Free Gillian Gibbons now

For various reasons I don't normally give political opinions on this blog, despite having, as you know, a great number of them. However, I feel incadescent with rage over the imprisonment of Gillian Gibbons and the threats on her life from the thousands (of men, do doubt) now apparently rampaging through the streets of Khartoum in the Sudan. Her "crime", in the unlikely event that you haven't heard the story, is that she allowed a group of young children in her class to choose the name for a teddy bear and that they chose the name Mohammed, thus, it is alleged, mocking the eponymous prophet. This was several weeks ago and it is unclear who complained but it is absolutely clear that the Sudanese government and Islamic clerics are using this silly incident (I refuse to call it cultural misunderstanding because I think they are inventing this culture as they go along and for their own ends) to deflect attention from their own actions in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan where the peace between the south and the arabised north is far from stable. According to the BBC the majority of Sudanese bloggers feel the decision to jail Gillian Gibbons was wrong but at times like this (as with various events in Northern Ireland in the past, or the closing down of the Hindu play in Birmingham a couple of years ago) I feel my tolerance of religion as anything more than the most private matter stretched almost to breaking point.

OK. Rant over. Back to nice things in the next post.