What's In A Name
Teddy bears are better known for picnics than for being at the center of a diplomatic row - but as you probably know by now, one particular teddy bear and one particular British teacher have managed to hit the headlines all over the globe.
The teacher is a rather matronly 54-year-old Englishwoman called Gillian Gibbons. The bear was disastrously named Mohammed by her young Sudanese pupils. The teacher's only real crime was ignorance and working in a school with at least one small minded and nasty individual who reported this innocent gaffe to the local thought police.
The row erupted into a crazy religious witch-hunt that reached a crescendo when thousands of fundamentalist Sudanese Muslims took to the streets calling for the head of this woman to be brutally removed from its shoulders.
Of course the violent hatred expressed towards Gillian was nothing to do with the blasphemy she was originally convicted of and more to do with a small group of over zealous Muslims venting their spleen at all things Western.
At all things British - imagining, in their distorted minds, that this was a plot to undermine and insult Islam - which of course it was not.
Gillian Gibbons is now home having been pardoned by Sudan's President half way through her 15 day prison sentence. Diplomatic wrangling that I suspect began and ended with the threat of millions of dollars of British aid money being withdrawn at any other conclusion.
Our diplomats and Prime Minister did not cover themselves in glory here. Choosing to play appeaser to Islam rather than treat this ridiculous situation with the contempt it deserved.
The only person to rise above the general disgrace of the last week or so is Gillian herself. Now free to speak and free to live, she has praised the Sudanese people and applauded the country she said gave her a fantastic time. She alone has poured cold water on the fire of hatred between Islam and the West and she alone has turned this sorry tale into a one with a happy ending. She is now looking for work and I strongly recommend that the British diplomatic corps take a lesson or two from this extraordinary teacher.
By Petrie Hosken