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November 30, 2007
By now you've no doubt heard the strange story of Gillian Gibbons, a British schoolteacher working in Sudan who has been convicted of "insulting religion and inciting hatred." Her crime?
Gibbons arrived in Sudan in August to take up a post at the exclusive Unity high school, which follows a British-style curriculum. In September, during a class on animals and their habitats, she asked her seven-year-old pupils to give a teddy bear a name. They chose Muhammad, the name of one of the boys in the class and a popular name in Sudan.
Well, here we go again. The trouble with being a normal, law-abiding, run-of-the-mill Muslim is that you are constantly caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand we have the Western right-wing, loudly warning the world about the "clash of civilizations" and the so-called incompatibility of Islam and democracy; and on the other hand we have a small, frightening group of crazies calling themselves Muslims while committing all manner of extremely un-Islamic atrocities (and garnering lots and lots of media coverage). Apparently the one billion plus Muslims who are horrified and embarrassed by suicide bombing, rioting over cartoons, pretending gays don't exist, charging schoolteachers with insulting Islam, etc. etc. are nowhere to be found -- or at least this is the message we are constantly hearing from the media.
Here, for example, is one of my favorite right-wing fulminators, Michelle Malkin:
If it isn’t cartoons or Western fast-food joints or Valentine’s day cards or beauty pageants or books or speeches or Playboy magazines or soccer balls that have the Religion of Perpetual Outrage up in arms, it’s something else. It’s always something. You can never assuage the unassuageable. You can never anticipate what pretext they’ll use next to claim “insult” and demand submission. Today, it’s teddy bears.
There's plenty more where that came from -- I'll leave it to you to dig it up if you want more of this kind of frothing at the mouth. And on the other side of the debate, let's not forget the "Muslims" who are doing their best to make Malkin's fantasy a reality:
Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam...
''Shame, shame on the U.K.,'' protesters chanted.
They called for Gibbons' execution, saying, ''No tolerance: Execution,'' and ''Kill her, kill her by firing squad.''
...
''Imprisoning this lady does not satisfy the thirst of Muslims in Sudan. But we welcome imprisonment and expulsion,'' the cleric, Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karouri, a well-known hard-liner, told worshippers.
''This an arrogant woman who came to our country, cashing her salary in dollars, teaching our children hatred of our Prophet Muhammad,'' he said.
What is going on in Sudan has very little to do with Islam, and a whole lot to do with realpolitik. If this is a surprising assertion to you, I recommend joining the rest of the reality-based community and rethinking some of the great "civilizational" conflicts of our time. (Here's a start: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about land, not faith. The problem with the Arab world is almost 100 years of dictatorship, oppression, and decline, not Islam. The best way to end terrorism is to promote economic development and political rights and freedoms -- not launch an ill-conceived "global war" against it. And, oh yeah, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11).
Simply put, the Sudanese government is feeling pressured over Darfur (and rightly so). Gordon Brown, Britain's Prime Minister, recently warned that he would apply a variety of political and economic sanctions against the regime if it continues to do nothing to stop the carnage. Here's something you won't read in an American newspaper, courtesy of The Guardian (UK):
There are tensions between
Britain and Sudan over the conflict in Darfur. In a Guardian interview
this month, President Omar al-Bashir expressed anger at the threat of
UK sanctions against Sudan if peace talks failed... This [the "teddy bear trial"] was an
opportunity for the government to distract people from the main issues
in Sudan: the problems between the authorities in the north and south
of the country, the conflict in Darfur and the question of letting in
United Nations peacekeepers.
Well, none of that makes for very interesting reading. Instead, let's sit back and enjoy the show... I'm sure we'll get some really nice images of scary-looking Muslims running amok, and some great sound bites about the clash of civilizations, the threat of Islam, the lack of moderate Muslim voices, and so on.
Oh, and all you moderate Muslims out there? Good luck getting anyone to listen.
November 30, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
I used to chalk the kind of hateful spew coming from blog like Malkin's up to ignorance. But that was naive. Malkin and her friends are not stupid by any means. They're highly educated, articulate professionals. They just happen to also be incorrigible bigots who know that they can make money and fame by promoting the idea of "civilizational conflict" that may ultimately prove a self-fulfilling prophecy. Malkin, Steyn, Schlussel and the rest have more in common with radical Islamists than they may wish to believe. No, they aren't (with rare exceptions) calling for violence, but they, like (for example) radical Islamic clerics in the UK, drool at the thought of more wars pitting more people against each other for no legitimate reasons and work each and every day to bring that fantasy closer to reality.
Posted by: | Nov 30, 2007 2:35:07 PM
Kareem,
GREAT post. You need to post here more often!
Posted by: Una | Nov 30, 2007 2:37:07 PM
I agree Kareem, right on!
You might be interested in reading an article I wrote for publication in newspapers around Texas, the infamous "death state." It's posted here at a blog:
http://waxahachiedaily.blogspot.com/2007/09/schuette-on-conservative-candidates.html
Posted by: Ryan Schuette | Dec 2, 2007 3:48:56 PM
Another crazy to add to the list: Ann Coulter. Her name doesn't bear saying but, in light of what you said about U.S. pundits doing more harm than good, I couldn't help but add this hate-spewing demagogue to "The List."
Posted by: Ryan Schuette | Dec 2, 2007 3:50:33 PM
The Islamic Sudanese can kiss my Muhammed.
Posted by: Mike | Dec 3, 2007 2:36:23 PM
Mike,
Thank you for your objective and well-reasoned contribution to our discussion.
Posted by: Curmudgeon Una | Dec 4, 2007 4:28:51 AM
YOU GO KAREEM!!!!!!!! WOO-HOOO!!!!
Thats what i am talking about!
Posted by: Amna | Mar 15, 2008 8:37:31 PM
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