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.

Needmorecoffee, however painfull it is, you have to concede that no other organised religion is instrumentalised like Islam nor on the same scale nowadays.

I am muslim too and Ijtihad will only come from among us. We have to stop finding justification for muslim political fundamentalism in the fact that other religions harbour fundamenntalists.
They do, and they are just as wacky but they do not run enslave whole countries.

totally agree. Nutters are doing my head in.
Off to bed as dd wont sleep unless I cudde her to sleep
Night

No, you are quite right you can't.

My worry is that because most muslims see the Koran as 100% true, and largish numers may rely on a flawed interpretation by politicied Imams, the potential for fundimentalist actions is greater than those in the christian far right, who are % wise smaller in number and tend to have a greater range of influences on them.

Not all, naturally.

have a good night NMC

"For the love of God do these people know it is the 21st century?"

What does the 21stC mean to someone in the developing world, though?

Christianity spread West to Europe, where you could perhaps, say, the beginnings of the 21stC can be found in the industrial revolution. Ojce people can make a living which is not dependent on subsistence or tribal structures, then concepts like 'honour', ''property' etc etc take on a whole new meaning. It's complex, but in with religion and politics is geography and history and even climate. Many Muslim countries are still developing countries, where poepl depend on subsistence farming, and / or are Arab societies where tribal structure is the key to everything - and was in times past crucial to survival. Until very recent times in the UK marriages were still dynastic - women were seen as a way into wealthy families and as a result, treated like chattels. Even physical punishment wa part of the law of England until half way through the 20th C. ('The Birch' - courts and police could flog people for certain offences).

Fanatics aside, you can't just casually compare muslim countries with western countries and come to a glib judgement.

Good night NMC

it's 5:03am for me.....heartburn and insomnia at 16 weeks pg...dear me what is it going to be for the next 5 months?

Good post, blu.

agree needmorecoffee there are some scary fundementalist Christians out there, especially in the US. Luckily though most of the time there scary beliefs are not translated into national law.

spot on blu.
And if I may add, those developpig countries lost about 100 years on average due to colonialism and another 50 since due to post colonial western induced corrupt dictatorship.

How can you know that, slim?

It is not a glib comment, the fact a bunch of nutters want to kill a woman because see gave a stuffed toy a stupid name is just not in.

The child in her class has said HE named the bear so are we going to have demands to shoot a child, while we are at it let us shoot his parents too as they should have taught him that the name was a no no for a bear.

I think they notice it is the 21 century when the aid comes rolling in from the west.

I don't really understand how someone can go and work in a country like Sudan without doing proper research. She should have known. Its such a dangerous country you just cannot afford to be naive.

I think it is understandable that Muslim countries distrust and are angry with the West and what they see as Western values, when you look at Iraq and Afghanistan. But, I think it is rather patronizing [and colonialist] in effect to say 'it is not their fault they have barbaric laws'. People and governments have to take responsibility for themselves.

Or at the very least were left with post-colonial resentment and backlash....a deeply potent ingredient of the Teddy debacle, it would seem.

corrupt western dictatorship!!!
Oh yep its us in the west that are the root of all evil.

I think us in the west should let everyone else get on with it as we are such a bad influence.

It's well documented nowadays.

Let's take an example without reference to Islam.
Take India, take China.
Do you honestly believe that peoples can not do well without the west's intervention?
They had can have their own model of development. Can do just as well on their own terms.

What is going on in muslim (mainly arab) countries today is very largely attributable to resentment steming from this period.

No. Saying you are right but allowing the dabate to happen is the mark of reform in religion.

Saying you are right and imprisoning and killing if anyone challenges that is fundamentalist

Ruty - I think (agree) there is a tricky line there.

But so many posts on this thread - and every other threa about Islam - are from a completely non-contextual pov.

I have said this before, but i often think about that damien hirst shark in tank of formaldehyde. The title is 'the Impossibility of understanding death with a living mind'. I don't think any culture / religion can reach understanding or perception of another without at least making an attempt to view it from the place in which the other stands.

It was interesting this summer, visiting a bracnh of DP's family, and for the first time ever I was aware of a new wariness at first, and it then transpired that due to extensive coverage of the Shilpa Shetty scandal (it is a country that lives and breathes indian films), and no first hand knowledge of any European country, they suddenly had a vision of me as someone from a very racist culture...and felt awkward and suspicious. It was cleared up very quickly...but for a moment, I realised i was being looked at completely differently than i had been befor.

Santa, come on, be serious, that's exactly what these nutters want you to do. Let them get on with!

But they look to the west to help, they trade with the west, So next time I see an oxfam appeal I will not be giving anything as it might be going to corrupt some one.
I wont be helping out with the Christian aid this time round either as I must be oppressing someone somewhere.

Back to the teacher....
She made a mistake, it was not out of malice and now the nutters are baying for blood.
THAT IS WRONG.

Santa, you did not read properly it's not corrupt western dictatorship......I'm talking about Saddam Hussein, Husni Mubarrak, Taliban, The Saudi Kings etc....the corrupt dictatorship financed and militarily supported by the west that hhave brought their countries on the brink of this "fundamentalist" disaster

But MT, when prosperity depended on a different hierarchy here, catholics (or protestants, pick your country) were murdered as heretics, women were incarcerated in nunneries, contenders to thrones were murdered. REligious toleracne developed as society became less dependent on ...oh that 'ocracy' that is composed of ruling families, and more dependent on industrial wealth.

The British support for Idi Amin's dictatorship of Uganda!!!! Generations of havoc.

Yes back to the teacher santa. You are right about this one.......and don't give to Oxfam if that's what your heart tells you to do, or is it?

No, Slim. I do not take the imperialist view that countries were better off under 'us', or the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese, etc.

But I'm uncomfortable with the sweeping suggestion that had it not been for 19th/20th century history, these countries would now be better off. For one thing, the British Empire did not inflict its religious views onto the local populace. Yes, we opened Christian schools, employed missionaries, etc., but no one was coerced. And if any community was, it would have been a rogue action and certainly not sanctioned by the Government at home. In that respect we were much like the Romans ... live and let live as long as we can plunder your natural resources!

You cite India and China, but without any argument to back it up. China, for instance, seems to be doing rather well to me.

And my final points begs the inevitable question. If the West is so reprehensible to the East, then why are there so many people who chose to upsticks and settle in the West?