Gibbons Released, Gulf Remains

In the release of Mohammed teddy bear teacher Gillian Gibson, British Muslims acted as one would hope they would -- as Britons, not Islamists -- with demonstrations in support, and two Muslim MPs flying to Khartoum to intervene directly on her behalf.

I'm not going to nitpick too much because this is a welcomed move in the right direction (even if it reflects just increased PR savvy and not decreased militancy), but I do hae a bone to pick with MP Nazir Ahmed's statement, as quoted in WaPo today:

This is a case which is unfortunate, unintentional, innocent misunderstanding.

I'm with him through "unfortunate,"' but the case is ultimately not about what Gibbons did -- that's what Ahmed is referring to when he says "unintentional, innocent misunderstanding" -- but about how Islam reacted. There is nothing unintentional or innocent about that.

Islamic clerics first demand 200 lashes for the teacher, and screaming mobs with swords demanded Gibbons' head, showing the world how far Islam is from wanting to be a part of the rest of the world.

Ahmed didn't talk about that, focusing not on Islam's beliefs but on Gibbons' actions. Until Islams looks at itself and decides it hates what it sees, there will be more teddy bear incidents -- many of which will not turn out as well as this one did.

hat-tip: memeorandum

The Religion Of Peace: Off With Her Head!

Thousands of sword-wielding, hate-spewing Muslims are protesting in Sudan, demanding that Gillian Gibbons, the teacher who allowed her students to name a Teddy bear Mohammed, be executed.

We cannot allow anything bad to be said about He Who Is Too Lame To Be Insulted! Kill her!

I made that up. Here's what they really were chanting:

"No tolerance: Execution,"

"Kill her, kill her by firing squad."

"Those who insult the Prophet of Islam should be punished with bullets."

Check out the photos posted at The Daily Mail and shudder. This face of Islam, of brutality and intolerance, is our enemy. Sudan gave cover to Osama bin Laden for years, and in the country's response to the Gibbons affair, we see why.

Gibbons now faces 15 days in the Khartoum's squalid Omdurman women's prison, which was built for 200 and now houses about 1,500. The Mail described it as "massively overcrowded and infested with mosquitoes."

It may also be infested with radical Islamists, so Gibbons is by no means safe within its walls.

hat-tip: memeorandum

Teddy Mohammed Teacher Jailed

A Sudanese judge has ordered British teacher Gillian Gibbons to jail for 15 days after her schoolchildren named a teddy bear Mohammed.

Gibbons faced a year in jail and 40 lashes for her inadvertent insulting of He Who Isn't Tough Enough To Take A Joke. Still, in a just society where the dominant religion isn't paranoid and intolerant, she would have walked.

One, and only one, good thing came of this story: Muslims in Britain lobbied hard for Gibbons' release and professed disappointment that she was jailed. Reports the NYT:

"I'm utterly disappointed with this decision. We have been calling on the Sudanese authorities to show leniency, that this was a case of an innocent oversight, a misunderstanding, and there was no need for this to ... be escalated ..." said Ibrahim Mogra of the Muslim Council of Britain, the country's largest Muslim organisation.

"We are very hopeful that perhaps the appeals process will be more successful", he added.

"The question that I would want the judiciary there and the authorities to ponder over is: How does this help the cause of Islam? What kind of message and image are we portraying about our religion and our culture?"

Indeed, Ibrahim, indeed. Now perhaps you can ask the same question of your Palestinian brothers who insist on firing rockets into Israel and your Iranian brothers who profess their wish to wipe Israel off the face of the planet, and your terrorist brothers who want to kill us all in the name of Islam.

How does their behavior help the cause of Islam? What kind of message and image are they portraying of your religion and your culture?

hat-tip: Real Clear Politics

The Religion of Peace, Anger, Intolerance And Racism

Name a teddy bear Jesus and get 40 lashes? I don't think so. But then Christianity is a much more fun-loving religion than Islam, where teddy bear names can indeed lead to really big owies:

A British teacher is facing 40 lashes in a Sudanese jail if convicted of insulting Islam's prophet by letting children name a teddy bear Mohammed.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was arrested on suspicion of blasphemy on Sunday.

Ms Gibbons allowed her class of seven-year-olds at the Unity High School in Khartoum to name a teddy bear Mohammed as part of a lesson about animals' habitats.

Apparently Mohammed does not s*** in the woods.

Mohammed is sacred to Islamic philosophy and the penalty for blasphemy is 40 lashes, a large fine or a jail term. The British Embassy in Khartoum confirmed the arrest.

A source close to the school said one teacher was angered by the naming of the teddy bear and complained to the headmistress. (Sky News)

If you ask me, the Khartoum Krazies are being way too lenient. Sure, give Gibbons her lashes, but lash those pesky seven-year-olds, too. They're the ones who named the bear, for cryin' out loud (which, one gathers, they would if held to the same standard as Gibbons).

All this fanaticism over images of Mohammed are based on nothing more than this, from chapter 42, verse 11 of The Book That Shall Not Be Flushed: "[Allah is] the originator of the heavens and the earth... [there is] nothing like a likeness of Him." For that, embassies are burned, teachers are lashed and the cultural norms of most of the world are spit on by angry and intolerant Muslims.

They are more than angry and intolerant, though. Sky News quotes Hassan Aberdeen, a researcher at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies:

"This could be more to do with who is saying it than what is being said. It might not have been an issue if this was a Sudanese person. The fact that this was a European teacher is highly likely to be one of the key causes."

Nice, huh? Add racist to Islam's ills.