Are These People Religious Hijackers?

Every American who cares about such things is already familiar with this story. “Sudanese call for teddy bear teacher's death”.

According to the news agencies that took these pictures,

“Thousands of protesters, many brandishing clubs and swords, took to the streets of Sudan’s capital Friday, demanding the execution of a British teacher who let her students name a teddy bear Muhammad….Protesters waved sticks, knives, axes and swords.

“’Kill her, kill her by firing squad!’ they chanted. ‘No tolerance, execution!’”

“Others shouted, ‘Shame, shame on the U.K.’”

And now today’s Washington Post reports that

Gibbons was moved from the Omdurman women's prison to a secret location on Friday after thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and swords and beating drums, burned pictures of her and demanded her execution.

The Post also reports that

There was no overt sign that the government organized the protest, but such a rally could not have taken place without at least official assent.

The reason Ms. Gibbons had to be moved to a secret location is, obviously to protect her from being lynched by the people in the pictures and thousands more of their brethren. (More on lynching in another post. I wasn't going to blog this weekend, but I can't stand this.)

There isn't going to be any shortage of commentary on this highly unpleasant action by Khartoum, the Sharia Court, and the Sudanese people represented in these photos. There's no need for me to add to it here.

But my question here is going somewhere else, and I'm asking on behalf of myself and those others of us who are regularly branded as phobic, and bigoted haters because we identify Islam with violenct intolerance.

Are the Sudanese Muslim men we see in these pictures--burning newspapers, brandishing swords, and demanding Ms. Gibbons's execution because their Prophet was insulted by having his name given to a Teddy Bear, (given to the bear by someone else, no less, a seven-year-old Muslim boy named Muhammed)--

--are these people only a marginal extremist Islamic minority, or hijackers of a peaceful Islam, or are they truly performing their religious duty as Muslims?

I would really like to hear from anyone who believes that these demonstrators/rioters should not be considered representative of authentic Islam.

Please explain this.

A Strange Cure for Contempt

From today’s Daily News:

Teacher charged with inciting hatred over teddy

DAILY NEWS STAFF
Wednesday, November 28th 2007, 11:32 AM

A British teacher under arrest in Sudan was formally charged Wednesday with inciting hatred for allowing her 7-year-old students to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

If convicted, Gillian Gibbons, 54, could be sentenced to 40 lashes, a fine or six months behind bars. The case goes to court on Thursday.

State media reported Gibbons, from Liverpool, England, also faced charges of insulting religion and showing contempt of religious beliefs.

Only yesterday, according to a Guardian Unlimited story, ("Sudan plays down teddy blasphemy case")the Sudanese foreign ministry in Great Britain was trying to downplay the whole thing. On Monday night, “a spokesman for the Sudanese embassy in London said he believed the teacher would be cleared and the "minute" issue resolved amicably very quickly”:

Dr Khalid al-Mubarak told BBC Radio 4's PM programme the police had no choice but to follow procedure after a complaint from a parent.

"The police are bound to investigate just as is the case in any country in which there is rule of law. Our relationship with Britain is so good that we wouldn't like such a minute event to be overblown."

He added: "I am pretty certain that this minute incident will be clarified very quickly and this teacher who has been helping us with the teaching of children will be safe and will be cleared."

Asked about the potential punishments of six months in jail or 40 lashes, he said: "I hope people will not give their imagination free rein to think about such things."

Dr al-Mubarak has good reason not to want Britons, or other Westerners, to imagine a 54-year-old schoolteacher getting 40 lashes over nothing--nothing.

I hope people will give free rein and think about this unfortunate woman getting flogged by a Sudanese thug --I hope we all think about it very hard.

Sudanese authorities admit that no parent complained about this, and it wasn't even the teacher, but one of Ms. Gibbons’s students, a seven-year-old boy, who quite innocently gave the teddy bear the name, which happened to be the boy's own. Even some Muslim authorities asked about it were puzzled about why she was being charged, given there obviously was no malicious intent.

No one was harmed. No one, that is, except Allah, who happens to be the touchiest deity of all the world’s religions. And I thought I was hypersensitive.

Sudanese officials are behaving as if their hands are tied, shrugging and explaining how Sudanese law is based on Sharia, which is only another way of saying that punishment must not fit the crime so much as it must placate a splenetic and irrational god. When this is what is meant by "the rule of law," don't expect much in the way of prosecutorial discretion.

Dr al-Mubarak did say yesterday that police have to follow the rule of law and investigate, but that he thought the teacher was going to be cleared because the incident was “minute.” But I'll bet he already knew better, which is why he wanted to warn us in advance not to think about the awful image of a middle-aged schoolteacher being flogged by an Islamic thug. There's nothing we can do! When Allah’s feelings get hurt, somebody’s blood has to flow.

And so there's no surprise as today we learn that not only is Ms. Gibbons not being cleared of the "minute incident," but prosecutors managed to come up with at least three charges leading to harsh penalties: inciting hatred, insulting religion and showing contempt of religious beliefs.

Let's hope the British government can put together a stern enough package of behind-the-scene diplomatic threats to convince the Sudanese to let this poor woman go.

But if not, I have to wonder, if and when this punishment is actually carried out, how likely it will be to have the effect of causing large numbers of nonMuslims looking on in horror to hate Islam, insult Islam, and feel contempt for Islam?