Is Calling A Teddy Bear Mohammed Blasphemous?

[mollag]

Was that a parody?

No, it was a Teddy Bear.

 

Though I truly believe it was the media wot done her in.

 

 

Wit ya there Albert, theres a lot of people marching in the sudan with hooks in their mouths, more than a few on the forum as well. how easy it is to whip up hatred, scary

[Bananaman]

Do embeds work here?

 

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If not

 

 

 

 

Quick edit, Not really worksafe (ish)

[Mission]

[Pragmatopian]

Interesting to note that Darfur and the atrocities going on there is due in not a small part to the Sudanese governments failure to control the Arab militias. A form of 'ethnic cleansing'. Given whats gone on there, the murders and rapes, I find it very hypocritical for them to start ragging on about a teddy bears name. Where's all the money given to Sudan as aid actually gone?

 

Things may not have been perfect when it was a British colony, but they were much better than they have been since. Are most nations in sub-saharan Africa incapable of running themselves effectively, or does it just seem like it?

 

*Awaits comparison with the Brown governments*

[bluemonday]

Are most nations in sub-saharan Africa incapable of running themselves effectively, or does it just seem like it?

 

I agree with that 100%. Certainly seems like it. They never seem to prosper as regards the normal population despite the oppulence of the rulers. Remember the £43 million Ethiopa independence celebrations with the huge booze bill whilst most of them in the sticks were starving to death as the headine item on the news years ago.

[Manxman In Exile]

Do you think it is wrong of me to name every turd I produce from now on 'Muhammad' in a move specifically calculated to cause maximum offence to enraged loony fanatics?

 

 

We have three of the PG Tips monkeys stuck on our wall at work - Allah, Muhammad and Jesus. Muhammad keeps falling off. The next one is going to be called Buddha, when we get the office tea bags.

[VinnieK]

Interesting to note that Darfur and the atrocities going on there is due in not a small part to the Sudanese governments failure to control the Arab militias.

 

Failiure to control them? The Sudanese Government armed, trained and directed the Janjaweed as a paramilitary force fully integrated with Sudanese military operations against rebel forces in the south. The Janjaweed form a useful proxy force through which the Sudanese Government can pursue its strategy without getting its hands too dirty.

 

A form of 'ethnic cleansing'. Given whats gone on there, the murders and rapes, I find it very hypocritical for them to start ragging on about a teddy bears name. Where's all the money given to Sudan as aid actually gone?

 

The Sudan has been teetering on the brink of a full civil war for years now, and the teddy bear incident is just a minor chapter in its progress so far. To hardliners it presumably offered a golden opportunity to focus public ire on foreign influence, especially that of Christian schools (the religions of the south are primarily Christian and native african beliefs) and send out a warning. That the incident has such a trivial cause is precisely the point: by focusing upon such an inconsequential matter as the naming of a teddy bear, the hardline factions within Arabic Sudan are stating that they will tolerate no dissent or perceived challenge, no matter how small or frivolous. Far from being a case of hypocrisy, simply muslim outrage, or a dogmatic blindness to reality, this is a deliberate act by factions within the Sudan to further their political goals. If it seems like a particularly desperate and absurd step to take, that's because it is: before the Janjaweed were organised, the Southern rebels were repeatedly outmaneuvering and beating the Sudanese military, and government forces are undoubtably scared that this could happen again, especially with international bodies monitoring their conduct.

 

It must be said that one of the most depressing features of this incident is that the fate of one European seems to have elicited more public concern, indignation, and even fury than have the massacres and vast dislocation of populations during the height of the conflict in Darfur.

[John Wright]

The truth is that both the UK and US offers state protection to religion as well. In UK it is called criminal blasphemy. It is less tha 30 yeras ago tat the UK sent a man to prison becaues thye newspaper of which he was editor published a poem by a very distinguished anglo japanese poet and author which looked at the crucifixion through they eyes of a gay Roman legionaire

 

I for one cannot see what the difference or offence is in either but I find all this denigration of the muslims in Sudan for doing what we would do a bit OTT

 

Lets sort out our criminal balsphemy laws before we go criticising those of another country

 

The editor got 6 months!

 

And it was the baying for blood of Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers & Listeners Association and the so caklled league of light that led to it, sound familar if we transpose to Sudan?

 

As long as we, or Sudan, have state protection for religion we will have these anomalies.

 

if the legionnaire had imagined gay sex with the Archbishop of Canterbury on the Altar of an Anglican church it would be illegal to print but if it was with the Pope in St Peters, a catholic personage in a catholic church, there is no protection, that is literally how daft our blasphemy laws are

[Pat Ayres]

At last someone notices the hypocrisy.

[VinnieK]

The truth is that both the UK and US offers state protection to religion as well. In UK it is called criminal blasphemy. It is less tha 30 yeras ago tat the UK sent a man to prison becaues thye newspaper of which he was editor published a poem by a very distinguished anglo japanese poet and author which looked at the crucifixion through they eyes of a gay Roman legionaire

 

I for one cannot see what the difference or offence is in either but I find all this denigration of the muslims in Sudan for doing what we would do a bit OTT

 

Surely that's rather a spurious comparison: Since that case far more blasphemous plays and writings have been published without even the hint of prosecution being threatened in the UK, effectively making the criminal blasphemy law a dead letter. I agree it should be formally taken off the books, but to claim some kind of equivalence between the UK and the Sudan on the basis of a criminal case thirty years ago is very thin reasoning.

 

Also, I'm assuming you're talking about "the Love that Dares to Speak its Name". That was written by James Kirkup, who's an English poet, not anglo-Japanese.

 

The editor got 6 months!

 

And it was the baying for blood of Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers & Listeners Association and the so caklled league of light that led to it, sound familar if we transpose to Sudan?

 

Not really. He wasn't potentially going to get done for inciting racial hatred (the charge was Blasphemous Libel, not Criminal Blasphemy), or be flogged for it, and describing sexual acts being performed on the dead body of Christ could be taken as being more offensive at the time than calling a Teddy Bear Muhammed. I'm not sticking up for the blasphemy laws, by the way, but the potential to offend of one is clearly barely comparable with the other.

 

It's also worth noting that the editor got a suspended sentence.

 

And that the poem was crap anyway.

[John Wright]

In 1978 every one thought it was a dead letter, no prosecutions there for 50 plus years, but it happened and the religious right reactionaries were baying, just like in Sudan, and if it is still there it can be used

 

So to that extent it is the same state protecting a religion, not all religion, not even all Christianity

 

Poem was awful, I agree and so would Kirkup, who whilst british spent all his later working life teaching and living in Japan

[VinnieK]

In 1978 every one thought it was a dead letter, no prosecutions there for 50 plus years, but it happened and the religious right reactionaries were baying, just like in Sudan, and if it is still there it can be used

 

So to that extent it is the same state protecting a religion, not all religion, not even all Christianity

 

The difference, however, is that between the 30's and the publication of "The Love that Dares to Speak its Name" little had been published that significantly challenged the blasphemy laws in the same way that the poem did. The past thirty years, however, have seen the production of a significant body of work that seems to specialise in blasphemy, often far exceeding Kirkup's poem in terms of potential controversy, to the point where what would have been viewed as offensive and outrageous now appears trite and jeuvenile.

[bluemonday]

Pardoned.

[Mr. Sausages]

Does that mean she'll have to shout a bit louder "IT'S CALLED MOHAMMED"

[Albert Tatlock]

Pardoned.

I'll bet there is another 'aid cheque in the post'. I wonder how much Gordon Broon has promised them.

 

I suspect the next time the sh1t hits the fan in Sudan for some disaster or other, not so many people will be digging into their own pockets. Ironic that children and vulnerable people are likely to be the ones that suffer from this eventually. This has also probably put back years of work by relief organisations operating in that region - and for what?

 

There again, at least it's opened up a dialogue between the Sudan and the UK - so it will be interesting to see what comes out of that with regards to Darfur etc. if they take this further. The world of politics and diplomacy is sometimes a murkey world, which often plays-off the lives of citizens for advantage.