The teddy bear incident: a triumph for moderates

December 1, 2007 | Alex Evans | More on Influence, Religion in politics | 

The right wing blogosphere in the US is, needless to say, having a field day about the jailing of Gillian Gibbons over the teddy bear incident in Sudan - just look at what Michelle Malkin has to say (see also David’s survey of comments a couple of days ago).

But in fact, the whole incident is very much to the advantage of moderate shades of opinion - both inside and outside Islam.  The sheer ludicrousness of the charge itself - a teddy bear, for heaven’s sake - combined with the manifestly absurd scale of the overreaction of the mob in Khartoum, has done much to unify opinion around a common sense position.  Here’s the Muslim Council of Britain:

This case should have required only simple common sense to resolve.  It is unfortunate that the Sudanese authorities were found wanting in this most basic of qualities.  They grossly overreacted in this sad affair and this episode.  Gillian should never have been arrested, let alone charged…

And a group of Muslim protestors staged a noisy demo outside the Sudanese Embassy in London today too. These kinds of reactions play well with non-Muslim moderates in the UK. Take this vox pop from Associated Press, for instance:

“One of the good things is the U.K. Muslims who’ve condemned the charge as completely out of proportion,” said Paul Wishart, 37, a student in London. “In the past, people have been a bit upset when different atrocities have happened and there hasn’t been much voice in the U.K. Islamic population, whereas with this, they’ve quickly condemned it.”

The reaction of moderate Muslims in Britain is being replicated internationally, too.  In Canada, the Muslim Canadian Congress is organising a mail-in to protest Gillian Gibbons’ imprisonment, by asking its members to send tiny teddy bears to the Sudanese ambassador in Ottawa. Meanwhile, it hasn’t been lost on moderate media outlets in the Arab world like Gulf Daily News that Gillian Gibbons’ own comment from jail has been to stress “I don’t want any resentment towards Muslims”, according to her son John.

It all feels very different to the Danish cartoons story - which left moderates on both sides feeling bruised. While those extremists with an interest in increasing division (on either side - Khartoum mob, Michelle Malkin) naturally seek to polarise the debate as much as they can, this time the battle looks to be going the other way.

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