Mark Steyn Notes That Liberals Are Siding With the Sudanese in the Teddy Bear Muhammad Case

Just to reassure Jonah, my head did not explode at the BBC's description of the Sudanese mob as "good-natured". In fact, I didn't even roll my eyes or give a mild tsk. Such is the way of the world. Thousands of Sudanese men calling for the execution of a middle-aged schoolma'am over a teddy bear are "good-natured", while Martin Amis is a "racist" and I'm a "flagrantly Islamophobic" hatemonger.

Even so, it's impressive to see the speed with which poor Mrs Gibbons has been consigned to the same camp. As Tammy Bruce reports:

When asked by FOX News for a comment about the situation, a National Organization for Women spokeswoman said they were "not putting out a statement or taking a position."

Fortunately, other members of the sisterhood are. From The View:

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: You’d think if you’re going overseas, I mean, we had this discussion yesterday about people coming to America and learning the customs and knowing what is cool, and what isn’t cool. But I find that maybe we are not- and I say we just as European and American, we’re not as anxious to learn the customs before we go places. It’s just one of the reasons we’re called the ugly Americans.

What's so "ugly" about a British schoolteacher taking a job teaching Muslim schoolchildren in Khartoum? Never mind, the victim must have been asking for it. And, given that the prohibition against Mohammedan teddy bears was concocted out of whole cloth, even the most abjectly "sensitive" are bound to fall afoul of something or other. As The Belmont Club puts it:

The incitement here is not entirely on the Sudanese side. The supine behavior of the West, abject surrender to every demand, its willingness to shame and degrade itself without limit, is in large part responsible for the provocations now directed toward it.

Which is why there'll be more. In hostage negotiations, tough-talking governments say they won't make "concessions to terrorists". They mean prisoner releases and cash handovers. Yet we make equally critical psychological concessions with nary a thought.

I just can't improve on mark Steyn. But there are a few more excerpts from others who he quotes in part.

Tammy Bruce:

Apparently, naming a cuddly bear Muhammad insults the prophet, while mass-murdering homicide bombers named Muhammad don’t.

During the past 14 years at least, certainly since Usama bin Laden declared ‘war’ on Western civilization in 1993, we’ve all been exposed to the literal madness of Islamic fundamentalism. We’ve seen the curtain pulled back on how craven American leftists can be as well. Yes, it took a teddy bear to highlight more clearly than ever the psychosis of the enemy, and the failure of the feminist establishment.

There has been appropriate international outrage over the treatment of Gibbons, from virtually everyone except American “feminists.” Multiple Muslim groups in the U.K. have condemned the sentence. Even the popular little boy in Mrs. Gibbons’ class who suggested the name for the bear came to her defense, explaining that he named the bear after himself.

Yet, when asked by FOX News for a comment about the situation, a National Organization for Women spokeswoman said they were "not putting out a statement or taking a position."

This is how depraved the American left has become. A little Muslim boy in Sudan shows more courage and conviction for a woman under fire than a bunch of women sitting in Washington, D.C., who preen themselves on being the premiere “advocates” for women.

It’s been apparent for years that the American feminist establishment is nothing more than a shill for the shallow leftists in the Democrat party, wrapping themselves in the feminist label for convenience. Groups like NOW and Eleanor Smeal’s Feminist Majority, also amazingly silent in the past five years about Islamic terrorism and violence against women, use women’s issues as nothing more than slogans and chants in their efforts to gain political power.

Their vile silence isn’t limited to the Gibbons situation. In Saudi Arabia, a gang-rape victim has been sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in prison. Why? Because when she was raped, she was violating Sharia law by being out with a man who was not a relative. Her sentence was actually increased when she dared to appeal her sentence.

What has NOW’s and the Feminist Majority’s response been to this obscene outrage? The same silence offered to Gillian Gibbons. Nothing, because God forbid we should be reminded that there is a disturbed enemy out there worth fighting, and God forbid that for one moment we should suggest that the United States might not be heinous imperialist the left casts us to be.

When I searched Smeal’s Feminist Majority website to get a statement about either situation, I found none. The Smeal site has a brief newswire story about the Saudi rape victim, but no position statement or condemnation. They have absolutely nothing posted about the Gibbons situation. A search of the NOW site reveals nothing posted about either outrage.

And then there's the usual suspects on "the View" blaming the victim:

All the co-hosts of "The View," a show intended to advance women’s voices, do not get offended by women’s persecution in the Islamic world. On the November 30 edition, in discussing the British woman charged for naming a class teddy bear Muhammad, the co-hosts did not direct any anger at the Sudanese government, but rather blamed the woman for not adapting to their culture.

Co-host Sherri Shepherd opined "you would think that with her being in Sudan, she would know the rules and customs." Whoopi Goldberg said Europeans and Americans are "not as anxious to learn the customs before we go places." And of course that’s why we’re called "ugly Americans."

And The Belmont Club's Richard Rodriguez points out that a lot of these "ancient customs" are made up on the spot, and the stupid Liberals in the West fall for it every time.

But you have to know something to call people "ignorant". As information from Astrolabe, an Australian Muslim site shows, age-old Muslim "holy customs" are sometimes made up on the spur of the moment to suit political requirements. There is apparently no prohibition against naming teddy bears for Muslim prophets. However this is unlikely to dissuade those who want the West to apologize on every occasion, out of general principles. The cries "cut off the blasphemer's head!, cut off the blasphemer's head!" are likely to be echoed by its Western equivalent: "we're still guilty! we're still guilty!"

What is clear, however, is that much of the discussion around it being completely and utterly forbidden for teddy bears to be given the same name as Prophets is somewhat misinformed. There is a reason, for example, why we haven’t seen the hordes calling for the people selling Adam the Muslim Prayer Bear or Adam’s World to be decapitated.

A picture of the "Adam the Muslim Prayer Bear" as sold on SimplyIslam.com is shown below.

But Richard says something very profound and chilling. Never forget that the West has terrifying weapons that we have not used. Neither have we given the thugs in Islamoland any reason to believe that we ever will. This could end in tragedy.

Western politicians have failed at being "multiculturalists" too. They never understood who they were talking to. They've perversely sent all the wrong signals. In tribal society instant retribution or blood feud is expected when on tribe raids another for booty or slaves. That's how peace is maintained; how waterholes and resources are shared. Had the West responded to provocations early but mildly the situation would have communicated itself with perfect clarity to the Sudanese regime. An understanding would have been reached amid much laughter and backslapping. Gordon Brown would be yukking it up in Sudan today, honored among chiefs.

Instead the West presented the Sudanese with a puzzle. Offenses were met with insulting words and supposed outrage yet the West did nothing. The lack of action was baffling because the "multiculturists" of the West didn't know how to talk the lingo at all. As Mark Steyn often pointed out, Western multiculturalism is really provincial Fabianism tricked out in costume finery; it believes that under the fancy dress everyone is as homogeneous as the population of a small English town.

And so the misunderstanding grew. By and by the raiders came to understand that their forays could be repeated with impunity. They first became bold; now they have become reckless.

But it's a tragedy in the making. Because one day the West may change its leadership and set up the chain guns around the perimeter for the next time the raiders come galloping in heedlessly ... and if that happens some sympathy must go the raiders sprawled in the desert looking sightlessly up with the expression of surprise still on their faces. They never understood. And we never told them.