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December 5, 2007

Sudan/UK: When Islam And Stuffed Fluffy Toys Collide

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

When Islam And Stuffed Fluffy Toys Collide

When British woman Gillian Gibbons went to Sudan this summer, she had no idea that she would become imprisoned, accused of insulting Islam. Her case would be discussed in the world's media while Sudanese Islamists called for her death. The 54-year old teacher from Liverpool had signed up to teach at a school called Unity, situated on the outskirts of Khartoum.

Unity High School had been founded in 1902 with the aims of teaching a British educational curriculum. It provides students aged 4 to 14 "whatever their gender, nationality, religion or ethnic origin, with an education of the highest quality". Gillian joined the staff of the school in August of this year, following a painful divorce from her husband Peter 8 months earlier. She expected to be employed at Unity High School for two years. She lived in a house within the grounds of the school.

Gillian Gibbons' mistake was to introduce to her class of seven-year olds a geography project which is based around a fictional character called Barnaby Bear. Barnaby is a teddy bear, who travels around the world, and his fictional experiences help young children to learn about the countries he visits. The Barnaby Bear project is endorsed by several schools in Britain as a teaching aid, and a stuffed bear is used as a prop in these classes.

Ms Gibbons' pupils could not pronounce Barnaby's name easily, so she decided to ask them to decide an alternative name. The children voted to name the bear "Mohammed" after one of the boys in the class. The boy said: "The teacher asked me what I wanted to call the teddy. I said Mohammed. I named it after my name."

On Sunday, November 25, Ms Gibbons was arrested. The director of the school, Robert Boulos, said: "They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad. Then she explained what it meant to vote and asked them to choose the name."

The Sudanese Ministry of Education claimed that several parents had complained to the school. Gillian Gibbons was taken to a police station, where a group of Sudanese Muslims gathered. Fearing violence, Robert Boulos closed the school, announcing that it would reopen in January.

Initially it was believed that the charges against Ms Gibbons would include blasphemy. This could have invoked a penalty of six months in jail and/or 40 lashes. Eventually, it was announced that she would be charged under Article 125 of Sudan's penal code, "insulting or degrading religion", though government officials hinted that she could additionally face more serious charges, such as sedition.

Azhari Tigani, Sudanese Minister of Religious Affairs, was apparently unhappy that Ms Gibbons had been arrested without a prior formal case being made against her.

On Thursday November 29, Gillian Gibbons appeared in court in Khartoum, and was sentenced to 15 days in jail and deportation. The director of Unity High School stated: "It's a very fair verdict, she could have had six months and lashes and a fine, and she only got 15 days and deportation." Robert Boulos had already terminated Ms Gibbons' contract before her court appearance.

The situation caused a problem for Britain's Foreign Office. News of Ms Gibbons' arrest had been reported in the British media, but before the trial her case had became a leading headline in newspapers and television reports. At home, shock turned to outrage, yet the government appeared to be doing little. Consular officials had visited Ms Gibbons from the time of her arrest, but there was no official condemnation of Sudan or its leader, Omar al-Bashir.

Since 2001 and 2006, Britain has provided more than $800 million in aid to Sudan, mostly for victims of Bashir's policies. Bashir came to power in a 1989 coup. In 1991 his imposition of sharia law upon non-Muslims in the south triggered a decade-long war that killed 2 million people. Sharia law has been in place in Sudan since 1983.

On the day before the trial Gordon Brown, mired in a funding scandal, said: "We have been in contact with the Sudanese police authorities and the Sudanese government to make sure that we can ascertain that she is safe and well and to clarify the position so that she can be released soon."

After the Thursday verdict, Britain's Foreign Secretary, David Miliband expressed his concerns to Ms Gibbon's two grown-up offspring, Jessica, 27, and John, 25. Miliband claimed that the Foreign Office was doing all it could to help gain her release. In Liverpool, on the iron gates outside Garston Primary School, where Gillian Gibbons had earlier taught, friends and supporters tied yellow ribbons.

With newspapers, radio and TV making the story of Ms Gibbons' plight a focus of attention, Britain's Muslim spokespeople appeared alarmed by the "negative publicity" that the case was bringing to their faith.

As a consequence, members of the Muslim Council of Britain, more used to condemning perceived insults against Islam, spoke on British television in Ms Gibbons' defense. Inayat Bunglawala, who had previously praised terrorists such as Omar Abdel-Rahman and Osama bin Laden argued with Sudan's ambassador to Britain, Omer Siddig, that Ms Gibbons was not intending to insult Islam. Bunglawala and others from the MCB had previously denounced the images of Mohammed produced by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

Even the head of the curiously-named "Islamic Human Rights Commission" (IHRC) spoke in Ms Gibbons' defense. Mahmoud Shadrajeh said at the time of her trial: "Both the Sudanese government and the media must refrain from using Islam and Islamic principles to legitimize this fiasco, which may result in the unjust conviction of an innocent person, and which will only lead to the promotion of Islamophobia and further demonisation of Islam."

Shadrajeh openly supports the terrorists of Hizbollah, and the IHRC has as one of its advisers Dr Muhammad al-Massari who also supports terrorism. The case of a well-meaning middle-aged teacher being jailed and threatened with lashes over a teddy bear was seen as too damaging to IHRC's Islamist agenda to be ignored.

Other Muslim groups, such as MPACUK, the Ramadhan Foundation and the Federation of Islamic Student Societies, joined the condemnation of the treatment of the mild-mannered schoolteacher.

The case seemed to any non-Muslim to be unjust, barbaric and inappropriate, and was certainly a topic of heated conversation. When I mentioned the issue to two local taxi drivers, the air went blue with their expletives and curses. Naming a bear "Mohammed" seemed innocent, considering people called Mohammed are in jails around the world for committing appalling crimes.

Saira Khan, a moderate Muslim woman and minor media celebrity wrote in the Daily Mail newspaper: "For a start, if we are searching for people who have truly disrespected the faith, how about men like Mohammed Siddique Khan, the July 7 suicide bomber, or Mohammed Atta, the leader of the attack on the World Trade Centre? It is Mohammeds like these, with their barbaric acts of murderous violence, who have brought the greatest shame on the name of our beloved Prophet, not some child's teddy bear."

The situation grew more serious for Ms Gibbons on Friday, November 30. Thousands of Muslims gathered for a rally in Martyrs Square, Khartoum, protesting against the leniency of the sentence against her. Two Muslim clerics were responsible for inspiring anger. Sheikh Abdul Jalil Karuri at central Martyr's Mosque, maintained that the teacher had deliberately named the bear after the prophet of Islam. Another hardline cleric, Hussain Mubarak, told worshippers at Khartoum's Al-Safa mosque: "Why did this teacher come to Sudan? She surely didn't need to emigrate from her country for the money? So she came for another reason..."

The demonstrators were assembled by the Committee of Ulemas and the Partisans of the Prophet and other religious groups. They called for the death by firing squad of Ms Gibbons. Some carried guns, sticks and machetes. There were cries of "Shame on the U.K.," "Those who insult the Prophet of Islam should be punished with bullets." Protesters marched past the Unity High School. In the evening, after the crowd had dispersed, another group, with some members on horseback, surrounded the British Embassy in Khartoum. For her own safety, Ms Gibbons was taken to a secret location.

Two Muslim members of Parliament's upper house, Baroness Warsi and Lord Ahmed had gone to Sudan and visited Ms Gibbons, but had to wait two days before they could meet President Bashir. Whether they went as emissaries of the government or as representatives of the British Muslim community is not known. The peers have claimed that they had acted on their own initiative.

Over the weekend, they met Bashir, and engaged in extensive talks. On Monday, Bashir announced that he had issued a pardon. for Ms Gibbons. The teacher flew back on Monday night with the two Muslim peers who had secured her release. She arrived at Heathrow around 7 am, and flanked by her son and daughter and the two Muslim peers, she gave a press conference.

Gillian Gibbons said: "I am very sorry to leave Sudan. I had a fabulous time. It is a beautiful place and I had a chance to see some of the countryside. The Sudanese people I found to be extremely kind and generous and until this happened I only had a good experience."

She had flown overnight via Dubai to reach London. She said she was tired, and had slept for most of the flight, though she retained a sense of humor. She said: "I wouldn't like it to put anybody off going to Sudan. And in fact I know of a lovely school [Unity] that needs a new tier two teacher."

"Could anyone ever imagine that this would happen? I'm just an ordinary middle-aged primary school teacher. I went out there to have a bit of an adventure, and got a bit more of an adventure than I'd bargained for. I don't think anyone could have imagined that it would have snowballed like this."

Lord Ahmed said: "There were very clear divisions in the government. There were those hardliners who wanted a retrial, in fact their newspaper headline said 'Shoot this woman'. "

Baroness Warsi stated: "From a situation where we were asking for a lady to be released early, we were faced with a situation where there were calls for a retrial and possibly a much tougher, severe sentence."

Ms Gibbons added: "I'm looking for a job, because I'm jobless." She laughed, and continued: "So.. my main immediate plans are to spend Christmas with my family, and then very seriously look for employment."

On BBC TV news Frank Gardner, security correspondent for the BBC, said that the issue had been frustrating for the Foreign Office, as it was not through their actions, but through the mediation of two Muslim peers, that Ms Gibbons had been released. He said: "This was the way the Sudanese government wanted a way out of this. This wasn't just a rescue mission for Gillian Gibbons, it was also actually perversely a rescue mission for the Sudanese government, which had seen this situation spiral out of control."

Gardner continued: "Once she got charged, things picked up a momentum of their own and relations - things weren't going very well in relations between the Foreign Office and the Sudanese government. So I think two governments were relieved - Britain's and Sudan's."

The Daily Telegraph published editorials which condemned both the Sudanese government and the British Foreign Office. In one editorial, the Telegraph claimed: "These are not normal times for Labour, however, and the Government has hesitated over whether it should do anything to try to ensure Mrs Gibbons's immediate release. That hesitation has created the impression that the scandal over Labour Party funding has paralysed ministers..."

"...The "outrage" directed against the harmless Mrs Gibbons in Khartoum has been stirred up by elements in the Sudanese administration, which has done nothing to dispel the ludicrous rumours circulating in Khartoum about her conduct. Once Mrs Gibbons has been released from her captivity, however, the Foreign Office must think seriously about effective ways to curb the excesses of the appalling Sudanese government, which has presided over the genocide in Darfur, and has behaved abysmally to its own citizens as well as to an innocent British teacher."

An editorial from Tuesday stated: "For Sudan to be able defiantly to humiliate a major democratic nation from which it receives large amounts of aid by holding one of its citizens to ransom speaks of the impunity with which it believes it can operate in the world."

Sudan under Bashir has never operated as a state founded on justice. Foreigners are exploited as propaganda tools by the government, imprisoned under dubious circumstances and then released in "goodwill gestures". In September 2006, American journalist Paul Salopek was freed after being imprisoned for a month. A week before Salopek's release, a Slovenian diplomat was freed. In July 2006, 52-year old Tomo Kriznar was arrested and accused of spying. He was given a two-year jail sentence, but was freed after Omar al-Bashir granted him a pardon.

In a country which has engaged in what is essentially a religious war against non-Muslim citizens in the south, extremist Islam is a unifying factor. On September 6, 2006, Sudanese editor and journalist Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed was found beheaded on a dirt road, apparently killed by Islamists. In 2005, he had been accused of blasphemy.

Sudan's president uses Islamism to unite some elements in his country. He has given sanctuary to terrorists. Between 1991 and 1996, Osama bin Laden was a guest of Bashir's then political mentor, Hassan al-Turabi. Carlos the Jackal, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, lived in Khartoum from 1991 to 1996. The Janjawid Arab militia allied to his government have since 2003 slaughtered 300,000 civilians in Darfur. During the 1990s, Dinka and Shilluk tribespeople in the south were butchered or sold into slavery. Bashir has consistently blocked attempts to bring in peacekeeping troops - including those from the United Nations and the African Union - to provide relief in Darfur.

When Gordon Brown took control of Britain's government earlier this year, one of his first acts was to join with French President Nicolas Sarkozy to raise the issue of Darfur in the United Nations. It appears that the decision to have Gillian Gibbons arrested was a cynical ploy to "punish" the British government for this act.

Muslim spokespeople in Britain have been finally forced to reappraise their positions. After the global riots against the Danish cartoons of Mohammed which took place in February 2006, which had been stirred up by Islamists, these spokespeople could only ally themselves with the rioters and critics. After the speech on September 12, 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI, there were more riots and protests, and British Muslim spokespeople did not condemn the reactions.

Only now, when an innocent and well-meaning schoolteacher came close to receiving lashes for "offending Islam", did these spokespeople realise that their own previous defense of the indefensible has made people become convinced that their intolerant and strident form of Islam is incompatible with Western democratic values.

British Muslim leaders like Iqbal Sacranie have supported Osama bin Laden and attended memorial services for Sheikh Yassin, the founder of terrorist group Hamas. In 1989, Sacranie supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. Even this year, Lord Ahmed, who helped to secure the release of Ms Gibbons, claimed that he was "appalled" that Britain had given Salman Rushdie a knighthood.

The current leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, has entertained anti-Semitic bigots such as Sheikh Abdur-Rahman al-Sudeis, the imam of the Grand Mosque at Mecca. Dr Bari has also entertained Delwar Hossain Sayeedi of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, who has celebrated the deaths of American and British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

For the past six years, the Muslim Council of Britain has refused to attend the commemoration of the Shoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. Such actions have been widely deemed as being anti-Semitic. Finally, at the weekend, the MCB decided by a vote of 18 to 8 to end the boycott. A spokesman claimed the reason was because "staying away was doing more harm than good and being misconstrued." Iqbal Sacranie, who had previously supported the boycott of the event, said: "There are voices who have been attacking us from day one and trying to misconstrue our nonparticipation as anti-Semitism."

Gillian Gibbons intended no wrong when she called a teddy bear "Mohammed". The issue has inspired equal amounts of ridicule and condemnation of those who wished to have her punished.

Though her jailing has done nothing to assist the unfortunate civilians in Sudan, the actions of the Sudanese government have finally forced even terror-supporting Muslim spokespeople to finally acknowledge that if they want to retain any credibility with the British public, they must take a stand against intolerance. Too often, they have condemned the West for its "Islamophobia" and have made little attempt to set their own house in order. If the Gillian Gibbons affair has produced anything positive, it is to remind such fanatical supporters of all things Islamic that a balance must be struck. Stridency, constant whining and intolerance of freedom of speech does not win any support from the general public.

Adrian Morgan

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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 5, 2007 7:18 AM

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