" This is how I described India to my brother the other day. It's like India and I were getting wasted together. And we got so comfortable that we started telling each way too much personal shit. That's when India and I realized we just can't be friends anymore."
This sums up my (our) relationship with India perfectly (Did I mention I absolutely love Alison? you rock, Alison).
So.
I'm walking home from work, just minding my own business (seriously, what else could I have been doing walking home from work?) at about 8 p.m. There's some guy who I barely even noticed coming in the opposite direction. Then, when he's right in front of me he extends his arm out straight and smacks me really hard on the shoulder and keeps going.
Before I have a chance to yell WHAT THE FUCK! or rip him off his bike and pummel him to the ground he's long gone. Alison and I have have been waiting for this - a reason to let all our aggressions out on the next person that touches us the wrong way. Unfortunately, this guy was just too fast for me. But seriously, It's not my fault he hates his own life so much that he has to take it out on me or anyone else. It's not my fault I'm a white American. It's not my fault I had the means to travel to his home town. I guess it is my fault I chose to, though.
I feel like I should have left India three days ago. That's when the hour glass ran out. Now I'm just here. So I'm going to try to make the next three weeks as much like a vacation as possible. Minimal stressing over my job and school work.
OK, enough venting....sort of.
I've been following this news story for a while (posted below). You should read it. Basically, I'm fed up with judiciary systems catering to the hyper-sensitivity of Islamic extremists. They are like two-year-olds that have to get there way all the time, and we're so scared of their temper tantrums that we give in to their stupid requests. This would never fly in the U.S. and it shouldn't fly anywhere. In letting them get away with this, we're just perpetuating their sense of entitlement and sensitivity. Really, this needs to stop. Like, right now.
The teacher was doing a unit on animals, and asked them to come up with a name for a class teddy bear. The students chose to call it Muhammad....
(published by the BBC)
 Gillian Gibbons is described as "a talented and able teacher " |
A British schoolteacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting Islam's Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.
Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, said she made an "innocent mistake" by letting the six and seven-year-olds choose the name.
Ms Gibbons was arrested after several parents made complaints.
The BBC has learned the charge could lead to six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine.
Officials from the British embassy in Khartoum are expected to visit Ms Gibbons in custody.
"We are in contact with the authorities here and they have visited the teacher and she is in a good condition," an embassy spokesman said.
The spokesman said the naming of the teddy happened months ago and was chosen by the children because it is a common name in the country.
"This happened in September and the parents did not have a problem with it," he said.
'Very sensitive'
The school has been closed until January for fear of reprisals.
Fellow teachers at Khartoum's Unity High School told Reuters news agency they feared for Ms Gibbons' safety after receiving reports that men had started gathering outside the police station where she was being held.
The school's director, Robert Boulos, said: "This is a very sensitive issue. We are very worried about her safety.
They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad 
Director of Unity High School
"This was a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam."
Mr Boulos said Ms Gibbons was following a British national curriculum course designed to teach young pupils about animals and this year's topic was the bear.
Ms Gibbons, who joined the school in August, asked a seven-year-old girl to bring in her teddy bear and asked the class to pick names for it, he said.
"They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad," Mr Boulos said, adding that she then had the children vote on a name.
Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad as their favourite name.
Mr Boulos said each child was then allowed to take the bear home at weekends and told to write a diary about what they did with it.
He said the children's entries were collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover and a message which read, "My name is Muhammad."
Book seized
The bear itself was not marked or labelled with the name in any way, he added.
It is seen as an insult to Islam to attempt to make an image of the Prophet Muhammad.
Mr Boulos said Ms Gibbons was arrested on Sunday at her home inside the school premises after a number of parents complained to Sudan's Ministry of Education.
I know Gillian and she would never have meant it as an insult. I was just impressed that she got them to vote
He said police had seized the book and asked to interview the girl who owned the bear.
The country's state-controlled Sudanese Media Centre reported that charges were being prepared "under article 125 of the criminal law" which covers insults against faith and religion.
No-one at the ministries of education or justice was available for comment.
Mr Boulos told the BBC he was confident she would not face a jail sentence.
One Muslim teacher at the independent school for Christian and Muslim children, who has a child in Ms Gibbons' class, said she had not found the project offensive.
"I know Gillian and she would never have meant it as an insult. I was just impressed that she got them to vote," the teacher said.
In Liverpool, a family spokeswoman said Ms Gibbons' grown children, John and Jessica - both believed to be in their 20s - were not commenting on her arrest.
"I have spoken with her children and they do not want to say anything and aggravate the situation over there," she said.
Rick Widdowson the headteacher of Garston Church of England Primary School, where Gillian worked for ten years, added: "We are an Anglican school and I know for a fact that Gillian would not do anything to offend followers of any faith.
"Certainly she is also very worldly wise and she is obviously aware of the sensitivities around Islam."
Cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad printed in several European newspapers sparked violent protests around the world in 2006.
5 comments:
Just goes to show, there are dickheads everywhere. Unfortunately, in Sudan, they have the power. At least there, they only have bicycles ;-)
A friend alerted me to the fact that these two headlines were featured on the same news site at the same time:
“Muslims want death penalty for teacher for naming doll Muhammad”
“Pope says world ills caused by atheism”
don't you think your views are a little ethnocentric?
Yes, my views are ethnocentric. Don't you think it's extremely difficult is not impossibles not to be ethnocentric? I realize and respect differences, but it's hard for me when it's about thinks that seem petty,uncompromising and more destructive than constructive...for the sake of what? Rigidity alone?
no, not rigidity, respecting differences is not in the least related to rigidity, but rather flexibility. This issue is a good example of the intersection of two cultures, where one is dominating, and one is rather ignorant and foreign. But it is an easy stance to take to oppose islamic fundamentalists, particularly in our culture. To oppose this kind of affront to universal human rights (which i believe can be estbalished, you may disagree, but it would help your argument), it would be better to establish the treatment of Gillian Gibbons as wrong, not those faithful to Islam. Can you see how it would be better to delicately and intelligently separate the two?
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