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Editorial:Lessons from a teddy bear
Here we go again. Gillian Gibbons, a Briton, teaching English to young boys in Khartoum, Sudan has been deported after a court sentenced her to 15 days in prison for allowing young pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.
The seemingly trivial action by the British mother of two, triggered riots and calls for the “bitch” to be executed by fundamentalist Muslims, crazed by the “blasphemy.”
In India, two reputed artists — M.F. Husain, the painter, and Taslima Nasreen, the writer — are being hounded by fundamentalists.
Husain, who is an Indian, is facing the wrath of Hindu fanatics after several cases were filed against him for his alleged obscene depiction of Hindu goddesses. He now spends most of his time in London and Dubai.
Nasreen, a Bangladeshi, has received death threats both in her own country and in India from Muslim zealots who hate her for saying Islam and other religions oppress women.
A group of religious leaders issued a “death warrant” against her in August.
Before this we had the Danish cartoon controversy and demonstrations against filmmaker Deepa Mehta by xenophobic Hindu outfits upset at her depiction of Indian widows in the movie Water.
What all these incidents underline is the failure of the majority to fight the censorship norms prescribed by a bigoted minority.
A key reason for this failure is the reluctance of politicians to take on the fundamentalists who masquerade as patriots.
These rabble-rousers are everywhere nowadays seeking swift retribution for perceived crimes against historical figures and anyone who dares explore religious themes through art.
They have the ability to disrupt normal life and are empowered by cowardly politicians who pander to retrogressive elements in their constituencies.
They make political hay through the wider lack of understanding of cultures.
The recent case in Sudan is a prime example.
The Sudanese don’t understand that teddy bears are part and parcel of a kid’s life in the West and naming them is an exercise in affection.
For her part, Gibbons should have known better and stayed away from naming anything after the Prophet.
Still, this hardly calls for 15 days in jail and demands for her execution.
These cases highlight a need for better understanding between cultures that co-mingle in today’s shrinking global village.
We all need to take into account the customs and religious sensitivities of others.
At the same time the zealots need to realize that you cannot judge everyone or everything by their own hardened standards.
The extremists also need to know that if they keep whipping up hate, the rest of us will not stand idly by, but will raise our hands together in defiance of their hateful intolerance.
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