The teddy bear was named after Teddy Roosevelt. Then one got named Mohammed and a school teacher nearly got 40 lashes, and angry Sudanese crowds called for death, chanting:

If you go out in Sudan today
You’re sure of a big surprise.
If you go out in Sudan today
You’d better go in disguise.

For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today’s the day the teddy bears have their jihad.

Okay, just kidding. And, as ugly as those crowds were, they do not necessarily represent the mood of the nation, as this Sudanese blogger notes:

I’ve been deeply upset ever since this teddy bear circus erupted. A few days ago, I was out with a bunch of friends trying my best to get my face unglued from my computer screen. As we were walking in laughter, we passed by a shop displaying a set of teddy bears, and for the first time the triggered emotion was a starkly different one.

If anything, the whole spectacle further proves something to me as a Sudanese Muslim: our false pride and misplaced sense of honor.

Those we watched angrily protesting love to highlight the supposed immorality of the West – the bars, bare women and “corrupting” freedoms. We pride ourselves on living in a country that is supposedly more moral and therefore automatically better. It’s a false pride, one propagated and encouraged by the propaganda of Sudanese Islamists.

Certainly we have a lot to be proud of as a people with a rich history and culture. The Nubian Civilization, hailed by many experts as one of the greatest that ever existed, is but only one aspect of that. True Sudanese values of generosity and hospitality – ones slowly but surely withering away as oppression tears us – are trademarks we’re well known for. There is, however, nothing for us to be proud of as citizens of a country ruled by a gang of morally bankrupt butchers.

We are a country earning billions of dollars in oil exports, yet we rely on Western aid so millions of our own can survive when we can clearly afford to support them! Where’s the pride in that?

The day when basic human rights start to be respected is a day I might actually have some pride in being a Sudanese citizen. I guess it isn’t enough of an accomplishment for some in my country that we hosted one of the most beloved people in recent times – Osama Bin Laden. You may praise and thank the Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi for that.

It’s al-Turabi, after his rise to power, who is mainly responsible for the spread and exponential growth of radicalism in Sudan. Thanks to him, it also looks like our sense of honor has been greatly misplaced.

It amazes me how some of us can get so upset over a teddy bear whose name was democratically chosen by a bunch of seven-year-olds but feel no anger at the mass atrocities which took place in Darfur over the last four years. Honoring the countless Darfurian lives lost apparently isn’t important.