its about TIME.......some one had guts to say this!!

i know this is about the teacher held over the idiotic teddy bear scandal, which in my opinion and shallow, but please read on.

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its about time some one had the guts to say what they feal, and i know this is Boris Johnson and i dont normally agree with him but on this occasion i have to admit i do, it seems to be that we have to be so bloody PC correct that it hurts is Boris the only one who will say what he feals, is he the only one who isnt scared of reprocussions and death threats from what i can see, and bunch of ignorant people. Here is what he said in the paper today. about this teacher scandal.

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British Muslims should protest teddy lunacy
By Boris Johnson
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 29/11/2007

Have your say Read comments


Oh come off it, I thought yesterday afternoon, when I heard that the Sudanese authorities had actually gone ahead and charged her. Surely they are out of their minds.

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When the news broke yesterday teatime that poor Gillian Gibbons was facing prosecution in Khartoum for inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs, I am afraid my normal good humour momentarily deserted me.

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How dare they! I spluttered, and for a brief undignified moment, I had fantasies of a return to the age of Palmerston.

Here is an innocent British citizen, a good and patently well-meaning 54-year-old British teacher. She has decided to make a new life for herself by giving instruction to children in one of the poorest countries on Earth. She has got herself into a muddle over the name of a teddy bear - and now she is facing 40 lashes or six months in jail.

There was a time when Britain would have sent a gunboat to rescue her. There was a time when MPs would have been holding furious debates on the matter, and bandying phrases such as "civis Britannicus sum".

In the old days there would have been démarche from Britain to Sudan, warning that His Majesty's government would not suffer a hair on her head to be disturbed.

Well, folks, that time is past. We must accept that the world has changed, and our place in the world has changed, too.

We must ask ourselves what earthly good we can do, and how we can persuade people to come to their senses. We need to encourage reasonable people in Sudan to get Gillian Gibbons out of jail as soon as possible and I have a feeling, alas, that there is not a lot to be gained by just quivering our jowls and invoking the spirit of Don Pacifico; or at least, not a lot that will help Gillian Gibbons.

Of course it is demented that this teacher should now have spent four nights in jail for calling a teddy bear Mohammed.

It is utterly bonkers that she should face the possibility of some barbaric punishment, for what was so obviously a complete misunderstanding.

She did what thousands of teachers do across Britain, and asked her class to come up with a name for their teddy bear mascot.

Her class, which included Muslim children, voted for the name of the prophet - which they themselves seem to have thought a pretty uncontentious choice, since millions of Muslim boys bear the same name.

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She did not mean to imply that she thought the messenger of Allah was in any sense a cuddly toy. It simply did not cross her mind that there could be some idolatrous or blasphemous implication.

In so far as she caused offence to some of the parents, there must have been a thousand better ways to sort out the problem. She could have apologised; she could have instantly changed the name of the mascot to Paddington, or some other name less offensive to Muslims.

She could have called it Aloysius, like the chap in Evelyn Waugh, and though Aloysius is a pretty emetic name for a teddy bear, no one would have suggested locking her up.

She wasn't given the chance to do any of those sensible things, and the result is a mess; and it is worse than a diplomatic embarrassment. The jailing of Gillian Gibbons is helping to confirm people's worst prejudices about Islam.

It may be that the judge will simply spring her today, in which case all will be well. But if he doesn't, and if this business drags on, then there is one group that must speak up.

There's no point in the British government raging from afar, or rattling an empty scabbard. There's no point in us jumping up and down on the sidelines, and shaking our fists at Khartoum. Any such posturing would only help, of course, to deepen the intransigence of the Sudanese.

No, the voices we need to hear now belong to Britain's vast, sensible Muslim majority. If British Muslims speak up decisively and loudly against this lunacy, then they can achieve two good things at once. Their arguments will be heard with respect in Khartoum, since they cannot be said to be founded on any kind of cultural imperialism, or to be actuated by Islamophobia.

More importantly, a strong protest by British Muslims against the imprisonment of Gillian Gibbons would help to contradict the growing ranks of pessimists and neo-cons - the people who say that the real problem is Islam, the religion itself.

There is a body of commentators who say that we are deceiving ourselves about the scale of the problem. Islamism, they claim, is not the fault of a few extremists.

These people claim that difficulties we are experiencing are intrinsic to the religion itself - because it is in essence a religion of war, unreformable, medieval. I think they are completely wrong, and they can be proved wrong.

To his credit, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain has already issued a statement calling for the release of Gillian Gibbons. Let's hear more of the same. Let's see Muslim MPs on the news, appealing to Sudan to show reason.

If you want grounds for despair, read the entries on the BBC website, in which some British Muslims say that she should be punished; or read the entries from people in Sudan saying that the children should be punished.

It is tragic and incredible that we can allow people to take offence over such a simple misunderstanding. If this goes any further, it will entrench prejudice and misunderstanding.

But if British Muslim leaders are able to seize the opportunity and speak up for common sense, then they have a real chance to show that there is all the difference in the world between Islam and the ludicrous fanaticism that has incarcerated Gillian Gibbons.

• Boris Johnson is MP for Henley

 

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Hey LA,
give me time to do my website

I ahve avery busy job but i will have to find the time to knock together a few pages soon

~~~~~~~
cheers
zak

 

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Me too, i've had it. No more pussyfooting around these fucktards anymore.

 

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Too bad no one is concerned with their eight year famine and 15 year civil war to the same extent.

 

hey neitsch

hows it going???

what exactly are you goign to do??

~~~~~~~
cheers
zak

 

well, as soon as they turn white, the world will care.

 

Caused by themselves.

 

Tell someone to their face should they be full of this crap, that they are full of crap - even if it means my job.

 

Yeah, they love to die of hunger and war.

 

Don't know about hunger, but the other YES.

 

Surely you cannot be so naive

http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Country/africa1.htm

 

yeah not even the Islam channel in the UK collects money(well they didnt up to a few months ago when i watched the channel) via their shows for Darfur and sudan, they do with palestine, and iraq etc but not sudan/darfur??? why is that????

 

thats crap orleander, we are seen has greedy by them, because we ahve everything that they want, and what about the ones the emergrate over hereand get loans when they are not suppose to, what about all the muslims that speak about islam and them go of and prctise it.

we help them when they emegrate over here and why should we?

 

Don´t see your problem ...they seem to indulge in wars ...

 

LA,
whats wrong with practicising islam, In fact so called non islamic countries allow much more fredom to practive religion then the so-called islamic ones..

In fact i would say that wetsren countries are more islamic than the so-called islmaic ones...

~~~~~~~~
cheers
zak

 

i meant to say, what about all the people who speak against islam and then go and practise it?

sorry zak i wasnt looking what i was doing, i had my son asking me somthing at the same time

 

Yeah, it helps to have "friendly" dictators who will buy your arms and an IMF who will ensure they remain poor, hungry and uneducated.

 

Don't be silly, everyone knows they are savages

 

You are absolutely right !!!!!!!!
What should we do without friendly dictators and fanatics !!!!!
The world economy as we know it would break down , and people would still be alive .......
So SAM , what do you think make dictators tick - and how should we stop them ????????
Or do you think they are "created " by the democratic western society ???

 

S.A.M, from what i can see from the footage on television from places like darfer, pakistan, they like to carry guns, adn they enjoy killing, the men are allowed to cut they're little girls to pieces. and acid bath they're wives for showing they're ankles to people, that in itself is savage!!

a woman who is raped in some parts is put in prison the man who raped her is told nothing