My Teddy Bear is called Jesus

[emmelinemay]

I've been thinking about this teddy bear fiasco a lot. (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, take your head out from under that rock, and then google 'teddy bear Sudan' in 'news'.)

I even dreamed about it the other night. It's got me really thinking.


She's been charged with 'blasphemy'. These are the laws in Sudan - as far as I can tell, from reading many reports, it's not specifically illegal there to call a bear Mohammed per se - it's about the implied offence.

It's pretty obvious that no offence was intended, that the teacher did worry about the children's decision (she wrote to all the parents, and the bear only 'visited' a small number of children before she decided to use a different toy instead). It's pretty obvious that this has been a highly political move on behalf of Sudan's religious government.

But think about this - we also have blasphemy laws here, albeit rarely used, and we now have incitement to religious hatred laws. These could be used and interpreted pretty widely - after all - who determines what exactly *is* inciting racial hatred? Something, say, naming a teddy bear, could 'incite' people, it could anger people, that could claim offence when none was intended at all. Or Someone, say, a famous author whose trilogy as recently been made into a big budget film could write a book that's critical of a god, or perhaps a comic writer writes a series of comics about a god who abandons his creation. Are they inciting religious hatred? Or are they exercising their right to free speech, freedom of the press, just using their imagination?

Who decides? The offender (I didn't mean it like that) or the offended (I am offended by what you said whether you meant it or not).

We al remember that issue over Those Comics published in a Danish magazine. None of our newspapers would publish them, for fear of retaliation. A whole debate was held on channel 4 over whether they should be shown or not - the result is that they wouldn't show them. In our own country we restrict our own freedom of speech just in case we offend an extremist minority.

Jerry Springer - The Opera carries on in the face of opposition from the Christians, court cases of blasphemy fail. Why? Perhaps because we're not afraid that a bunch of Christians are going to drive into an airport in a burning car. Perhaps we don't take Christians seriously because we're not afraid of them? Eddie Izzard's portrait of the Church Of England as no-elbowed benign old duffers is really quite prevalent. They say 'death or cake'. We can always chose 'cake'. The Scary Terrorists that we hear about all the time don't even say 'death or...?' they just WAIT OUTSIDE OUR HOMES TO BOMB US ALL! YOU ARE ALL IN DANGER!!! ALL THE TIME!!!!!

Such is the height of fear over these extremists, that we lose the nerve to speak out.

Just bear¹ in mind that we have laws, just as in Sudan, where an innocent act could be interpreted as a blasphemy, or as an incitement to racial hatred. Where anything which depicts the prophet is censored, Just In Case, but where showing Jesus as a black nappy fetishist and sings about Mary being 'raped by an angel' is Just All Good Fun and Isn't Hurting Anyone.

Don't get me wrong - I think Jerry Springer - The Opera is hilarious, I enjoyed it a great deal, and I personally believe that satire is an extremely important tool in society. But you can't allow one thing to be satirised, but put another off limits. Free speech isn't meant to work that way.

Edit - I'd also like to point out something I missed saying, now I've thoguht about it - 'extremist' != Muslim/Islam. Terrorist != Muslim/Islam. The vast majority of Muslims are like the majority of Christians - those Christians who view Jerry Springer - The Opera as a piece of satire, offensive perhaps, but are not offended by it. As always, it's the small vocal minority who 'ruin it for the rest of us'. But when those 'vocal minority' begin to dictate government policy, as has apparently happened in Sudan, or begin to make other countries repress their own freedom of speech? That's when we have to realise - it's not 'just another country' It could happen here.

I vote we build a rocket and go an live on Mars. Who's with me?

[1] pun not intended. sorry.



This was very much a stream of conciousness post - trying to get all of these thoughts circling around my head OUT of my head into some sort of coherent order. If you disagree, or can see a way of saying what I've said in fewer words, by all means, say here. I welcome debate as always. Free Speech is allowed on my Journal ;)

Comments

[angel-emma.livejournal.com]

I'm a little confused as this morning I heard on the news that "The teacher allowed her pupils to name the bear" and "The teacher named the bear". Not that it makes any difference IMO.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

She let the pupils (key stage 1) name the bear. She wanted to call the bear something else. When the children chose Mohammed, she wrote to all the parents to inform them. None of them, apparently, had a problem with it. This is what I've read, anyway. The idea was each child takes the bear home for one visit, and writes a 'diary' for the bear of what the visit was like - who he meets, what he has for dinner, where he sleeps and so on. It's a really great idea, and teaches a whole bunch of skills to the kids.

After just a few visits, she decided perhaps Mohammed shouldn't be going home with the kids, and maybe a different toy should. So she wrote again to the parents explaining this. This was in August/September.

It was only recently they had 'visits' from the authorities who weren't happy about the story above told by the school and by the teacher. She was then arrested, and interrogated for 5 hours.

I'll see if I can find the article about it - which was admittedly written by a friend of hers.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

i could be mistaken, but i think i recall seeing something about the actuall offence not being the naming of the bear, but the fact she put posters up about it, but i might well have dreamed that as my dreams of late have been most odd and very lucid (i had one the other night about being chased round a lake with the Kooks by a 6 foot newt which turned out to be a crocodile)

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

here you are

[miss-kat.livejournal.com]

i think any religion that cant poke fun of itself is dangerous.
I think religion is also dangerous as the beliefs are based on something that they can never prove.
Those clerics think its an attack against islam, religion has obviously turned them crazy. Read scepticism inc by bo fowler, that book is excellent and funny and quite appropriate
you could say im extreme anti religion ;)

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

any religion that cant poke fun of itself is dangerous

Spot on!

[blu-matt.livejournal.com]

Any religion that exempt itself from criticism is even more so.

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

i would like to live on mars please. the earth has become too silly.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

you'd be quite suprised just how extreme the church of england can be, it's been eye opening having a member of the family in the church, vicars regularly get death threats, their tyres slashed and there was something in the papers this morning about a woman vicar being fire bombed... And this is all by their own parishoners.

although that said, the teddy bear woman was let off as lightly as possible IMO, and she was guilty of at least one thing, extreme naivety going to a country with one of the most extreme versions of sharia law where they really do not like the british (there was a very interesting documentary the other week about modern Islamic extremeism having it's roots in the rebellion against british rule there.)People really should do their homework better before going off to other countries to 'help' them.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

She did get a light sentence, and from what I've read, lashes is the most serious one she could have been given, and was less likely than the media reported here (good old fearmongering)

You kind of missed my point though - that it's NOT just 'over there' that this is a rule - the insulting the prophet thing is a religious thing, not a country thing. Just look at the furore over the Dutch comics. It COULD happen here, within our incitement to religious hatred laws, and this teacher DID go a fair way towards trying to work out if it was offensive, not using the bear after a few visits after other teachers suggested it was a bad idea.

If a UK newspaper had published those comics we would potentially have had a similar courtcase. The only difference is we don't have such frightening punishments.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

the blasphemy laws here are toothless though, and the modern laws would not cover this kind of thing as it's not actually incitement to religious hatred. Publishing the cartoons here would have cause outrage to Muslims, but it's not inciting anyone to hate them and only the responses would have been against the law (as clearly shown by the people prosecutes) I think we have it about right here TBH, although i think the law needs to be wider and take in scope for incitement to hatred full stop, because although we do believe in free speech, people should learn that words and actions have consequences.

Although it's interesting that the laws have only really been used to prosecute Muslims when a large proportion of the british tabloid press has been guilty of blatent Islamaphobia for a long time.

[gurlesque.livejournal.com]

Although it's interesting that the laws have only really been used to prosecute Muslims when a large proportion of the british tabloid press has been guilty of blatent Islamaphobia for a long time.

I have some half-formed thought in my head about it being useful that the media/government keep us in a state of terrorist fear and maybe the 'oh we can't do that, the muslims will get mad. Think of all the terrible scary things they could do' is just part of the 'see you must give up your civil rights so we can protect you from these extremeist' propaganda.

but yeh, still half-formed and not very well thought through.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point - i was skating close to it, but like you, don't really know how to put it into coherence.

The number of people blatantly missing my point here (the stupid British woman should have known the rules comments) indicate that I was not as coherent in my post as I would like to have been!

[kirstenlj.livejournal.com]

It COULD happen here, within our incitement to religious hatred laws
Breaking the law and the CPS deciding to go ahead with a case are two very different things. Why would the CPS bring a case against newspapers for publishing those cartoons? The only time they would do that is if there was political reason to, which is exactly what the teddy bear case is about. The Sudanese used her to appease Islamic fundamentalists in the country after they allowed a peacekeeping force into the country and to distract the world's attention from Darfur.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

The possibility that there would be a reason to exists here and now - and I think probably WOULD have happened. If that threat wasn't very very real and likely, the newspapers WOULD have published.

[glamgothruthy.livejournal.com]

what scares me is ben and his family used to live in sudan, i think the massive press coverage on this - compaired to the hardly mentioned mass genocide (bigger than the holocust) that happened out there - is aborent

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Scary, isn't it?

Darfur barely makes page 3. Teacher gets in trouble because her children named a teddy bear? front page news EVERYWHERE.

[chromenewt.livejournal.com]

Ah, but put it into context: people slaughter other people all the time on varying scales but it's REALLY unusual that a person (regardless of nationality) has a chance of recieving the lash for a class naming a teddy bear. Look at our reactions and our disbelief, whereas when the genocide happened we were shocked but not surprised.

[kirstenlj.livejournal.com]

Jerry Springer - The Opera carries on in the face of opposition from the Christians
But it doesn't. Christian Voice, the group who keeps on about Jerry Springer The Opera, is a tiny group that mainstream Christian churches completely distance themselves from.

You are right though that people take the piss out of Christianity because Christians do not react in the same way as other religions, but I think the majority of Christians in this country are pro freedom of speech. I know my mother and Paul attended protests against the introduction of the racial hatred laws.


What irritates me about this case is that it is yet another British person going to a foreign country, going about their business the way they would here, getting into trouble and then hoping to be treated with British values. Sudan is under Sharia law and has an acrimonious history with Britain. She made herself a target and has thus been used to make a political, not religious, point and will be sent home, relatively unscathed, in two weeks time.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

this reminds me of the whole issue of British citizens smuggling drugs abroad and then the country getting up in arms when they get sentenced to death or put in a hell hole prison and demanding the foreign office get them off or at least get them sent home because British people shouldn't be treated like those foreign types.

[blu-matt.livejournal.com]

You are right though that people take the piss out of Christianity because Christians do not react in the same way as other religions...

Oddly enough, people like me take the piss out of it because it claims so much yet demonstrates so little. I also take the piss out of islam, scientology, judaism, wicca and the rest for exactly the same reasons.

The jains, however, I think are kinda sweet.

[kirstenlj.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, people like me take the piss out of it because it claims so much yet demonstrates so little. I also take the piss out of islam, scientology, judaism, wicca and the rest for exactly the same reasons.
Fair enough, what I was referring to was people who take the piss out of Christianity when they wouldn't do the same to another religion. Treating religions differently, in other words. That is what Emmie's post is about rather than 'Why do people ridicule religion in general?'

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

It was also about why people should take notice of the extent to which some extremeists take 'offence to the prophet' and make political examples of people - and that is why we should not be saying 'she should have known better'. The point is, she DID know better, she did all she could to make sure it was ok, including not using that bear any longer. She was arrested for EVER having done it in the first place, even after she tried to rectify it.

It should be seen in the same light as the Dutch comic, and NOT in the same light as those stupid girls with the drugs (we never dun nuffin) - those two cases are not comparable.

[kirstenlj.livejournal.com]

It was also about ...
Yes, I realise that. I was referring to the context of specific comment I made.

why people should take notice of the extent to which some extremeists take 'offence to the prophet' and make political examples of people
I think people do notice. Unfortunately, a lot of population will read it as it is reported and use it as a reason to justify islamophobia and racism which is just what the extremists want.

and that is why we should not be saying 'she should have known better'. The point is, she DID know better, she did all she could to make sure it was ok, including not using that bear any longer. She was arrested for EVER having done it in the first place, even after she tried to rectify it.
But of course she was ... because she was a scapegoat used by the Sudanese government to make a political point and because this case wasn't about what she did. It doesn't matter whether she called a bear Mohammed or whether she picked her nose within a mile of a mosque; she was in the wrong place at a convenient time. I think it's naive to go to places like Sudan and to not realise that things like this might happen though.

and NOT in the same light as those stupid girls with the drugs (we never dun nuffin) - those two cases are not comparable
I didn't compare them.

[medusa-nw.livejournal.com]

Danish, not Dutch...

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Sorry! I always get that wrong!!

[medusa-nw.livejournal.com]

Loads of people do. :-)

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I wrote it in haste, and in an attempt to get the words out.

That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

[pygar.livejournal.com]

i have a homosexual teddy named Satan..... i am besiged daily by irate devil worshipers.

;0)

[darkapotheosis.livejournal.com]

"Nobody is stoning anyone around here until I say so! Even if they did say Jehovah!"

I wrote out a massive post about this subject but decided I couldn't be bothered with the arguments it would cause. I mean I don't know about the extremist/muslim issue within it all I see is someone who has been a victim of their own ignorance. If she had just been a tourist passing through then by all means I would think injustice. My issue is that she's in the country teaching, children and didn't bother to learn the customs of the people whose country she was in. Whether I think the punishment or crime is ridiculous or unreasonable is neither here or there. The point is it is a different country with different customs and learning those customs before travelling there especially to work should be a basic lesson. If nothing else this should highlight to people working in other countries that observing of other people's cultures is of primary importance if you intend to be staying for any length of time in their country. Mind you that's my stream of conciousness on the subject ;)

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Leaving aside the point that she DID know (read up about it), you are saying we should observe the customs of a country, whatever they are, yes?

This country can sentence a woman to 100 lashes for being raped. If she is single, she is sinning because she has had sex out of marriage. If she's married, she is sinning because she's committed adultery.

This is if she's RAPED. If she's pregant, that's even worse for her.

Ignoring the fact the teacher didn't chose the name, her children did, that all the parents were informed, and that the bear was 'retired' soon after and a different toy used. Ignoring all of that. HOW can yo justify the way a country treats women, by saying 'that's just what they do there'??

[darkapotheosis.livejournal.com]

God no I'm not saying I agree, condone or in any way think it's right (yes I didn't read up on it properly) however the angle from which I'm looking at it isn't about right and wrong it's about personal safety and having all the facts. For example I wouldn't walk willingly into a serial killers house alone naked covered in BBQ sauce, equally if I did I wouldn't be surprised to find myself crispy fried. If you put yourself in a risky situation thats the risk you take. If you join the army you should expect that sooner or later someone is going to shoot at you. All that being said I really haven't read enough about the situation to comment on it which is why I initially avoided wading into it on my journal. ;)

[jonnytuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have a friend working in Dafur at the moment on a year's attatchment with the UN. He's been putting pictures up on facebook that have been pretty interesting.
By the way, isn't it considered un-islamic to have images or effigies of people or animals?
The teddy bear is a big no no anyway.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Yes, a fair number of people have made this point as well. It's a very good one.

The people saying 'she went to another country, she should have known the rules' are missing the fundamental points of the case:

* the CHILDREN named the teddy bear, not her.
* She wrote to all the parents asking if this was ok
* all the parents were fine with it

It's NOT a case of 'stupid english person doesn't know the rules, by any means. It's a case of an example being made, as a threat to freedom of speech, and that is why it worries me - and it worries me that people are shrugging it off as a 'she should have known better' thing.

It is much more serious than that.

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

I cannot some up my reaction to this Sudan bear thign without swearing and exhaling a lot. Coherent sentences simply aren't appropriate.

-x-

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

The number of people I respect saying 'she should have known better' is astounding to me.

I can only assume they've not read enough about the case.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

IMHO, I'm impressed by the Sudanese judiciary over this one. They're in an impossible position, some sort of in-school politics has got out of hand and they've a substantial number of their own population on a crazy-nutter hair-trigger to riot at the slighest instruction that they ought to be offended. In the end, they've skated as close as they could to doing nothing about it, without giving their own population the excuse to take offence.

Nothing of this is about any sort or religious or racial hatred.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, for once!

[camillastar.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree it's a political move. They, as far as I can see, just don't like the West and have been looking for an excuse to target the school. The teacher on one hand was really, really dim. You just don't do anything like that in a country with strong Sharia law who don't like women anyway. But then, most of the boys in her class were called Mohammed and by all accounts they wanted the bear named after them.
I remember my out-laws going loopy over the cartoon thing and thinking what idiots, they hadn't even seen it.
I'd like to come to Mars but only when they build a Starbucks for that is a sure sign of civilisation.

[missfrost.livejournal.com]

I personally think the only 'incitement to racial hatred' here is being caused by the Imams of Sudan. British muslims are generally as appalled as British non-Muslims - and I use that phraseology carefully as I'm led to understand Islam is not 'colour' biased.
I think it was a genuine cultural faux pas, but it only convinces me, personally, that religion is something left back in the dark ages.

[blu-matt.livejournal.com]

One point re incitement to racial hatred: race != religion, regardless of the skin colour of the adherent.

Your observation re christians being nothing but cup-of-tea-and-a-cake let's-have-a-jolly-sit-down religionists is fine and, for the most part, accurate. However, that doesn't stop certain representatives using an implied veiled threat when they say things like "you wouldn't say that about Mohammed" when they think that their beliefs deserve respect, no matter how asinine or unproven, from those of us who don't share them.

Muslims have been known to carry out major acts of violence for preceived insults, whether it was intentional or not, or, in the case of Sudan, actual or not. Christians on the whole are not likely to carry out such acts, although they're not by any means innocent of such.

And, as I commented on the BBC's site, anyone over here that's bitching about Sudan's laws, and not doing the same here about our own blasphemy laws, is a fucking hypocrite. The differences in punishment are immaterial, when the "crime" is complete bollocks in the first instance.

/soapbox

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that last paragraph.

It's something that has been REALLY bugging me. This whole post really waa inspired by the number of people putting it down to 'stupid traveller in another country' - when this time, it is anything but.

[blu-matt.livejournal.com]

TBH, I think there's a small element of that, but then I'm not the sort of person to go somewhere alien and not make the effort to find out what sort of weirdness afflicts them. At the same time, I despise their acceptance of magical thinking: that way lies bigotry, violence and madness.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Ad thank you for the race!=religion thing, I need to edit that - that was an error made in my haste to finish this before my advanced Access training!!

[blu-matt.livejournal.com]

I presumed it was, but just in case, and all that! :-)

[ashbet]

I wish they'd just expelled the woman instead of putting her in jail and threatening her with the lash . . . especially since it was obviously a very *innocent* (if naive) act, and one that she tried to rectify in short order. Since the children named the bear, that should count as a point in her favor :/

We do have violent Christian extremists over here, FWIW -- talk about not adhering to the tenets of Jesus!! They're very Old Testament, unfortunately -- these are the types who murder doctors who perform abortions, among other things.

*ugh*

*packs up friends, joins you on Mars*

-- A :/