If you happened to come in on the middle of a news report and saw an angry club- and knife-wielding mob of thousands in a city somewhere and they were chanting “No tolerance: Execution” and “Kill her, kill her by firing squad,” and you knew absolutely nothing about the circumstances, what would you think? You would probably, and rightly, be quite puzzled.
But then if you heard that the woman in question was British and that her alleged crime was allowing her seven-year-old Sudanese pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed, the revelation would be instantaneous. Of course, sure, now I get it. It’s just another case of fanatical Muslims choosing to be grossly offended over a meaningless trifle and demanding the death of an infidel.
The scene is Khartoum, Sudan, but it could have been almost anywhere in the Islamic world. The specific charges were insulting Islam, inciting hatred (Huh?!) and showing contempt for religious beliefs. For that, Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old British woman who teaches in Sudan, was facing 40 lashes, a year in jail and a fine. After a trial, which may have been influenced by escalating international tensions, she was sentenced to 15 days in prison, after which she would be deported. Call it Islamic leniency.
Mrs. Gibbons moved to Khartoum in August to fulfill her dream of teaching abroad after her marriage fell apart. Hey, everybody deserves to follow their dreams, but one has to question Gibbons’ judgment in choosing as her foreign destination a backward, barbaric, Islam-dominated basket-case of a country where civil wars have raged for much of the time since its independence from the U.K. in 1956 and which contains the hapless, genocide-racked region of Darfur.
But however questionable her judgment, she didn’t deserve what she got. Nonetheless, apparently typical of Islamic opinion was a message preached during a Friday sermon by Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karouri:
“This is an arrogant woman who came to our country, cashing her salary in dollars, teaching our children hatred of the Prophet Muhammad. Imprisoning this lady does not satisfy the thirst of Muslims in Sudan.”
I don’t know about “thirst,” but it certainly doesn’t satisfy their blood lust for doing grievous bodily harm to an uppity infidel who, at worst, committed a cultural faux pas.
Another example of deep intellectual thought emanating from an Islamic-influenced brain appeared on leaflets that were being distributed outside Khartoum’s Great Mosque:
“What has been done by this infidel lady is considered a matter of contempt and an insult to Muslims’ feelings and also the pollution of children’s mentality as an attempt to wipe their identity.”
“Pollution of children’s mentality?” What could be more polluting to a child’s mind than radical Islam? Because of the noxious tentacles of radical Islam, most Sudanese children will have an almost zero chance of a decent life. What has happened to Gillain Gibbons is bad enough, but the larger, almost inconceivable tragedy is all the lives wasted to such fanaticism.
Greg Strange provides conservative commentary with plenty of acerbic wit on the people, politics, events and absurdities of our time. See more at his website: http://www.greg-strange.com/.
