been jailed on religious grounds, once again. I feel for the kids because it seems they’ve lost a good teacher, and a caring one at that. Teachers like that are not always easy to find so the travesty is all the greater.

What’s more disturbing about this story though is the crowds that gathered in Khartoum, calling for the death penalty. Well, I said in my original post that it was “twisted”, but to call for the death penalty for the naming of a teddy bear is way beyond “twisted”, it’s completely insane.

But the article continues:

"This is unbelievable, a travesty of justice, a disgrace -- what planet are they on?" said Asghar Bukhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, a group that advocates greater Muslim involvement in the democratic process.

"Things like this make our differences seem like they are unbridgeable," Bukhari said. "If you don't really know another community, and all you ever hear is these outrageous, alien, unjust things they are doing, you are going to think, 'We've got nothing in common.' "

Mr. Bukhari makes an impassioned plea. It’s a plea for understanding and as amateurish attempt at an argument from ignorance and authority that I think I’ve ever seen. When you think how often you see and hear about travesties like this in the muslim world (or worse if the “criminal” happens to be an adulterer, a woman with a non-muslim love interest, an author or a cartoonist), you soon realise that in strict muslim communities, these are NOT outrageous, alien or unjust things, they are common occurrences and are simply the result of the law being applied.

I won’t be surprised to see an exodus of non-muslim teachers from the Sudan and other muslim countries that employ foreign teachers because of this too. I’d certainly be packing my bags. It will be a shame though and will only serve as a set back to education in those countries, but I doubt that anyone will take any notice. Ignorance takes precedence where religion reigns supreme…

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Double nuts to Mohammed

I had another one up here for a minute or two, but I've recently read this, at "the Age" again. What is it with all the nutbag stories there at the moment? The other one was about a protest over an islamic school in Sydney. Sheez..

Anyway, to the story at hand. You know how I made the assumption in my last post that Ms Gillian Gibbons was probably a pretty good teacher because she obviously had happy, confident students? Well it seems I was right not just about that, but also the circumstances surrounding it. It seems that Ms Gibbons used the teddy as a teaching aid. She'd devised a writing exercise where the kids took the teddy home and then wrote about what they did with it.

But it was young Mohammed that had the idea that they call the teddy bear Mohammed and now the poor kid seems to be a bit bemused and upset by the whole ordeal:

"The teacher asked me what I wanted to call the teddy," the boy said shyly, his voice barely rising above a whisper. "I said Mohammad. I named it after my name," he added.

Just as I thought, kids being kids:

He said he was not thinking of Islam's Prophet when asked to suggest a name, adding most of the class agreed with his choice.

Well it's hardly surprising in an islamic environment that the rest of the kids would agree with his choice, they probably all have family members who are named Mohammed, if they aren't themselves, so where's the problem?

Mohammad said Gibbons was "very nice" and he would be upset if she never came back to teach. He added Gibbons had not discussed religion nor did she mention the Prophet.

"We studied maths and English and spelling," he said, rubbing his mop of short, curly hair.

So there you have it. A perfect lesson in how to remove a good teacher and traumatise the kids she teaches, all in one fell swoop. But kudos to Mohammed's parents for having the guts to come forward and protest.

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