mutex? protecting global data/critical section

[Brian Alexander]

Hello;

I am trying to protect some global data, which may, in the future, be 
accessed by threads. I'm not sure how to implement a locking mechanism 
in python. Here is the idea I'm trying to express:

class resourceManager(object):
  def __init__(self):
   self.__resources = 100

  def getResource(self):
   BEGIN CRITICAL SECTION HERE
   if self.__resources > 0:
    self.__resources -= 1
    * other related state information adjusted, too *
   else:
    emergencyCode()
   END CRITICAL SECTION HERE

How is this accomplished? Does anyone know of a simple example?

Many thanks.

Brian.