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QatarChic
Joined: 06 May 2005
Posts: 445
Location: Qatar
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 Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:35 am Post subject: |
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| Stephen Jones wrote: |
| Sounds like somebody with an agenda stirring things up. |
Exactly. Makes even more sense considering this was reported to the police two months after this incident took place.
I'd like to see the Sudanese government focus on more important things, like Darfur. |
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The_Prodiigy
Joined: 01 Apr 2006
Posts: 252
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:06 am Post subject: |
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| jwbhomer wrote: |
| say, someone visiting from Pakistan or Iran -- allowed her class to name a teddybear "Jesus". What do you suppose the reaction would be? |
Indifference. |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:41 pm Post subject: |
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Strangely enough, I have taught in a Latin American classroom that had a "mascot," who was a bear named "Jes�s."
Since there were also 3 kids in the class named Jes�s, and many artistic representations of the son of God, as he is known, on the walls, it didn't seem at all weird.
Best,
Justin |
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lall
Joined: 30 Dec 2006
Posts: 358
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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jwbhomer wrote:
say, someone visiting from Pakistan or Iran -- allowed her class to name a teddybear "Jesus". What do you suppose the reaction would be?
Indifference. |
Indifference? Not really, if it was against the law (Remember, Sudan follows Islamic law) and was against tradition, as well.
I suspect that naming a child, "Jesus", (leave alone a teddybear) wouldn't have gone down well in Victorian England.
Check out Justin's post. It's acceptable to name a child, "Jesus" in Latin America. It isn't so in India whereas it is acceptable in the Phillipines.
It's acceptable to name a child, "Mohamed", but is unacceptable to name an inanimate object, "Mohamed". This is quite commonly known. I'm surprised that the teacher was unaware of the same. |
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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The question is certainly not clear, and open to interpretation even in Islamic circles.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7115821.stm
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Ibrahim Mogra, chairman of the interfaith Muslim Public Affairs Committee and an imam in Leicester, says the name should be reserved for boys. "Some of us believe we are assured of heaven if we name our children Muhammad."
But he says it's ridiculous that Ms Gibbons is being punished for a "miscalculation".
"If someone clearly intends to insult and cause offence with a toy in the form of a pig, for example, and someone knowingly and intentionally names it Muhammad, we know exactly where they're going with it - the idea is to cause offence. If it's just a miscalculation, we don't need to go overboard."
Dilwar Hussain, of the Islamic Foundation, has no problem with a teddy bear called Muhammad. For some years, the Islamic Society sold a soft toy made for British Muslim children named Adam the Prayer Bear. "Adam is also the name of a Prophet." |
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coffeedrinker
Joined: 30 Jul 2006
Posts: 149
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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(quoting no one in particular but the making of comparisons generally)
...but what if it happened in a conservative religious English speaking country, and in an international school which used Arabic as a medium of instruction, with teachers from Arabic-speaking countries as professors? Would people get upset then?
Oh, that's right, there are no Arabic language schools in conservative religious English speaking countries (are there?), and I heard a news report that when one was proposed in New York, many people protested, worried that it would teach fundamentalism.
My personal opinion is that I would prefer not to live and work in a country where such serious consequences could come from naming a toy. I'm not saying this situation is great. I do feel bad for this teacher.
And I do agree it is good to point out as Guy Courchesne did above that not every Islamic leader thinks such a reaction is appropriate either. But I think given some of the prejudices that happen today it is fair to avoid drawing simple comparisons that effectively say "we're so normal and they are not". |
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dixie
Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 644
Location: D.F
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| Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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Seems as though the "storm in a teacup" has been released from its confines...
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Earlier, the Sudanese Embassy in London said the situation was a "storm in a teacup" and signalled that the teacher could be released soon, attributing the incident to a cultural misunderstanding.
But Sudan's top clerics have called for the full measure of the law to be used against Mrs Gibbons and labelled her actions part of a Western plot against Islam.
"What has happened was not haphazard or carried out of ignorance, but rather a calculated action and another ring in the circles of plotting against Islam," the Sudanese Assembly of the Ulemas said in a statement.
The semi-official clerics body is considered relatively moderate and is believed to have the ear of the Sudanese government. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7117430.stm |
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rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 2:12 am Post subject: |
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| coffeedrinker wrote: |
(quoting no one in particular but the making of comparisons generally)
...but what if it happened in a conservative religious English speaking country, and in an international school which used Arabic as a medium of instruction, with teachers from Arabic-speaking countries as professors? Would people get upset then?
Oh, that's right, there are no Arabic language schools in conservative religious English speaking countries (are there?), and I heard a news report that when one was proposed in New York, many people protested, worried that it would teach fundamentalism.
My personal opinion is that I would prefer not to live and work in a country where such serious consequences could come from naming a toy. I'm not saying this situation is great. I do feel bad for this teacher.
And I do agree it is good to point out as Guy Courchesne did above that not every Islamic leader thinks such a reaction is appropriate either. But I think given some of the prejudices that happen today it is fair to avoid drawing simple comparisons that effectively say "we're so normal and they are not". |
Agree on not drawing simple comparisons. On prejudice:
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Some people do not like the word "dogma." Fortunately they are free, and there is an alternative for them. There are two things, and two things only, for the human mind, a dogma and a prejudice. The Middle Ages were a rational epoch, an age of doctrine. Our age is, at its best, a poetical epoch, an age of prejudice. A doctrine is a definite point; a prejudice is a direction. That an ox may be eaten, while a man should not be eaten, is a doctrine. That as little as possible of anything should be eaten is a prejudice; which is also sometimes called an ideal.
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The essential of the difference is this: that prejudices are divergent, whereas creeds are always in collision. Believers bump into each other; whereas bigots keep out of each other's way. A creed is a collective thing, and even its sins are sociable. A prejudice is a private thing, and even its tolerance is misanthropic. So it is with our existing divisions. They keep out of each other's way; the Tory paper and the Radical paper (ed - Americans can read 'Democrat' and 'Republican' if they like) do not answer each other; they ignore each other. Genuine controversy, fair cut and thrust before a common audience, has become in our special epoch very rare. For the sincere controversialist is above all things a good listener. The really burning enthusiast never interrupts; he listens to the enemy's arguments as eagerly as a spy would listen to the enemy's arrangements. But if you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will find that no medium is admitted between violence and evasion. You will have no answer except slanging or silence. A modern editor must not have that eager ear that goes with the honest tongue. He may be deaf and silent; and that is called dignity. Or he may be deaf and noisy; and that is called slashing journalism. In neither case is there any controversy; for the whole object of modern party combatants is to charge out of earshot.
The only logical cure for all this is the assertion of a human ideal.
G.K. Chesterton, "What's Wrong With the World" ch 3
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/whats_wrong.html |
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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| Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 2:33 am Post subject: |
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| The only logical cure for all this is the assertion of a human ideal. |
Such is the time we live in. That human ideal as a cure should be the only thing that really separates us from the animals and the fundamentalists on both sides. Communication it's called...often talked about, rarely seen in public. |
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jwbhomer
Joined: 14 Dec 2003
Posts: 876
Location: CANADA
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| Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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Speaking of dogma... It's a good thing the stuffed animal in question was a teddy bear rather than a pig or a dog!  |
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wildchild
Joined: 14 Nov 2005
Posts: 519
Location: Puebla 2009 - 2010
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| Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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Take note, newbies, in case you didn't know already, DO NOT CROSS THE SECRETARY, EVER! 
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| In court, judge Mohammed Youssef listened to two accounts -- one from school secretary Sarah Khawad, who filed the first complaint about the teddy bear's name... |
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2943933320071129 |
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 9650
Location: Mexico City
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coffeedrinker
Joined: 30 Jul 2006
Posts: 149
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| Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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Talk about a school for the famous blacklist...the secretary turns you in with the result of being jailed and deported!
And:
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| Teachers at the school say that calling the teddy bear Mohammad, the name of the prophet of Islam, was not her idea in the first place and that no parents objected when Unity High School sent parents circulars about a reading project which included the teddy bear as a fictional participant. |
Well, don't shift classroom decisions all onto the shoulders of 7 year olds, but other adults including local parents knew about this.
I think - obviously aside from the extreme details of the case - this may be more typical of an EFL school shenanigan than I first thought. Did the secretary call the police so the teacher, instead of the whole school, would take the fall..? Is the whole school staff, even the ones who printed the newsletter possibly in the local language, so removed from local culture that they didn't know people would be offended? There are so many levels at which this could have been stopped earlier, and it wasn't. |
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tedkarma
Joined: 17 May 2004
Posts: 1598
Location: The World is my Oyster
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| Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:28 am Post subject: |
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Any teacher who has spent time in a Muslim culture knows to steer clear of anything like this issue - and it's not uncommon for students to bait their teachers. I spent five years in Saudi Arabia and alarm bells go off automatically after a while about what to avoid.
I write it off to her relative newness to the country and general lack of knowledge of the culture where she was.
These are NOT tolerant cultures. (sorry to not be PC and say that . . .) |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 1:21 am Post subject: |
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| Go to the schools web site and you can see a photo of Ms Sara. |
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