Teacher facing jail for naming teddy bear muhammed

[Reuben]

Well I am sure you have all seen the news storyqabout a liverpudlian woman who is in custody in Sudan for allowing the kids in her class to name a teddy bear mohammed. What deeply annoys me is that practically everybody who has spoken up for her has merely said that she did not mean to insult Muhammed. This may be the case, but i wouldl appreciate it if somebody had the balls to say that its absurd and disgusting that insulting muhammed should - in any place - be a criminal offence.

[manic expression]

It's true that it should never be a crime to insult Mohammed, intentionally or otherwise. However, those who are speaking up for her know that such arguments will only make the problem worse. Tact is important in these situations.

[RedAnarchist]

When people complain about a teddy bear being named after one of their religions characters, you really need to question their grip on reality. Its a teddy bear that belongs to a seven year old child, its not like someones pissed on a Koran or something.

[Xiao Banfa]

That's fucking ridiculous. A lot of people have the name Mohammed she could have called the teddy bear Ali or Yusef.

What I mean is maybe she wasn't calling it mohammed in reference to the prophet but she was using the name in it's capacity as just an ordinary name.

[blackstone]

Originally posted by Xiao [email protected] 27, 2007 11:37 pm
That's fucking ridiculous. A lot of people have the name Mohammed she could have called the teddy bear Ali or Yusef.

What I mean is maybe she wasn't calling it mohammed in reference to the prophet but she was using the name in it's capacity as just an ordinary name.
Keyword you said is people. Muslims generally don't name pets or animals Mohammed.

[lvleph]

My understanding was that she allowed the students to name it Mohamed.

[Black Dagger]

Originally posted by blackstone+November 29, 2007 11:33 pm--> (blackstone @ November 29, 2007 11:33 pm)
Xiao [email protected] 27, 2007 11:37 pm
That's fucking ridiculous. A lot of people have the name Mohammed she could have called the teddy bear Ali or Yusef.

What I mean is maybe she wasn't calling it mohammed in reference to the prophet but she was using the name in it's capacity as just an ordinary name.
Keyword you said is people. Muslims generally don't name pets or animals Mohammed. [/b]
A teddy bear is neither an animal or a pet.

The children of the class voted on what to name the bear, they came up with three possible names and then voted on which one they preferrred, mohammed received 20/23 of the votes... coincidentally one of the most popular kids in the class is also called mohammed.

The names they came up with were all common boys names, so i think its fair to assume their choice was not meant to have religious connotations. Indeed, in the report i read on this story it was suggested that the strife was instigated by another teacher who had an axe to grind with the woman who has been arrested.

[RedAnarchist]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7119399.stm

15 days and then deported, according to the BBC.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

maybe, prior to leaving the UK, she should have made herself aware of the laws and religious problems in that country.

This story is only in the media anyway because its about Muslims and Islam and the negative affects on a white English woman. :o

In her 15 days in jail, she should be planning to leave the country and go somewhere else.

[RedAnarchist]

Its so stupid, isnt it? Muslims must be so embarrased right now because of the over-sensitive actions of the Sudanese authorities. Obviously they must be very insecure in their beliefs if they think naming a teddy bear after a child who was called Muhammed (which is why the name was given to the bear) is an insult to some dead guy who lived centuries ago and talked to some "god".

[blackstone]

Originally posted by bleeding gums malatesta+November 29, 2007 10:29 am--> (bleeding gums malatesta @ November 29, 2007 10:29 am)
Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 11:33 pm

Xiao [email protected] 27, 2007 11:37 pm
That's fucking ridiculous. A lot of people have the name Mohammed she could have called the teddy bear Ali or Yusef.

What I mean is maybe she wasn't calling it mohammed in reference to the prophet but she was using the name in it's capacity as just an ordinary name.
Keyword you said is people. Muslims generally don't name pets or animals Mohammed.
A teddy bear is neither an animal or a pet.

The children of the class voted on what to name the bear, they came up with three possible names and then voted on which one they preferrred, mohammed received 20/23 of the votes... coincidentally one of the most popular kids in the class is also called mohammed.

The names they came up with were all common boys names, so i think its fair to assume their choice was not meant to have religious connotations. Indeed, in the report i read on this story it was suggested that the strife was instigated by another teacher who had an axe to grind with the woman who has been arrested. [/b]
A teddy bear.

If they named a male rag doll or doll baby Mohammad it wouldn't be a problem. Or if a person had an axe to grind, i'd see him getting less support. However, it's a teddy bear. A bear is an animal, is it not? Although a teddy bear is a stuffed toy, it's still a caricature of an animal.

Yeah, Mohammad is a popular boys name. Not a popular pet name. The kids and teachers probably didn't mean any harm. But i think maybe their choice did have religious conotations, but not bad ones. I think they probably thought they was venerating their prophet by naming their beloved class doll after him. Or like you said, since its a popular boys name, it just carried over.

[blackstone]

Would this have been world news or revleft material if it were not for a white female teacher facing jail time ?

[RedAnarchist]

Its in the Western media because she is a Westerner in an Islamic country.Its got a thread on RL because some Koran-bashers didn't like what she did.

Why does it seem like some religious people jump on every possible insult towards their religion or their religious figures, and make a mountain out of a molehill? Are they really that servile towards their faith?

[spartan]

Would this have been world news or revleft material if it were not for a white female teacher facing jail time ?
It would depend though i seriously doubt that it would have been given as much attention by the mainstream media if this were the case :angry:

Unfortunately this is the way the current world is towards issues such as this :(

Having said that this naming of the teddy bear Muhammad has been completly blown out of all proportions by the Sudanese authorities and i think that the mainstream media are justified in there taking an intrest in this bizzare story.

Personally i think that the Sudanese authorities are justing trying to get some lee way with the west over the Darfur crises and the UN sending troops.

Its all fucking politics people not religion.

[Black Dagger]

If they named a male rag doll or doll baby Mohammad it wouldn't be a problem.

Why not? These are all toys.

Teddy bears are not representative of actual bears - that is such a stretch - the resemblance is minor at best.

Moreover, this is a toy that the children loved and cared for, there's nothing insulting about that.

Does it insult the prophet to name a child with a disability Muhammed? An ugly child?

How far does this logic go?



Or if a person had an axe to grind, i'd see him getting less support.

Huh?



However, it's a teddy bear. A bear is an animal, is it not? Although a teddy bear is a stuffed toy, it's still a caricature of an animal.

Right, but caricatures are not the things they represent, that's the point of a caricature.

A teddy bear and s grizzly bear (or whichever bear you care to name) could not be more different; the former is small, cute, cuddly, the latter is big, scary and potentially violent.

How is it insulting to the prophet, that something cute, cuddly - something that was loved and cared for, just happened to have the same name as him. The kids were not calling this bear the prophet or using it to mock the prophet in any way. The children simply gave the toy a human name (as children often do), the prophet does not have sole ownership of this name - there were muhammeds before his life and there have been since.



Yeah, Mohammad is a popular boys name. Not a popular pet name.

Irrelevant, a teddy bear is not a pet.



The kids and teachers probably didn't mean any harm.

The children chose the name, it's not the teachers fault by ANY means - and i doubt the children were consciously attempting to disrespect the prophet!



But i think maybe their choice did have religious conotations, but not bad ones. I think they probably thought they was venerating their prophet by naming their beloved class doll after him. Or like you said, since its a popular boys name, it just carried over.

I agree.

[Black Dagger]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 04:43 am
Would this have been world news if it were not for a white female teacher facing jail time ?

No


or revleft material

Yes - RL is full of people who oppose religious fundamentalism.

[Ismail]

Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot. - BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7121025.stm

[Reuben]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 03:09 pm

Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot. - BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7121025.stm
stupid ****s.

And yes Bleeding Gums is right- this story gets space on revleft because it is full of anti-funamentalists.

[toater]

its mad but laws are laws and to be fair after all the noise made about the cartoons only a fool would have not remembered that any physical representation of the prophet is a fairly stupid thing to do in a muslim country. How many times do people in the press complain if an englishman in Saudi is punished for drinking? Tow the line or dont go there.

[Pawn Power]

the funny thing is the bear was not named directly after muhammed the profit but after another boy in the class.

[Reuben]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 03:22 pm
its mad but laws are laws and to be fair after all the noise made about the cartoons only a fool would have not remembered that any physical representation of the prophet is a fairly stupid thing to do in a muslim country. How many times do people in the press complain if an englishman in Saudi is punished for drinking? Tow the line or dont go there.
'Laws are laws'

WHat kind of fucking idiot are you. I agree she may have broken the law. However as leftists we should come to value judgements as to what laws are just and what laws are absurd and disgusting. A law banning insults against some historical figure because he happens to be venerated by a particular religion are absurd and disgusting and we should fight for the rights of people to break such laws.

And how should we react to people - British, saudi arabian, or whatever - being criminalised for choosing to drink alcoholin Said arabia? I would happily fight for the rights of anybody not to have their personal liberties curtailed by a fucked up religious doctrine.

[Luís Henrique]

If I name my teddy bear "Moses", am I an antisemite?

Luís Henrique

[spartan]

If I name my teddy bear "Moses", am I an antisemite?

Luís Henrique
In Israel you would be :D

[RedAnarchist]

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g311/xphile2868/mothebear.png

[blackstone]

Originally posted by bleeding gums malatesta+November 29, 2007 11:11 pm--> (bleeding gums malatesta @ November 29, 2007 11:11 pm)
[email protected] 30, 2007 04:43 am
Would this have been world news if it were not for a white female teacher facing jail time ?

No


or revleft material

Yes - RL is full of people who oppose religious fundamentalism. [/b]
I beg to differ.

Anyone realize that Darfur is in Sudan? Or has that slipped your mind.

Odd how UK was going to impose sanctions and such because they was going to jail give lashes to a white woman.

1 white woman = 450,000 black Africans

Guess those fundamentalists are only crazy when they infringe on white people's rights.

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 03:11 pm

If I name my teddy bear "Moses", am I an antisemite?

Luís Henrique
In Israel you would be :D
I don't know of any Judeo law that would say so.

[Reuben]

Originally posted by blackstone+November 30, 2007 08:37 pm--> (blackstone @ November 30, 2007 08:37 pm)
Originally posted by bleeding gums [email protected] 29, 2007 11:11 pm

[email protected] 30, 2007 04:43 am
Would this have been world news if it were not for a white female teacher facing jail time ?

No


or revleft material

Yes - RL is full of people who oppose religious fundamentalism.
I beg to differ.

Anyone realize that Darfur is in Sudan? Or has that slipped your mind.

[/b]
Don'tt quite see qhat your getting at here mate. THere's a good twenty threads on revleft relating to darfur.

[Angry Young Man]

Originally posted by blackstone+November 29, 2007 01:33 pm--> (blackstone @ November 29, 2007 01:33 pm)
Xiao [email protected] 27, 2007 11:37 pm
That's fucking ridiculous. A lot of people have the name Mohammed she could have called the teddy bear Ali or Yusef.

What I mean is maybe she wasn't calling it mohammed in reference to the prophet but she was using the name in it's capacity as just an ordinary name.
Keyword you said is people. Muslims generally don't name pets or animals Mohammed. [/b]
The kids called it Mohammad. It's a common name.

[Patchd]

Surely this contradicts Islam itself? You know, with the whole glorification of Muhammad and all...giving him an almost God-like status, practically deifying him :lol: :rolleyes:

[Angry Young Man]

Do kids worship teddies?

[Dr Mindbender]

i wonder if she explained that the spelling of the teddy's name was different to the prophet's name they would have let her off the hook? Its got a few variations - 'mohammed', 'muhammed', 'mohamed' and not forgetting 'muhamed'!

[blackstone]

Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 30, 2007 05:16 pm
i wonder if she explained that the spelling of the teddy's name was different to the prophet's name they would have let her off the hook? Its got a few variations - 'mohammed', 'muhammed', 'mohamed' and not forgetting 'muhamed'!
Uhm, that fails on so many levels.

First, those are transliterations of his name into English.

Second, it just fails on so many levels

[synthesis]

Imagine what would happen if a Muslim teacher went to an isolated Amish community and named a stuffed animal Jesus. We would probably see the same reactions, except it would not seem as strange to us as the culprits are Christians.

I think people are missing the big picture here. Like al-Qaeda, it would be overly simplistic to reduce the issue to fundamentalist intolerance; it must be viewed in the context of Muslim perceptions of invasive and exploitative Western culture, not to mention that people are always at their most defensive when it comes to the perceived indoctrination of children.

[Reuben]

Originally posted by Kun Fanâ@November 30, 2007 10:46 pm
Imagine what would happen if a Muslim teacher went to an isolated Amish community and named a stuffed animal Jesus. We would probably see the same reactions, except it would not seem as strange to us as the culprits are Christians.

I think people are missing the big picture here. Like al-Qaeda, it would be overly simplistic to reduce the issue to fundamentalist intolerance; it must be viewed in the context of Muslim perceptions of invasive and exploitative Western culture, not to mention that people are always at their most defensive when it comes to the perceived indoctrination of children.
um, if somebody went to an amish community, named a teddy jesus and the forces of the state were brought in to imprison that person then i think we would find it a bit strange and would certainly condemn it utterly.

[davidbrooke]

It only got in the news because it was a white woman and the tensions with Islam that is present in Britain. It frustrates me that the media don't seem to fucking care about those who have received barbaric punishments but don't receive attention because there not white or British.

PLus our government kisses the asses of the horrible regime in Saudi Arabia, just a complete bunch of wankers. What's happening to this woman is unfair and completely stupid.

Hopefully this intolerant religion will lose it's authority sooner rather than later.

[Black Dagger]

Originally posted by blackstone+December 01, 2007 06:37 am--> (blackstone @ December 01, 2007 06:37 am)
Originally posted by bleeding gums [email protected] 29, 2007 11:11 pm

[email protected] 30, 2007 04:43 am
Would this have been world news if it were not for a white female teacher facing jail time ?

No


or revleft material

Yes - RL is full of people who oppose religious fundamentalism.
I beg to differ.

Anyone realize that Darfur is in Sudan? Or has that slipped your mind.

Odd how UK was going to impose sanctions and such because they was going to jail give lashes to a white woman.

1 white woman = 450,000 black Africans

Guess those fundamentalists are only crazy when they infringe on white people's rights. [/b]
Sorry, but i don't understand how your post 'differs' or indeed relates to what i said.

Please explain.

[Hiero]

If they named a male rag doll or doll baby Mohammad it wouldn't be a problem.

I think it would be a problem. The religious fanatics could create a case that the lady created a depiction of the prophet Muhhamed.

The mainstream media that I have read is linking this case to the situation in Darfur and the response by the Western world. It is quite possible that the Sudanese Arab nationalist are acting spiteful to their former coloniser.

[synthesis]

Originally posted by Reuben+November 30, 2007 04:55 pm--> (Reuben @ November 30, 2007 04:55 pm)
Kun Fanâ@November 30, 2007 10:46 pm
Imagine what would happen if a Muslim teacher went to an isolated Amish community and named a stuffed animal Jesus. We would probably see the same reactions, except it would not seem as strange to us as the culprits are Christians.

I think people are missing the big picture here. Like al-Qaeda, it would be overly simplistic to reduce the issue to fundamentalist intolerance; it must be viewed in the context of Muslim perceptions of invasive and exploitative Western culture, not to mention that people are always at their most defensive when it comes to the perceived indoctrination of children.
um, if somebody went to an amish community, named a teddy jesus and the forces of the state were brought in to imprison that person then i think we would find it a bit strange and would certainly condemn it utterly. [/b]
Probably not now.

A hundred years ago, without question - not everyone is on the same page with regards to the separation of church and state.

But that's not the point.

What I'm getting at is that Islam is no more intrinsically intolerant than Christianity or Judaism, and to fault one certain religion for the perceived failings of one particular society or culture is a very anti-materialist position to take.

You have to look at the conditions first. You must recognize that this is occurring in a society without a strong tradition of pluralism or separation of church and state, as well as one that is (quite reasonably) hostile to Western influence, before you can name Islam itself as the culprit of this unfortunate incident.

[RedAnarchist]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7124447.stm

She's been pardoned and will probably be in the UK within the next couple of days. :)

[R_P_A_S]

should had name that Teddy bear JESUS! :P

[R_P_A_S]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 11:17 pm
When people complain about a teddy bear being named after one of their religions characters, you really need to question their grip on reality. Its a teddy bear that belongs to a seven year old child, its not like someones pissed on a Koran or something.
LMAO! i love this comment.

"religion characters" :D :P