Muhammad the Bear

Well, if the teddy bear is female, then I can definitely understand why they'd be upset.

Ah yes, first teddy bears, followed by nukes.

Not guilty.

Sidenote:

Edit: Nevermind. I didn't realize until now that signatures are allowed for SPS holders.

 

Ever since those damn cartoons they've gone absolutely mental...

 

The teddybear debacle!

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/11/28/sudan.bears/index.html

I don't think anyone can agree with this.

Don't they know that they are actually proving that something is fundementally wrong with their politics and religion. I rarely post in the alley but these kind of incidents actually make me angry.

We have a politician in our country that is making a movie to show how retarded (his words) this religion can be. Now I think he is just full of himself and takes his arguments to the extreme. But things like this makes me doubt myself.

 

This is nothing but further proof that subjective laws have no positive effects, only negative ones.

If Ms. Gibbons is guilty of anything, it's of being so naive as to think that her innocent project would be seen as she intended, and not twisted to support some extremeist agenda. That, or thinking that people who object might come to her first instead of squawking to trigger-happy authorities.

 

First thought: Political/ religious correctness on Arabic? In America, been she a prominent person, she'd have to go through the humiliating ritual of apologising in front of a delighted press, maybe go to rehab. In Sudan she is being punished by a beating for what in Sudan basically is interpreted as blasphemy.

On second thought, of course the issue is being scandalised way out of proportion by political people. There cannot be a doubt about it.

On third thought, we ought not to be so self adulatory as to think that the West, Christians, is above and beyond that - and here I am referring to our rather recent past. I don't know how well a teddy bear named Jesus would play with the Christian right. Some names are just names, others aren't. You will be very hard pressed to find Germans named Adolf nowadays.

Let's wiki a bit. As for criminalising blasphemy, just this law from Massachusetts

By the way, blasphemy is a crime in Germany, too. So, forty lashes? The poor lady, but compared to that poor Saudi lady that got herself raped and was sentenced for violating segregation laws, that's nothing.

And corporal punishment? Iirc In the United States, 23 states allow corporal punishment in schools. So the Sudanese apply it to adults (of course of a different severity)? Delaware was the last US state to abandon the whipping post. Although the last lawbreaker was to feel the sting of the lashes in 1952, the practice of corporal punishment for crimes like rape, theft and assault was not stricken from the state code until the early 1970's.

What else? Of course: The US Supreme Court in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952) held that the New York State blasphemy law was an unconstitutional prior restraint on freedom of speech. The court stated that "It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches or motion pictures."

Good point of view. But such an attitude has to grow. It hasn't grown in Sudan, and I don't think it will. In fact, I think that the idea of separating religion from the state is anathema to Islam. Like the American Christian right the Islamic right finds secularism dreadful.

 

Interesting post Ragusa, except that there at the very end you fell into the very same trap you were criticising all the way through. Separating religion from state isn't anathema to Islam, it's anathema to any islamic state in which the clergy has an near-absolute stranglehold on the political system. See the difference? Just like separating religion and state is not anathema to Judaism, but certainly is to Israel (and to the more right-wing branches of Zionism). Just like, as you said, separating religion and state is not anathema to Christianity but certainly is to certain right-wing Christians in the USA (and a whole bunch of European countries). The three cases are far more similar than most people (of all sides) feel comfortable admitting.

As for Tal's initial question, I'm afraid the poor teacher will probably be found guilty, unless the British government finds some way to pressure Sudan into changing their mind without making a diplomatic mess. Which is a shame, because I cannot see how what she's done can in any way be viewed as an insult. I've asked several Muslim friends their thoughts, and they all unanimously said they found the charges against the teacher "utterly ridiculous".

 

Way to make it about America, Ragusa! Amazing how you can stretch any thread into a critique/attack on America! Give this man a prize!

On topic, it's appalling. 40 lashes for naming a teddy bear.

 

I named my penis Mohammed this morning in honour of the prophet. I hope some Muslim zealot hangs himself over this post.

 

After the naming did you give him a quick 40.... Nah, I'm not going to go there

 

Speaking as a birthright and convinced citizen of the US of A, I like Ragusa's post and agree with it. But mayhap that is my international background speaking.

As I understand it the teacher 'allowed' the children to name the teddy. Which to me means the children chose the name and she gave permission. On that ground I think the whole thing is silly and a tempest-in-a-teapot. Maybe the whipper will carry two Qurans under his arm.

 

He has made it an art form!

 

But that is how we keep our religious crazies under control: The Constitution. It does not have to "grow," since the Constitution is quite clear, it just needs to be left intact.

Well, Ragusa, I think you are being a bit unfair in this instance. We are a country of 300 million people in fifty states. There are examples of idiot laws passed in almost every locality, given the many thousands of laws that are passed every year. But to equate America with this nonsense in Sudan is too much of a stretch. I'm surprised you did not bring up the Salem witch trials. Ah, but we were English then....

 

Ziad,

Oh no. I disagree. I do not think I fell into that trap. It in my understanding is anathema to Islam as a religion. The reason IMO lies in Islamic theology. I am very serious

I think the comparison between US Christian right and Islamists is very illuminating. That doesn't have anything to do with putting down the US but with core critiques on secular western societies that the two groups share. Such a comparison is worthwhile because the Christian right is not as alien as Islamists appear to western eyes. Fundamentalism is not an exclusively Islamic phenomenon. It is instructive to look at their arguments, because they show interesting parallels. In this respect Chandos is right, in the Western country with the starkest extremes, you will almost inevitably find examples if you only search a bit.

Except for that, the West likes to say how civilised it is, it feels good, but that is first of all a narrative, asking for reflection. What I say is that we ought not be too enthusiastic about calling the Sudanese barbarians for things we did ourselves, or rather our countries and societies, only some 70 or so years ago, and with gusto. Germans are especially humbled in this respect.

After 1945 well meaning Americans educated the German people about that it is bad to discriminate minorities, to then return to a country that had race segregation, and Jewish quotas at the Ivy League universities. That's why the the early neo-conservatives went to state universities. Ivy league didn't want Jews. That is not about hypochrisy - the Nazis undeniably committed barbaric excesses - and I do not doubt that the Americans who came to Germany were generally well meaning. They just didn't get it, because they didn't note segregation as something special because they were used to it, and that's they way the world was, and certainly it was much less bad than what the Nazis did. It certainly was unreflected.

What I aim on is this: I do think that we today in the west are very much used to some things that are not normal. We can be happy that we have all that, and that we after spilling oceans of blood over some five centuries to get there can enjoy the blessings of the freedoms a western society grants every individual. I find it preposterous that it is there to be adopted off the shelf by everyone. And that is one of the largest problems I have with the classical neo-cons who believe that there is a final goal, the universal standard for all mankind.

In respect to the Islamic world, they are basically asking them to, faster please, push through a similar process. And I doubt that Islamic theology allows for making such adjustments, not without the doors of Ithijad being re-opened. And even then it might not be possible because of the fundamentals of Islamic faith. Anyway, if that happens, if the doors open, the Islamic world might change, slowly. If that is really desirable is an open question. One only needs to look at what happened to Germany after the reformation re-opened 'our door of Ithijad'. We had almost 300-200 years of war. After the Thirty Years War that was fought on our soil, as much about religion as under the pretext of it, one third or more of the German population had been killed. I wonder whether we really ought to wish for something like that in the Islamic world in the age of industrial scale killing in wars.

I only point that out because that is in my view the inevitable consequence of calling for change toward western standards in the Islamic world. That is not directed at any poster. It's my take on this.

The West, and that includes all of it, has a tendency to take many things for granted, and not to think too much about it. That goes double for it's most vocal exemplar.

 

Yes, lets lash the teacher, who's students named the bear.

She is not guilty by my standards, although by their law I guess she is. It is stupid to punish her for letting her students name a stuffed bear the most common name in the world. It is a fake thing, it is not like they are saying that their prophet resembles a stuffed teddy bear...

And, why did they pick religious hatred?

 

Yes, but the "Christian" right is not the US, nor is it representative of what most Americans want. With that aside, yes, it is illuminating. I remember an interview with a group of Isalmic Mullahs, commenting how they agreed with the idea of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. And how they sided with GWB's notion of eliminating gay rights in the US. You would think there would be no mullahs for Bush, but in fact they share a great deal in religious perspective.

On your other point, I could not disagree more about the need for reform in some Islamic countries. How would the 300 years of warfare of which you complain be different from the previous 300 years of religious wars that swept Europe? The Crusades, the Cathar Wars, the open warfare with the HRE and the Italian city states, are a few that come to mind at once.....

 

I don't doubt you are. What I find a little strange is how you managed to combine "my understanding", "IMO" and "it is" in the same paragraph. You're presenting an opinion based on your personal understanding as being a rigid fact, and that undermines your argument. I suspect this is due to your sources regarding Islam not being entirely accurate themselves.

I think the reason Tal, Chandos and JF criticised your generalisation is because you turned the "core critique" (which may or may not be true, I personally agree with parts of it, but that's not the issue at hand) into a specific example about why something is bad in the USA. Tal is right - the UK can be incredibly picky about PC, just like the USA. And, just like the USA, some UK figures have occasionally thrown PC out of the window and got standing ovations for it (Jack Straw and John Reid anyone?). The point is, if you're going to pick a single example, just make it clear it's an example and not a sweeping generalisation (in this respect your last post made your thoughts much clearer than the previous one, I think)

Why not see this pushing forward as something good? If it took you 500 years (let's say) to realise you were doing something wrong, and then you notice someone else still does it, wouldn't you want them to get to the same conclusion much faster than you did?

(yes, I know I'm playing the devil's advocate here, as I'm aware of how easily criticisable my statement is)

This is not true. There is nothing in Islam (as a religion) that says naming a teddy bear Mohammad should get the teacher 40 lashes (or prison, or deportation, or anything at all). That's a purely political construct. Just like there is nothing in Christianity saying that muslisms are more likely to be terrorists. This is (again) a political construct. The vast majority of the points in Islam that tell people what to do and what not to do have very specific reasons behind them, and the reasons are very clearly stated, be it not eating pork, wearing a veil, and so on and so forth. As I may have said earlier, politicians who use religion as an excuse will always attempt to twist it to suit their needs, and the twisting will usually (almost always?) skip over the actual explanation in favor of one of their own cooking. That does not mean that their arguments are truly based in religion.

That's true to an extent, but in itself isn't a problem. I would say it does become a problem when taking things for granted becomes so rigid that you are no longer able to accept that your vision of things could be wrong, that your sources of information may not be 100% accurate, even after you see the evidence. It doesn't help that the world media are becoming incredibly polarised, to the extent that true journalism is increasingly hard to find, and short of going somewhere and actually seeing for yourself what's going on there you're almost certain of either not getting the full picture or, worse, getting an entirely wrong account (but that's a completely different topic)

 

Ziad,

I feel profoundly ambivalent on this. On the one hand Islam is consensus driven, and the larger number of sectarian groups in Islam gives testimony to that. It also indicates that Islam is open to change. Yet 'progressive groups' in Islam have always had a hard time in the past. How come?

If in Islam faith is a seamless garment that encompasses all aspects of life, there is no place for a separation of faith and a secular world. That is a very fundamental observation. A secular state, with secular laws must then appear as an aberration. Islam already has laws. Now think of Christian fundamentalists setting up the ten commandments in front of courthouses and their implicit demands and you see my point. They think very much alike: Against the orders from God or Allah, secular laws are meaningless.

The character of Allah as a deity is another point. In the Islamic tradition, God has given his word to Mohammed, but it's an eternal word. It's not Mohammed's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting the Koran. That is IMO why those reformists ultimately failed. Biblical literalists are thinking along the very same lines. Calling for reform in face of this is simply disregarding the nature of the Weltanschauung in the target society (pun not intended).

Insofar, citing the Koran and searching for passages about teddy bears and lashes is entirely beside the point.

So why can't Muslims take a joke? Get real folks. Deprecatory cartoons of Jesus would have earned you the dungeon or the stake during most of Christianity's 2,000-year history. Britain still has not abolished the Blasphemous Libel Law against mockery of the Church of England, although the last Englishman punished for blasphemy was a certain William Gott, who received nine months' imprisonment in 1922 for comparing Jesus to a circus clown.

Indeed, with the help of Spengler I wouldn't have needed to look to America for examples.

Muslims rage at affronts to their faith because the modern world puts their faith at risk, precisely as modern Islamists contend. That is not a Muslim problem as such, for all faith is challenged as traditional society gives ground to globalization. Christianity and Judaism barely have adapted to the modern world; the Islamists believe with good reason that Islam cannot co-exist with modernism and propose to shut it out altogether.
...
As the pope explained, the eternal, unchanging character of the Koran that the Archangel Gabriel dictated verbatim to Mohammed admits of no doubt. Muslim belief is not dialogue, but submission. It is as defenseless before the bacillus of skepticism as the American aboriginals were before the smallpox virus.
...
That is why Muslims cannot respond to Western jibes at the person of their Prophet except as they did to the Jyllens-Posten cartoons.

Or accept teddy bears named Mohammed. And that are profoundly religious reasons.

The past years have made me very pessimistic on the utility or good sense of pressing for change abroad. I say that in the knowledge that one cannot insulate oneself from the outside world. Engagement is inevitable, but there always is something like too much. Multiculturalism is probably a great idea, if only in foreign policy. In saying that I inevitably express my disapproval for the US policies of the past years.