"Teddy Bear Tyranny"

Like many people, I was a bit puzzled by the furor over naming the Sudanese teddy bear "Mohammed," but this is an interesting take on the story - it's political, not religious! Below is an excerpt and a link to the full essay:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/03/AR2007120301621.html

Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Washington Post
Teddy Bear Tyranny
By Anne Applebaum

What do a British novel, a papal speech, some Danish cartoons and a Dutch movie have in common with . . . a teddy bear? If that sounds like the beginning of an elaborate after-dinner-speech joke, it isn't. All of the above have at one time or another sparked serious confrontations between the Islamic world and the West, causing major riots (Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses"); attacks on churches ( Pope Benedict's foray into Byzantine history); mass boycotts (Danish cartoon depictions of Mohammed); even murder (the death of Theo Van Gogh, director of "Submission," a film about Muslim women).

The most recent, still ongoing saga fits neatly into that pattern. It began when a British teacher, Gillian Gibbons, asked her 7-year-old pupils to vote on a name for the class teddy bear. Gibbons was teaching at a school in Sudan, and most of her pupils were Muslim, so they chose, not surprisingly, one of the most common of Muslim names: Mohammed. As a result, Gibbons was denounced by the school secretary, arrested for blaspheming the prophet, tried, threatened with 40 lashes and sentenced to 15 days in prison before being pardoned yesterday for her "crime" by the Sudanese president. While all this was going on, organized mobs, allegedly "outraged" by her lenient sentence, stormed through Khartoum, chanting for her execution.
[snip]
In fact, the Great Sudanese Teddy Bear Controversy, like its Dutch, Danish and papal precedents, was not actually a religious or cultural affair: It was purely political. Nobody -- not the other teachers, the parents or the children -- was offended by Mohammed the teddy bear (who received his name in September) until the matter was taken up by a totalitarian government, handed over to what appears to have been a carefully orchestrated mob, and briefly turned into yet another tool of domestic terror and international defiance.

The Sudanese government, which pursues genocidal policies in Darfur when it is not persecuting British teachers, is under pressure to accept peacekeeping troops from the West. At least some of the Sudanese authorities thus have an interest in building anti-Western sentiments among the population and intimidating those who disagree.