Daniel Finkelstein is wrong when he says that the sentence meted out to Gillian Gibbons for allowing her class to name a teddy bear Muhammad isn't disproportionate.
It was not a misunderstanding of culture on the part of Gillian Gibbons. And the verdict was not disproportionate...
Why wasn't it disproportionate? This word implies that some sort of censure was required but that imprisonment was too much. The punishment wasn't out of proportion. It was unwarranted, outrageous, insupportable.
The use of the phrase "disproportionate" is offensive.
He is utterly wrong. The sentence meted out to Gillian Gibbons by Sudan is disproportionate. The reaction both legally and socially is highly disproportionate to the supposed crime of naming a teddy bear after a prophet.Why wasn't it disproportionate? This word implies that some sort of censure was required but that imprisonment was too much. The punishment wasn't out of proportion. It was unwarranted, outrageous, insupportable.
The use of the phrase "disproportionate" is offensive.
After all, let's think about this. The teddy bear is named after an American President, and who among us didn't have a teddy bear that had it's own name? Why was that? Because the teddy bear is a children's toy much loved by every child who has one - which is pretty much every child. Even those who didn't have a bear per se would have had something similar. Quite frankly, naming a teddy bear Muhammad should be regarded as a good, pro-Islam, thing - especially when it is selected by the children themselves.
Yes, Gillian Gibbons was naive to let her children choose such a name, but she can hardly be blamed for the excessive and disproportionate reaction taken towards it and her by Sudan.
News that two British Muslim peers - Labour's Lord Ahmed and Tory Baroness Warsi - have visited Sudan to meet Gillian Gibbons and to press their case to have Mrs Gibbons pardoned and released is cheering. Hopefully their reason will triumph over the religious fundamentalism which has led to her imprisonment.
