OK for people to be called Muhammad, but not a teddy bear (not in Sudan anyway)

[WendyWeber]

Poor woman

40 lashes???

I love the calm quote from the Muslim teacher at the school:

"I was just impressed that she got them to vote"

These are 6-7 year-olds, they chose the alternative names and they voted for Muhammad (also the name of the most popular boy in the class apparently) and most of the parents are fine with it - just one fanatic took offence from the sound of it.

Poor woman.

Everytime I see it on the headlines, it just seems more and more absurd.

I want to why it's OK for the pot-bellied old letch in my local kebab shop to be called Mohamad.

I mean, if I was the Prophet, I'd be livid!

Hmm. So it would be out of order for foriegners to take to the streets of London and protest against the Iraq war/ the way asylum seekers are treated in Britain because they are guests in Britain then? And it was out of order for people like Christabel Bielenberg to be plotting against the lawfully elected Nazi government in the thirties, because she was a guest in that country?

I don't think so.

just reading the news. Sigh. Religious mobs. Shameful.

Not even sure this is a religious mob tbh.

It's always striking that the authorities in these places without any semblance of democracy, can drum up demos of people saying insane things the authorities want them to say, but you'll never hear of a demo demanding the opposite of what the authorities want.

When I heard people were demonstrating this morning on the radio, for one mad moment I thought they were protesting against the woman's imprisonment. But in my defence, I was half asleep, thus my mistake of thinking something rational might be going on.

Religion and politics clearly very closely intertwined in this case.

It's obviously very very political, isn't it? The Sudanese government whipping up trouble presumably to distract people from the generally appalling situation in the country.

Poor, poor woman .

meanwhile the West continue to do nothing about Darfur...

thats not true LittleBella. I went on the Poll tax demo's, Greenham Common demo's and the anti-student loans things. Agaianst the Govt. The media always described them as renta-mob with the Daily Mail claiming the Labour Party paid the demonstrators (Iwish) and what have you or that we were all unemployed hippies against 'all that we hold dear'
Its not always the Govt behind demo's. In this case I doubt it is. It's loads of bored young males (and not so young) out unloading, focusing grievences about their lives on this one case. I expect there's a fair few who 'heard that some said they heard the White Woman insulted the Prophet.' and so out they come, pitchforking. And I expect that if you sat down with each individually and explained the whole thing a fair few would say 'oh, chuck her out then.' and wander home.
Mobs have a life of their own.

Yes, one man's mob is another man's peaceful demonstration.

From the Guardian:
"
Teachers and clergy from the school's board turned up at court to support Gibbons. Robert Boulos, the school's director, said education ministry officials had originally told him that parents had complained about the naming of the bear. But, he said: "Today I heard that it was a member of the school staff. I was horrified."

The complainant was named as Sara Khawad, an office assistant at the school, who was the key prosecution witness. "

does make you wonder why she didn't have a word with the head rather than going straight to the government...

religion and politics are alwasy closely intertwined

Yes, but if the 'West' did do something about Darfur then it/we would almost certainly be accused of imperialist aggression against Muslims, exactly as happened in Afghanistan. The attacks in Darfur are financed and supported by the Sudanese government.
The 'West' got no credit or thanks for intervening in Kosovo.
Iraq is a different matter.

The Sudanese govt stand by and allows the slaughter black Africans by Muslim nutters fanatics.

A child calls a teddy bear Mohammed and the schoolteacher is sent to jail.

Thank goodness the toy was not a pig because I have no doubt the teacher would have received the death sentence.

With respect Fuzzy, i think some cultures are better than others. I am a feminist, and anywhere that abuses and disrespects women to such a degree, makes them second class citizens in law is a tyranny.

oop,s I mean Pukka

if a couple of girls made out in bikinis in a church, the worst that would happen is that they might get a couple of coats thrown at them. Christianity has been responsible for some atrocities in the past, but right now it is not that kind of religion.

Pukka, in strict Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, men are allowed to show all of their crowning glory (hair) and I don't see women jumping on them at every opportunity they get. I don't understand why women have to go round like they are trussed up in black bin liners so not as to tempt or cause offence to some emasculated prat who only derives self worth from viewing as well as treating women as second class citizens. If men can't control themselves when they see an uncovered woman, why should the woman be held responsible?

If a woman has a whisker of hair showing from underneath her scarf, is it really such a moral disgrace, that you, as a woman, actually believe that they are deliberately provoking the bully moral police? I would have thought that these people would be better off going after the vile men who exploit women in the underground sex trade.

Considering how hung up these countries are about women covering themselves, it came as absolutely no surprise to me to learn that these same countries actually download more porn proportionately compared to many western countries. Hypocrisy springs to mind.

When it comes to tolerance, the difference between Islam and Christianity now is that the makers of Life of Brian are alive and kicking whereas nobody would even dare think about making a spoof of the Life of Mohammed because they would be murdered. Just look what happened to that Dutch director.

I was just thinking of the Life of Brian and that truly hilarious scene when the old man was sentenced to death by stoning because he'd said to his wife, 'that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.'

Although nowadays Life of Brian would probably not be distributed. I think there's a lot more hysteria around than there was about 25 years ago - religious and others

I think you're probably right, LB. Thank Jehovah for DVDs!

I don't agree necessarily. Life of Brian was very tame. The Jerry Springer Opera was much more 'offensive' for want of a better word, and though it did get many complaints, went full steam ahead. Which i think is absolutely right.