THE ARREST OF a British school teacher in Sudan last week–amid demands for her execution–had all the earmarks of a Samuel Beckett play, a theatre of the absurd that is attracting sell-out crowds in many parts of the Islamic world. The latest source of Muslim rage: a teddy bear.<\/p>\n
Gillian Gibbons was arrested and convicted of insulting Islam because her class of seven-year-olds innocently named a teddy bear Muhammad. Initially sentenced to 15 days in jail, she could have spent six months rotting in a Sudanese prison and gotten 40 lashes or worse, courtesy of Sudan’s shari’a law. After an international outcry, President Omar al-Bashir granted her a pardon and kicked her out of the country earlier this week. The private school in Khartoum where she taught, which educates Christian and Muslim students, has been shut down.<\/p>\n
The saga of Ms. Gibbons has hardly been more stupefying than the reaction of media elites and others desperate to avoid charges of “Islamophobia.” The BBC’s Amber Henshaw, for example, euphemistically dismissed the protestors as “a small group of hotheads.” Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times similarly downplayed the intensity of incensed locals. “Aside from a large gathering outside the presidential palace, most of Khartoum was quiet,” he reported. Sure, imams “brought up the case” in sermons–New York Times doublespeak for a fiery call to jihad–but not to worry, since “few of them urged violence.”<\/p>\n