Parenting and The End of The World

Mr. Christopher from the Corner Stork Baby Blog putting in my two cents into the “File Under Ridiculous” column. British teacher Gillian Gibbons who is a teacher in Sudan was found guilty today for naming a teddy bear “Muhammad” as part of a class project. Not being familiar with the Sudan customs, she brought in a teddy bear to class and then allowed the kids to name the teddy bear. The kids, all around the age of 7, offered names such as Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad, and by vote decided to name the bear “Muhammad”. The children would then take turns taking the bear home and documenting what they did with the bear such as “we played, we had a picnic”, etc. and then would turn in the diary that would be turned into a book from all of the diaries collected.

What Gillian was not aware of is that naming an animal after “Muhammad” is a horrendous insult and is punishable by Sudanese laws of 40 lashes and 6 months in prison. However, she got off easy with 25 days in prison, no lashings and is facing deportation back to Britain. (Update: 12-4-07 - She has been exonerated and has gone back home to Britain). Although this punishment seems to be extreme overkill to us Americans, it is apparently VERY serious to citizens of Sudan who have followed the case and have offered up death threats, have rioted outside of the courtrooms and more.

However, there are some major points being ignored here. The first is that a teddy bear is not an animal, it is a toy. That’s the first thing overlooked here. Secondly, the bear wasn’t named by the teacher. It was named by the students. It seems that if this was such an incredible insult and so incredibly serious, the parents of those children would have made sure that their children knew that this was a serious offense. Isn’t Sudan a country that takes parental responsibility for their children’s actions very seriously?

Regardless, if I was in Gillian’s shoes, I would be counting the days until I could get out of that country and back to my homeland. I don’t think it takes a teaching degree to know that staying in Sudan is not going to be a good idea.

Meanwhile, head over to Corner Stork Baby Gifts and pick up a teddy bear for a loved one and feel free to name it whatever you’d like. And if you want to read all of the details of this crazy case, head over to MSNBC and read all of the sordid details.

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