British teacher Gillian Gibbons is in a Khartoum jail for 15 days, convicted of insulting Islam for letting her seven-year-old Sudanese students name a teddy bear Mohammad.
The British Foreign Office wants to get her out sooner. Her attorney wants to appeal. An orderly crowd of a thousand left the peace of local mosques on Friday to ride around in open trucks, brandishing ceremonial swords and calling for Ms. Gibbons’ head.
Recently, Sudan rejected use of Scandinavian UN peacekeepers on its southern border because a Danish newspaper published a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad two years ago. Those cartoon protests provide the model for today’s Sudanese activists, but the UK and Sudan go way back, and it hasn’t been pretty. Britain once looked after Sudan on behalf of Egypt (I think I have that right) and this messy arrangement provided opportunities for British military heroes like Gordon and Kitchener during the Mahdi Uprising.
Think about Sudan in the Western news lately. Darfur, famine, Western aid agencies, international peacekeepers, failed state, terrorist haven, so on. Here’s a chance for Sudanese to get huffy about the West for a change, and they’re going to make the most of it, even if it’s about the name of a teddy bear.
Image by Mike Licht.
NotionsCapital 
November 30, 2007 at 7:47 pm
The mass murder of Christians must be losing it’s appeal in that country. I am glad the true believing citizens of Sudan have found a more rewarding occupation: decapitating little old ladies from Britain.
November 30, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Richard: I hear that decapitated teddy bears were brandished at those rallies in Khartoum. but I haven’t been able to verify that yet.
BTW, the “little old lady” is 54, just a British Boomer.
December 1, 2007 at 10:48 am
Hey, Mike. It has to be a little old lady or it won’t work. Next you’ll be telling me she has body art and piercings.
December 3, 2007 at 9:01 pm
[…] the traditional standard calls for six months’ incarceration and 40 lashes, Ms. Gibbons was originally sentenced to 15 days in a Khartoum […]