I Can’t Keep Quiet November 30, 2007 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy

So, get this, a woman asks her students to name a teddy bear and they choose the name Muhammad, one of the most popular names in the world, and people then suddenly assume that she’s mocking their prophet, throw her in prison for 15 days (thankfully, she avoids the 40 lashes with a whip), and now Sudanese men are calling for her death.

Never you mind that this woman was there to help these children learn.  Never you mind that it was the children who chose the name, not her.  Never you mind that Christians quite frequently name their children Jesus, that Jews are often named Moshe (the Hebrew spelling of Moses).

It’s now time for all moderate Muslims in the world to stand up and speak their minds.  They need to say that teacher Gillian Gibbons at worst misunderstood a culture and meant no disrespect to their faith or their prophet, that in her culture it was clearly understood that the naming of the teddy bear was not meant as derogatory, and that the Sudanese government needs to get this woman out of harms way as fast and as quietly as possible.  It is unacceptable in this day and age that anyone can shout “murder” as an appropriate response to an insult, especially an unintentional one.