Just to reassure Jonah, my head did not explode at the BBC’s description of the Sudanese mob as “good-natured”. In fact, I didn’t even roll my eyes or give a mild tsk. Such is the way of the world. Thousands of Sudanese men calling for the execution of a middle-aged schoolma’am over a teddy bear are “good-natured“, while Martin Amis is a “racist” and I’m a ”flagrantly Islamophobic” hatemonger.

Even so, it’s impressive to see the speed with which poor Mrs Gibbons has been consigned to the same camp. As Tammy Bruce reports:

When asked by FOX News for a comment about the situation, a National Organization for Women spokeswoman said they were “not putting out a statement or taking a position.”

Fortunately, other members of the sisterhood are. From The View:

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: You’d think if you’re going overseas, I mean, we had this discussion yesterday about people coming to America and learning the customs and knowing what is cool, and what isn’t cool. But I find that maybe we are not- and I say we just as European and American, we’re not as anxious to learn the customs before we go places. It’s just one of the reasons we’re called the ugly Americans.

What’s so “ugly” about a British schoolteacher taking a job teaching Muslim schoolchildren in Khartoum? Never mind, the victim must have been asking for it. And, given that the prohibition against Mohammedan teddy bears was concocted out of whole cloth, even the most abjectly “sensitive” are bound to fall afoul of something or other. As The Belmont Club puts it:

The incitement here is not entirely on the Sudanese side. The supine behavior of the West, abject surrender to every demand, its willingness to shame and degrade itself without limit, is in large part responsible for the provocations now directed toward it.

Which is why there’ll be more. In hostage negotiations, tough-talking governments say they won’t make “concessions to terrorists”. They mean prisoner releases and cash handovers. Yet we make equally critical psychological concessions with nary a thought.