About a Bear--

I've been meaning to weigh in on this.


It seems to me to be an amazing case of culture shock, because in the US, the situation would be so very different if a group of very young children had elected to name a teddy bear--"Jesus". I can imagine the narrative here, rather easily. Many older people would simply say--"Isn't that adorable, they named the bear after Jesus." But some would add, "Don't you know some ACLU-type would complain--since it's in a school and all?" The argument would not be from the faithful.

I don't really see, in a western environment, a situation where the religious would see the naming of a fairly innocuous item--namely a cuddly children's toy, after Jesus, as at all an insult. After all, children would be drawn to a name they know well, and which represents something they like. In the US, the sentiment would be that the children chose that name because they adored Jesus, and didn't just want to walk with him, but play with him and be comforted by him--the things one does with a teddy bear. Innocent and childish things, that aren't at all about religion, which they might not yet understand, but are about love and faith, which a child is capable of. It would be found sort of...sweet.

I think the teacher here may not have been culturally aware that this would pose a problem, and perhaps needed to be advised--but why anything more than an apology (which is in and of itself a hard thing to give, when the slight is that of perception--not at all intent) should be required here, is curious. Why should it go to the level of death threats?

The answer seems to me to be beyond the simple issue of the naming of a mere stuffed fabric ursine. This same automatic reaction has occured before and it still puzzles me. Does it hearken back to the notion of depiction of the sacred being forbidden? But this is just the name of a toy--there is nothing religious there. How could anyone think that the name of a child's toy is meant to depict the Prophet? (Mohammed being a popular name, also--and a stuffed bear being, not so very offensive, or liable to start a religion.)

I'm not really a scholar of why they should react so, I can only report on how it seems to me. It seems to me that the actual facts of the situation--the youth of the children, the fact that the name might not have been anything to do with religion, the relative "outsider" cultural understanding of the teacher, all those aside, that the first notion, and deep belief of these offended faithful, was that the insult was *intended* and must be punished, is interesting. Is insult so expected? Should punishment be so automatic? And yet seeing insult appears to be endemic, historical , and I can't really get it--

Why is the name of a bear an insult? Just...why?