Fly Away Home

First the good news: A British schoolteacher sentenced to 15 days in jail in Sudan for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed has been released hours after receiving a pardon from Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir. Gillian Gibbons' release follows the intervention of two Muslim peers, Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi who traveled to Khartoum to negotiate with the Sudanese authorities.

And maybe the not-so-good news: "Modern Britain is multicultural, multi-religious. We have two million Muslims. We have 1,400 mosques and we have ten Muslim parliamentarians. All religions are respected."

I have always been fairly liberal, but the behavior of fundamentalist religionists of any mysterical ilk, really does not warrant respect. Still, most of the Muslims in Britain are probably fine people.

And the definitely bad news: Darfur, scene of recent human rights violations, is within the Sudan. Many of the atrocities are perpetrated by Muslims. These unfortunate people can't fly away home – they are home.

Lash the Kids?

So, what about the kids who chose the controversial name for the teddy bear? They chose the name, they voted on the name. Should they get lashes and time in jail? Obviously, I am being facetious. Of course children should not be lashed for naming a bear for a popular classmate, or even for a prophet.

Should the parents of the popular boy be lashed for naming their son after the prophet? After all, if they'd named their son Ishmael, then the civilized world would not be in an uproar over a teddy bear named Ishmael.

"Isam Abu Hasabu, chairman of Unity High School’s parent teacher association, said: “The whole thing boiled down to a cultural misunderstanding. In our culture we don’t know the bear as a cuddly symbol of mercy.”"

Ah, that explains it. These people riot in the streets because they grew up surrounded by hatred and religious blame and not with cuddly teddy bears. Have they never heard of Harlow's experiments in the Sudan? Apparently not.

Harlow's experiments would thankfully not get past an ethics committee nowadays, but they did demonstrate something tremendously important – given a choice between food and love, primates chose love most of the time.

Given a choice between religion and love, I'd choose love every time. Unfortunately, all too often that is the choice – religion or love, religion or tolerance, religion or humanism, religion or just plain getting along with our fellow man.

bigotry, religion, teacher, Gillian Gibbons, Islam, Mohammed, Sudan,