Teddybear name diplomatic incident

I assume many practicing Muslims here (especially if formerly resident in a repressive Islamic state) appreciate the relative personal freedom, religious freedom that this state offers. But I wonder what the religious leaders/clerics of their home countries have to say about that?

It's not something I've often heard about. I expect of course that leaders in the more fundamental states see their former 'flock' as being traitors/infidels etc but what about the slightly more moderate regimes?

How do they feel about their former parishioners living a new life (mostly) free from institutionalised misogyny, persecution, repression...?
 
I think the level of religious inference/influence with the government of a state/country is an indication of how developed/educated the country and population is.
It is no coincidence that religion is used as a tool to control people in one party states or countries where the population is poor. It helps the government keep the population under control and furthers the lie that all your suffering in this world will be rewarded in the next.
Thus, this keeps poor and uneducated populations from rising against governments. Often governments are aided and abetted by Amman’s (or indeed archbishops) who have special privileges and a position of some local power.
Cast your mind back to pre Celtic Tiger Ireland when Ireland was ruled from the Bishops Palace in Drumcondra. The Irish people were poor but we were happy with our faith knowing that some day we would get our eternal reward in heaven.
With the power that the Catholic Church had, they tended to wield it to look after our immortal souls. There are many examples of this… Archbishop John Charles McQuaid while President of Blackrock College and member of a sports body in Ireland (the name escapes me) railed against the participation of females in Irish sport because Irish men may have had there heads turned. He successfully campaigned against the introduction of tampons in Ireland deeming them “too pleasurable for women to use” and they were only sold in Ireland in the early 70s after he left office.
I am only 37 but I can remember in 1986 pubs in Cork being raided because they had vending machines selling condoms. And this in the year after the death of Rock Hudson and the whole AIDS media explosion. The thinking was, if Irish people had access to condoms then they would have sex but if they didn’t see condoms on a regular basis then sex would not enter there heads.
So, not too long ago the decisions of our own Catholic Hierarchy/Government would have looked outrageous to the outside world.
Is it any coincidence that the Celtic Tiger coincided with the decline of the Catholic Church?

On a funny note:
Did anyone see the Sky News debate about 2 nights ago which I thought was funny. The interviewer had a representative of the Sudanese consulate and also someone representing ‘western world’ ideology.
The Sudanese representative was saying that it was illegal under Sharia law to name any animal after the prophet Mohammad or any emblem of an animal after the revered prophet. The other guy was explaining that in western culture a teddy bear is more like a doll than an animal. He then went on to explain how teddy bears got there name, in that they were named after a former American President Teddy Roosevelt. Upon hearing that the Sudanese guy lost it saying that her blasphemy was even more outrageous because she named a symbol of the American presidency after the revered prophet. Hilarious!
 
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It bordering on the ridiculous now - there are thousands of people in Karthoom marching, calling for her execution?!?!
 
Do they not have a sence of Humour.
Anyway, I'm off to buy my very own Mohamed bear on ebay.

I think they're also doing This post will be deleted if not edited immediately Bear and Johovah bear.
They'd make an ideal Christmas pressent.
 
Well they are supposed to be here to spread Sharia (e.g. see [broken link removed] with Dr. Bari of the MCB where he recommends the introduction of stoning as a punishment in the British legal system), so religious leaders are fairly happy if the percentage of Muslims in a non-Muslim country is rising (that's assuming they don't integrate/westernise of course). What really ****es them off are organisations such as the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, who use the safety of Europe to try to reform Islam. http://ex-muslim.org.uk/
 
ubiquitous said:
So if a country is responsible for a major human rights catastrophe, you think that they should be immune from criticism for relatively minor human rights breaches?
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I'm not entirely certain that what they did in this case was a breach of human rights. Her punishment was not inhumane (15 days imprisonment), and her crime was something that is technically punishable in Ireland also (I assume you feel Ireland has a reasonable human rights record).

So in this instance I do feel that Darfur deserves more attention than this woman.
 
The_Banker said:
Thus, this keeps poor and uneducated populations from rising against governments. Often governments are aided and abetted by Amman’s (or indeed archbishops) who have special privileges and a position of some local power.
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I can understand where you're coming from Banker, but its an uneasy comparison. While catholic women were repressed they were not stoned to death. Maybe shamed to death, but their punishment was not murder.
Not sure that poverty, poor education is a reason either, just look at Saudi Arabia.
 
Elphaba said:
I can understand where you're coming from Banker, but its an uneasy comparison. While catholic women were repressed they were not stoned to death. Maybe shamed to death, but their punishment was not murder.
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Well what I ve heard of the magdalen laundries sounds a lot worse than the 15 days the lady in question will have to endure. Then of course there is the awful treatment of children by our religious orders ... its possible to think that stoning is easier than what the poor kids had to endure.




small aside note:

I dont want to put two religions head to head against each other or use one as an excuse to promote the second as IMO its all superstitious nonsense. If anything the traditional religion on this island is the lesser of 2 evils IMO. I think people worry whether the elimination of our traditional religion would leave a vacuum into which something alien to our values and anti-democratic could grow. But is this a reason to be religious ? Maybe its ala carte westernism.
 
Aah - a little bit of perspective here would be nice.

Noone in Ireland or Europe is advocating the reintroduction of Magdalen Laundries, people are advocating the introduction of stoning though.

Secondly, perhaps you should ask those kids and those people stoned to death if they would prefer to be stoned to death or in a laundry.

Thirdly the treatment of the children was by neglect rather than intent - unlike with stoning.

http://bp0.blogger.com/_JysVcL3YkM0/RppYktFS_rI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/3dLiNazc-c4/s1600-h/Stoning.jpghttp://bp0.blogger.com/_JysVcL3YkM0/RppYktFS_rI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/3dLiNazc-c4/s1600-h/Stoning.jpg
 
Superman said:
Aah - a little bit of perspective here would be nice.
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Perspective is easy but as an excuse or an apology it doesnt work. Sudan s in the grip of a theocracy just like our country was. Both of which are wrong IMO. Burning witches to death in the middle ages in Europe roughly equates or even exceeds the pain and barbarism of a stoning. Similarly with gays being hanged on fishamble street at christchurch in the 1600's

Superman said:
Thirdly the treatment of the children was by neglect rather than intent - unlike with stoning.
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Christendom burning 'witches' alive sounds like intent to me. As does the covering up by the Catholic church of abusers. If it was any other company the CEO would be fully responsible and be jailed.
How convenient is your concept of 'neglect rather than intent.' That way noone can be held responsible


Superman said:
Noone in Ireland or Europe is advocating the reintroduction of Magdalen Laundries, people are advocating the introduction of stoning though.
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Only a miniscule negligible percentage of people who are so out of touch with the rest of us would trust any religion to wield such political power in this country ever again. The evil forces behind stoning and magdalen laundries are ultimately 2 sides of the same coin in my opinion.


Superman said:
Secondly, perhaps you should ask those kids and those people stoned to death if they would prefer to be stoned to death or in a laundry.
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As far as I am aware the laundries were for the mothers of the kids.

However , if following the idea you suggest, giving a kid a choice between certain buggery and torture while interned in one of the so called christian religious camps and being stoned to death. Talk about a hobsons/sophies choice.
 

Well in that case you seem to have a very warped sense of human rights.

Would you support the jailing of a teacher in Ireland who inadvertently offended the Catholic Church for example?

Would you have supported the right of Mayo County Council in 1930 to refuse to sanction the appointment of Miss Letitia Dunbar-Harrison as county librarian on the grounds that she was a Protestant?

Would you have supported her imprisonment at the time had "offended" Catholics demanded this?

[broken link removed]

 
Now call me crazy but nobody forced that woman (Gillian) to go to Sudan an work there. When she went down there, she did know that it is an unstable country with a large hard-line Muslim population and sects that are trying to get into power.

When her class decided to name to the teddy Muhammad she as an educated person should have realized that this will cause with the local very verbal sects. She should not have allowed that to happen and maybe consulted with her head teacher what to do.

Everybody is very critical of her getting 15 days in jail because of this but where is the person that actually says that she is partly responsible for this?

I’m sorry people but in Sudan they interpret the holy Qur'an in a certain way, if you don’t like the way they do that, than don’t go there! But if you go than deploy common sense and be aware of what is going on around you.

Now I don’t say that the interpretation of the holy Qur'an that is done in Sudan is correct from my point of view but if I go there I have to accept the law of the land.

Sure it’s wrong to stone people be it according to the holy books of either Qur'an, Bible or the Tanakh or anything else.

But if I go to a country I have to respect the local law, even if it is a religious law that is contrary to my own religious believes.

I regularly go to the Muslim world and I always have been treated with respect and treated them with respect. I behave according to local customs where ever I am, if you show respect to other people they show respect to you.

They might have strange laws but I’m sure some of our religious laws must strike someone from down there with the same strangeness.

It’s over now, she is back in England and now she is going to run the talk show circle and maybe write a book or something...
 


Hindsight provides such clarity to a sequence of events. I am sure she would have handled the situation differently if she were given the opportunity to relive it.

Ask yourself this:

- Would we have seen the same response if she was a male Sudanese Muslim teacher and the same incident occured?
- Isn't it entirely possible that equal offence would have been taken if she allowed the children to name the teddy bear, the children chose Mohammed and she told them to pick a different name?
DublinTexas said:
I regularly go to the Muslim world and I always have been treated with respect and treated them with respect. I behave according to local customs where ever I am, if you show respect to other people they show respect to you.
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Are you male or female? I regularly meet people of many different nations and creeds in my line of work and manage to avoid offending most of them, but this is a very different experience to conforming to the laws of a certain country while you live there. Especially when these laws appear arbitrary and completely unreasonable.

If you were visiting Tehran and invoked some gesture or phrase that led to the authorities to suspect you were a homosexual, facing execution as a consequence, would you blame yourself for not being aware of the local "custom"?
 

I would never go to Persia until the current terrorist goverment is gone. That has nothing to do with my religion or sexuality. It's common sense. In fact I think we should bomb that little country back to the stone ages. And that has nothing to do with religon but rather with terrorist activity and the fact that we can't let that little Hitler have an atomic weapon because he will wipe Israel from the map.

In any case, I do understand what you mean with the example, but still even when these laws appear arbitrary and completely unreasonable it's the law. When you decide to live/visit there you have to accept the local law.

Anybody coming to this country needs to accept the local law how ever unresonable that law might be in his/her view. Sure we don't stone people or brun them (anymore) but still if you break irish law you get your punishment and than as a "non national" you might get thrown out of the country.

And that is what happend down there. She broke the law (even if we think it's unresonable), she got a punishment that was adapted to the fact that she is english (she got jail instead of lashes) and than she got thrown out of the country.

The only reason is this "breaking news" is the fact that she is english. If the teacher would have been local s/he would have gotten her sentense (lashes) and that's that. That would not even have made the news these days.

When is the last time people got up in arms about a woman being stoned in Saudia arabia because she had sex outside marriage? Where are the protestor than? If it would have been a "western" woman than everybody would have been up in arms.

People don't care until it hits one of their race/religion/country/hemisphere or oil is involved.
 
DublinTexas said:
Now call me crazy but nobody forced that woman (Gillian) to go to Sudan an work there.
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As a woman,I think she was nuts to go*there *and support a country which fundamentally opposes everything*(I'm*assuming) she believes in.

However its difficult to know the full story from the news channels at home. I'd like to know how many people,*and*how*educated*they were at these rallys I heard about which called for her head ? And who organised these protests ? Was it* extremist Al Quaida figures in the background who would exploit even the most miniscule of issues for headlines ?

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DublinTexas said:
In any case, I do understand what you mean with the example, but still even when these laws appear arbitrary and completely unreasonable it's the law. When you decide to live/visit there you have to accept the local law.
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I would argue that even with good knowledge of Sudanese law, it would have been very easy to trip up. Precisely because religious blasphemy laws are very subjective. She might have felt that not allowing the children to name the teddy bear Mohammed was blasphemous. Why is it blasphemous to call the teddy Mohammed but not to call your child so? I'd wager that many a Sudanese teacher could have fallen victim to this law but I'll bet the punishment wouldn't have been so severe (if indeed there was any).


Should we arrest people from polygamous societies for bigamy then?
 
Do you want to change your tune or are you still gung ho for bombing them back to the stone ages, just in case?
 
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