From John Derbyshire’s most recent Radio Derb segment:
Here’s a lady who got a bit out of her depth in the Muslim world. Fifty-four year-old Englishwoman Gillian Gibbons was teaching in an elementary school in Khartoum, capital of the Sudan, which has an Islamic government. Ms. Gibbons brought a stuffed teddy bear into her class of seven-year-olds for them to have as a class mascot. What should they call the teddy bear, she asked them? “Mohammad,” the kids said, this being the only name they know. All right, said Ms. Gibbons, we’ll call it Mohammad. Uh-oh. I guess she forgot to add, “Peace be upon him,” because calling that teddy bear Mohammad has gotten Ms. Gibbons 15 days in the slammer, to be followed by deportation. You’d think the Brits would be wise to how things work in the Sudan, after what happened to General Gordon back in 1885, but no, apparently they never learn. Or, more likely, in the sensitive, PC-whipped Britain of today, they just don’t teach them about General Gordon, because he was a wicked, colonialist, capitalist, heterosexist exploiter of the suffering Sudanese people, although some people will give you an argument about “heterosexist”, but we’ll let that pass.
Modern multicultural Britain showed its true colors in the person of Ms. Gibbons’ son, John, a 25-year-old marketing consultant. This young man went into full multicultural cringe, sniveling to the BBC that, “I don’t want the verdict to lead to any anti feeling towards Muslims. One of my fears, and I imagine my mother’s also, will be that this results in any sort of resentment towards Muslim people.” No, that would never do, would it, John? They lock up your mum in a filthy, rat-infested dungeon, for what was obviously an honest mistake, and your biggest fear is that someone will feel resentment towards them. You know my biggest fear, John? My biggest fear is that there are enough whimpering pultroons like yourself in the Western world to turn our civilization to mush — the way political correctness has turned your brain to mush.
While Ms. Gibbons’ son was begging the Muslims to give his mum a good thrashing–and to give him one, too, please, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble–one of his fellow Brits announced that she had had her tubes tied to save the world. Ms. Toni Vernelli, of Somerset, England, had herself sterilized at age 27 to reduce her “carbon footprint”. …
Since then, Sudanese Muslims have–surprise!–taken to the streets, calling for Ms. Gibbons’ death:
Thousands of angry Sudanese, some brandishing swords, marched Friday through the centre of Khartoum calling for the execution of a British woman teacher as she began a brief jail term for insulting Islam.
“Those who insult the Prophet of Islam should be punished with bullets,” a sea of white-clad demonstrators shouted after Gillian Gibbons, 54, was jailed for 15 days on charges stemming from naming a teddy bear Mohammed.
Others chanted “Execute her!” as Sudanese security forces deployed around the British embassy and the ambassador’s residence and the demonstration, called by religious leaders during Friday prayers, spread.
Now safe at home, Ms. Gibbons hopes there aren’t any hard feelings:
A British teacher jailed in Sudan for letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad as part of a writing project arrived home Tuesday after being pardoned and said she was “very upset to think that I might have caused offense to people.” …
“It has been an ordeal but I’d like want you to know that I was well-treated in prison and everybody was very kind to me,” she said [noting that the Interior Minister was nice enough to send her a bed]. “I was very sorry to leave Sudan. I had a fabulous time there. It’s a really lovely place, and I managed to see some of the beautiful countryside while I was there.”
Gibbons said she didn’t want her experience “to put anyone off going to Sudan in fact I know of a lovely school that needs a new Year Two teacher.”
Gee, I can’t imagine why this incident would discourage anyone from travelling to Sudan.
