40 lashes for western hypocrisy

The recent Gillian Gibbons affair in the Sudan has highlighted yet again the terrible hypocrisy and two-faced nature of the West. Whether or not I (or anyone else) finds this good, bad, or indifferent is beside the point. The western media, the politicians, and xenophobes of this country (and beyond) are always very quick to condemn the 'backward' Arab and African countries when alleged human rights abuses take place. Yet the criticism directed at Guantanamo, rendition, bullets in de Menezes' head (casually fobbed off under a health and safety guideline), talk of increasing the detention period for suspects to 56 (or 90 or whatever other figure happens to spring to mind) days, and last but not least the appalling acts of aggression carried out in Serbia, Afghanistan, and most prominently Iraq, is somehow left wanting.

It's simple: Make a big song and dance of the Sharia law in the Sudan. Make it look pathetic (which of course it appears to us in the west) and thereby reaffirm the imperialist notion of a progressive west on the one hand and the backward Arabs and Africans on the other.

The woman in question acted very foolishly by being so culturally unaware despite taking on a job as a teacher in the Sudan that I managed to muster up some sympathy with great difficulty. But still, I managed. Nonetheless, sharia law in the Sudan, however silly it may appear, is clear on the use of the name of Muhammed. She should have been far more culturally aware. The argument of leniancy through ignorance is yet another hypocritical western argument. Because she's a white western woman, somehow this must be scrutinised, and they have to make exceptions. She didn't really mean it after all, because she didn't know. That's an argument? What if a German who is older than 18 has sex with a 15 year-old Brit? Could s/he argue: sorry, but in Germany the age of consent is 14, unlike here where it's 16, but I didn't know that anyway....Of course not. And indeed many cultural practices of immigrants are illegal or are being tried to be made illegal (I can think of the attack on Halal slaughter by western universalists who cry 'cruelty!' while chomping on their mass-produced steak). But if it's the other way round (Brit abroad), then we are expected to call for exceptions.

No way.