Korean Job Discussion Forums

[TECO]

You hear about the EFL teacher in the UAE who photocopied and passed out the controversial cartoons at school to her Arab students?

Afugginmazing.


__________________________________________

http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/Society/10017498.html

Professor and supervisor sacked
By Reema Saffarini and Mohammad Shamseddine, Staff Reporters

Dubai/Abu Dhabi: A Zayed University professor, who provoked students by showing them the offensive cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), and a supervisor, who condoned her move, which she claimed was within the rights of "freedom of opinion and expression", have both been dismissed.

An official source at the university said Claudia Kiburz, a professor of English, distributed copies of the cartoons claiming that publishing the caricatures is within the rights of "freedom of opinion and expression".

The source said students refused to remain in class and were threatened by the professor they would be counted as absent if they leave. Students went to complain to the supervisor of the English Learning Centre. According to the source, the supervisor told the students that Kiburz was right.

A university investigation was carried out on Tuesday night and the dismissal orders were issued at 10pm from the office of Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Ministry of Education.

Gulf News tried contacting Kiburz to be told she "will not talk to the press in this country". The supervisor refused to comment to Gulf News saying that he "will not talk about this issue at this stage".

Dr Hanif Hassan, Vice-President of Zayed University, told Gulf News: "We are with the freedom of expression but at the same time we have to maintain the standards and values of our community."




So much for a "tolerant", "moderate" society.


From the NYTimes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/opinion/l08cartoon.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

To the Editor:

Re "Beirut Mob Burns Danish Mission Building Over Cartoons" (news article, Feb. 6):

As a Jew, I am especially sensitive to the kind of outrage religiously offensive caricatures can inspire, and I empathize with my Muslim cousins. As a liberal American, I am sensitive to the complex interplay between the press's freedom to publish these images and legitimate questions concerning the wisdom of doing so.

Yet at the same time, I am struck by the inescapable irony of witnessing chanting mobs responding to the insult of being stereotyped as violent by rioting and burning embassies and threatening to behead those who have offended them.

Daniel P. Baker
Trumbull, Conn., Feb. 6, 2006

[SPINOZA]

[ddeubel]

Spinoza,

Your namesake would have threw up in his robe upon hearing your words.......I know about that "irony" of mobs rioting but also know the irony of the west exporting death and being the culture most assuredly violent and warmongering that the past few millenium have seen. ....

to assume all muslims are violent, goes against any tenant of "enlightenment" as espoused by Spinoza. In fact, a case can be made for the muslim religion being the most tolerant, as a case can be made for most religions......The point being, religions aren't violent, people are!!!! Especially people in search of power and the green fuse that drives it -- money. Spinoza preached the virtue of reason....that the greatest virtue was the endeavour to understand. You are not trying to understand.

Quit the Muslims are violent stereotype........you are dead wrong. If you don't see why, you are just full of pap from the "well intentioned" media.......

DD

[ddeubel]

One more thought that I forgot to add..............

Do you NOT think that the Jews rose up and tried to protest!!! They also rioted and fought. This is the unpublished history of the holocaust and the myth that they did not has been adroitly addressed by no more eminent authority than Martin Gilbert (please read his eminent history of the holocaust, just names/dates/places, history and no commentary bla blabla.....

Stefan Lux, the Jew who walked into the League of Nations after cartoons of Jewish film directors and prosecution of Jewish film organizations/workers .............. he would have been one of the very first, circa 1929 who rebeled and violated, violenced..........forget that stereotype of the Jews passively walking to their death. Many protested, rioted and screamed. As so many more did not (as so many more Muslims do not now...).

DD

"the shoha taught us only one thing. We are all Jews. We are all chosen people. We must protect each other whatever the difference." Isaiah Berlin

[mithridates]

I don't have a problem with the op. Reminds me of the prof (Harvard I think) who was dismissed for entertaining the thought that there might be a genetic reason for women usually having less rights and power than men in most societies.

The problem with the protests re: the cartoons is that they wanted Denmark to do something about them in a country that isn't Islamic, and that makes no sense. Any teacher dumb enough to not know that there would be a reaction to the cartoons in an Arab country needs to go back to grade school.

[Summer Wine]

[mateomiguel]

one of my inoffensive and kindly adjosshi students told me a few weeks ago that the rest of the world should rise up and wipe every single muslim off the face of the earth.

I guess not so kindly and innoffensive as I first thought, eh?