Original Lubna Update: Who Wears the Trousers in Sudan?

We have no news on on Lubna al-Hussein (yes, I am seeing as many as three different ‘names’ for Lubna. We are using Lubna Ahmed Hussein, which is her own Facebook page name) but I share an interesting essay Who wears the trousers in Sudan? from the Guardian UK.

Writer Nesrine Malik gives us background on the evolving identity of Khartoum as a city, ending her commentary: What these women were wearing is hardly the point. They were just an easy target for someone’s discomfort with the challenge they posed to convention, traditionalism and the status quo. As with all self-declared Islamic governments, what a woman wears becomes no longer an issue of religious modesty but one of audacity and defiance to a regime’s raison d’etre and authority.

Malik expects a resolution of the affair similar to that of British teacher Gillian Gibbons who faced 40 lashes, six mnths in jail or a fine for permitting her class teddy bear to be named Muhammad. Parents made complaints to authorities about the teddy bear and Gibbons was arrested but eventually freed.

The seven-year-old pupil in Ms Gibbon’s class at the Christian, fee-paying school jumped to his teacher’s defence, saying that he chose the name for the teddy bear because it was his name. The seven-year-old insisted that he had no idea that either he or Ms Gibbon’s had committed a crime. Anne