Female teacher insults islam or something

[Tuomas]

this was a lot funnier in the other thread

To the issue, I think there's no discussion here. Who here really thinks that this is justified? And who of you who don't, believes that we can do something about it?

[Nacho]

Glad to amuse you! ^_^ Agreed, nobody can justify this.

But we can do something about it...Apparently, things like that happens when people from the "West" go to Islamic countries. CJ posted "If you're travelling abroad, you always have to take into account local laws and customs, and be aware that if you break them you will be subject to their punishments"

Nightfable had to wear a shaddor when in Iran.

Ain' t now the fucking time US to make THEM to take our local laws and customs when they COME here? Australia is showing the path. Ain' t you happy with girls showing their calfs (EDIT: Calves, thanks Tuomas)? Go to your country! Nobody put a gun in your head to come here! Can't you stand girls without veil? Go to your country, with your camels and with your only-eyes-can-be-seen girls. Do you think that shaddor is a personal choice by your wife that harms no one and you are NOT going to try to impose it to us, your hosts? YOU ARE WELCOME! You can' t imagine how welcomed you' ll be.

How can I have the guts to post this having friend muslims members who can read this? Easy... Because this is not aimed to them. Babar and Gord10 behave normally in their countries and wouldn't be "noticeable" in the bad sense, if they visit us, or will complain if a girl shows her legs or her hair.

This is for those who force a man to marry with a goat because he has kept extra matrimonial relations with it. This is for those who force her wife to wear a black burka in summer. This is for those who burn embassies because of 5 or 6 silly doddles in a magazine 5,000 kilometres away from their country. This is not aimed to muslims. This is aimed to idiots covering theirselves in a nice culture to spread their idioticy.

Specially for them: Idiots!

If somebody wants to write a simillar essay with "idiots" using cristianism to spread their idioticy, I will concurr, as well. 

[Tuomas]

I completely agree. Especially with the girls showing their calves part It's not an attack against the islamic world when our western christianity ridden world has just as many similar flaws. It's against those stupid people who happen to be in charge. Oh well.

[Nacho]

You have the gift of expressing propperly and in short what I think, my friend.

[SSH]

I have some points to make:

1. Because America gets some things wrong, other nations and people can be as barbaric as they like.
2. Gibraltar
3. "Invicible Armada"? Hahahahhahah
4. Cueta and Melilla and Parsley Island obviosuly should belong to Morocco
5. Anything else that might wind up Nacho

[Candall]

And who of you who don't, believes that we can do something about it?

I'm not the anti-society rebellious sort, but it has occurred to me that simply being born does not equate to the signing of a contract.  I do not enter this world obligated to follow rules that I find to be injust.  If my government attempted to do that to me, I would fight it with my last breath.

I follow the rules set before me because I believe that they were arranged to make my world and life better.  No matter how corrupt those who now enforce the rules may be, the rules themselves are still beneficial.  It doesn't mean I have to feel guilty about rolling my eyes when I see a speed trap... and it doesn't mean that I can't feel outraged when I see the rulekeepers abusing their power.

Getting back to the point, though... I honestly don't believe that some rules are beneficial to anyone.  Nobody is going to suffer because of what this woman has named her teddy bear.  She didn't break any moral code.  It's my (possibly narrow-minded) opinion that the rule is incredibly stupid and I feel no compulsion to respect it.

Finally, to answer your question... that's tricky.  Yes, we can do something about it when we are involved.  Technically, yes.  We could gather a large enough group of people to storm the prison and remove her forcibly at pain of death.  Or maybe we could give the right people enough money to make it all go away.  Yes, I realize that both of these options are oh, so American.  That would only serve our purpose once, though.  In order for laws like this to fail for good, many individuals will have to decide for themselves that such laws are wrong and should be removed from the books.

As long as cultures (yes, mine included) continue to brainwash their own creators, however, that will never happen... or it's going to take a very charismatic rebel to kick it off.

[Nacho]

Andrew:

1. When something is barbaric, we gotta mention it. Not just think "Americans do something simillar" and relax.
2. We don' t want that filthy rock.
3. We were saboutaged.
4. You are not rowing in the same direction I am... EUROPE!!! SHOUT IT WITH ME!!! Remember?!?!?!?!
5. Of course Aria' s are real!!! I said nothing about Zemanova's, but ARIA'S AIN' T FAKE!!! SHE IS 100% NATURAL!!!

[Khris]

Nacho: I agree 100%. (regarding your 2nd post on this page)
We visit them: we have to respect their culture.
They *live* here: we have to respect their culture.

The respect we're supposed to pay to religious customs, no matter whether they seem extreme to us or not, isn't justified by anything.

Imagine I founded a sect that worshiped the shadow. I could use that as grounds to accuse people of insulting my religion when they happen to step on my shadow!
This may seem silly at first, but it's really the same thing.

A contemporary example: there's a religious group in New Mexiko who is allowed to consume an LSD-like substance because they said it was how they practiced their religion.
In another state (I think Nevada, at least a state without very strict drug laws), people suffering and dying of cancer are denied to relieve their pain by smoking marijuana!
Unbelievable.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I do not enter this world obligated to follow rules that I find to be injust.  If my government attempted to do that to me, I would fight it with my last breath.

Just a quick note here:  you feel this way because you were likely raised in an environment that promotes freedom of thought.  Many muslims are not raised in this environment and, consequently, do not have the benefit of their brains being filled with lots of alternatives and possibilities.  They tow the line they've been trained to tow, and if not by conditioning or zeal then by the fear of what they see happen to those who do not.

As much as you'd like to say 'I wouldn't do this', you're hardly in a position or lived their lives to really say that and know it.  This isn't to pick on you specifically; I've found myself say the same thing before without actually thinking about all the underlying conditions to what makes people who they are.  People raised in oppressive societies tend to think differently by nature of that society, and while you could leap in like Batman from the outside and help them, from the inside you'd probably feel as they do.

[lo_res_man]

This, in my mind, is why some of those real big "aid" deals, where some American builds a factory or something, don't usually work in my view. One,your barging into there culture, often insulting it, even if inadvertently, and creating something in a vacuum, with out thought to wether the cultural environment could take it. Remember when Opera opened up that school. I vehemently disagreed with her reasoning. I think she could have done better opening up at least a few thousand  well made primary tree schools, in the poorer parts of Africa, rather then this higher education facility, that relatively few could aspire to anyway.
On the other hand, a good example of helping within the local culture was the pot in pot fridge. all it was a big clay pot, a smaller clay pot,sand water and a damp cloth. didn't need any electricity,  and could be made with all local materials. But it kept food fresh much longer then otherwise possible.http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/lab/pot_refrigerator/index.htm

[Candall]

ProgZ:

I wasn't attempting to project my own viewpoint on them and then ask why they don't feel the way that I feel, but I can certainly see how it came off that way.

I was really trying to express the fact that I do not feel bad about having complete contempt for some of their laws.  Cultural awareness is great, but I think that completely blind tolerance of other cultures (as backed up by the old mantra that we didn't grow up there so we couldn't possibly understand) is extremely naive.

You're absolutely right... it is not in the (manufactured) nature of some people to question authority at any cost.  I don't blame the people at all.  But due to my own naivete, I do like to think that one day one among them will stand up and refuse to take it anymore, and that enough of the others will listen.

lo_res_man:

I agree.  It seems that we sometimes make these grandiose gestures that have nothing to do with the problems that the people we're "helping" face.  We're giving shiny, golden round pegs to people who happen to have nothing but square holes.  But hey, the peg is golden, right?  Well, too bad if they don't have any use for it.

[SSH]

E.F. Schumacher realised the need for more useful aid in the 60's and 70s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology

[RickJ]

I'm starting to get suspicious about all this.  First Nightfable starts a thread asking why people like to see women suffer and then a couple of days later Meowster starts this one!  What  are you girls up to?   

Oh and SSH, about making bear britches from the American Flag, yeah some people/groups would whine loudly about it but the woman would probably end up on the Oprah show.  .... Oooooh!  :o Wait!  That's a fate far worse than 40 lashes? 

[Pumaman]

As much as you'd like to say 'I wouldn't do this', you're hardly in a position or lived their lives to really say that and know it.  This isn't to pick on you specifically; I've found myself say the same thing before without actually thinking about all the underlying conditions to what makes people who they are.  People raised in oppressive societies tend to think differently by nature of that society, and while you could leap in like Batman from the outside and help them, from the inside you'd probably feel as they do.

Exactly. 99% of your personality and thought process is formed through your experiences in life. If you'd been born in Sudan, you might well be offended by the bear being named Mohammed, because it's the culture you've been brought up to think is "right".

And really, who are we to say that we're more right than they are. We only believe that freedom of speech is right and lashings are wrong because that's what our society has indoctrinated in us to believe.

[Nikolas]

And really, who are we to say that we're more right than they are. We only believe that freedom of speech is right and lashings are wrong because that's what our society has indoctrinated in us to believe.

Thing is this though.

Those learnings (to which I agree that 99% is what we are taught in society and family, if not 99.9%) are rather easy to break for half the population. When people do join the western world they usually leave behind such things (or they never had them in the first place?) When a westerner joins... Sudan, for example, no one expects them to pick up the idea of lashings.

BTW, I'm not actually opposed to the idea of "lashings" for punishement, only maybe because it's too little. A thief has 2 choices, an x number of lashes or an x days in prison. guess what they all choose. This is not a great idea of "law".

[Candall]

Well, as I've suggested, I am blissfully naive.  I believe that every person knows the difference between right and wrong and bad and good.  And I believe that everyone who has ever felt pain knows that it is wrong.  Maybe I'm too narrow minded to grasp the real feelings that they have toward the naming of the bear, but I do know that forty lashings would cause pain... the real, physical kind... and I know that the teacher has supporters even among those indoctrinated citizens of Sudan.

[Meowster]

Exactly. 99% of your personality and thought process is formed through your experiences in life. If you'd been born in Sudan, you might well be offended by the bear being named Mohammed, because it's the culture you've been brought up to think is "right".

And really, who are we to say that we're more right than they are. We only believe that freedom of speech is right and lashings are wrong because that's what our society has indoctrinated in us to believe.

I think that, considering that one of "our" people is in Sudan, suffering for this ridiculous "crime" when her only intention was to be a good person and to help and to educate... I think then it gives us a right to judge whether what they do is right or wrong.

If all the barbaric people stayed huddled together in a little island and never bothered anyone for all eternity, then it would be none of our business what they decided to do to each other. The fact is that their barbaric behaviour effects people in a negative way... be it this teacher, or their own people. Sudan has terrible, terrible human rights, and I think the level of suffering in the country should speak for itself as to whether it's right or wrong.


Except from BBC news today:


The Muslim Council of Britain reacted angrily to the news, saying it was "appalled" and demanded Mrs Gibbons' immediate release.

"This is a disgraceful decision and defies common sense. There was clearly no intention on the part of the teacher to deliberately insult the Islamic faith," said Secretary-General Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, in a strongly-worded statement.

"We call upon the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, to intervene in this case without delay to ensure that Ms Gibbons is freed from this quite shameful ordeal," said Dr Bari.

Sudan's top clerics have called for the full measure of the law to be used against Mrs Gibbons and labelled her actions part of a Western plot against Islam.[/i]

[SSH]

Today, Sudanese people are rioting in the streets demanding that Gillian "Funky" Gibbons is shot.

W

T

F

[OneDollar]

Now that's scary. Why is nobody demanding that the kid who chose the name be shot? I'd be interested in seeing some newspaper reports from Sudan, but I don't speak Arabic.

[Nightfable]

Wow, that is effed up!