Have decided to create a separate thread for this, as it's a big story, so am gonna try to move stuff from the original thread.
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Originally posted: February 07, 2008
Dan drew my attention to this story, and his pithy comment - what a fucking cock - is, for me, unimprovable.
Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'
BBC News
07/02/08
The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable". Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.
Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion. For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court. He says Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".
...
He stresses that "nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states; the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well".
But Dr Williams said an approach to law which simply said "there's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts - I think that's a bit of a danger".
9 comments:
2:00 PM, February 12, 2008
Blogger Andy said...
David Aaronovitch on the Archbishop:
'My instincts are, I hope, as savage as the next columnist's. If an opportunity should arise for me to murder an Archbishop of Canterbury in print, then I wouldn't like to be left behind in the rush for quills and keyboards as fellow press-knights get ready for the slaughter. And there is something about the fluffy white beard and the too-long hair of this particular prelate that demands - and has now received - a bashing.
By now Dr Williams will have run out of cheeks to turn. Being described as “muddled and unhelpful” by the top Equality man, Trevor Phillips, was the least of it. The BBC Ten O'Clock News illustrated coverage of last week's speech to lawyers with pictures of handless beggars and men being flogged in public squares, as though the Archbishop had been advocating amputations and chastisement.'
full article
5:10 PM, February 12, 2008
Blogger Andy said...
Rowan Williams can rest easy, somebody, besides Gordon Brown, has come out in support of the beleaugered Archbishop... Hizb-Ut-Tahrir!
This is their statement:'The response to Dr William's comments illustrate both the profound level of ignorance in Britain about the Islamic Shariah and the near total blindness of some to the flaws within secularism and the harms it has caused in its implementation across the world. Xenophobia, the inherent assumption of superiority, and poor treatment of minorities is sadly part of Europe's tradition. Tolerance and pluralism are hollow slogans alongside this barrage of abuse, characterising the limited ability of this secular society to accomodate difference. By contrast, the rights of minorities were protected in the Islamic tradition. The Shariah law protected the right of citizens of other minorities to live according to their faith traditions within their personal lives. Though many in the west claim to approach issues rationally, many utterly fail to respect the opinions of those they disagree with.
'Although the context of Hizb ut-Tahrir's work is, and always has been, to work for an Islamic state in the Muslim world, the debate thus far has neglected the fact that it is not Muslims campaigning for Shariah in Britain that is a cause of tension. It is the policies of western governments to deny people's desire to live by Shariah in the Muslim world. Indeed, it is the height of hypocrisy that politicians and media who approved the bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan to export a secular system to the Muslim world, cry about protecting Britain's traditions and heritage, whilst obstructing the desire in the Muslim world to have laws that reflect their Islamic beliefs, heritage and system. For Muslims the world over, the Islamic Shariah is what brought civilisation and learning that characterised a golden age, such as that in Muslim Spain; it is the Shariah that guarantees an end to dictatorship, oppression and torture; it is the Shariah that protects family values in society; it is the Shariah that works to redistribute wealth and end poverty; it is the Shariah that restores the honour and dignity of women, allowing them to participate in society as human beings and not as commodities; it is the Shariah that protects people's privacy; it was the Shariah that allowed Muslim, Jew and Christian to live side by side for centuries in relative harmony; it was the Shariah that brought justice and stability to what are now some of the world's most trouble regions.”
'By contrast, when Muslims the world over look at secularism, liberal democracy and the capitalist free market they see enormous problems that some in the west simply fail to acknowledge. They see the century that secularism dominated was the arguably the bloodiest in human history, causing instabilty and conflict across the world; they see record gaps between rich and poor within and between states; they see the breakdown of family life and record numbers of broken families; they see a rampant individualism and consumerism; they see people increasingly disinterested in their own political process; they see rising social problems of drugs and alcohol abuse; they see an increasingly intrusive state and a surveillance society; they see an inability to bring about societal cohesion and to tolerate difference in society; they see an aggressive and militaristic foreign policy for material resources and political dominance. These are only a few things that have contributed to the failure of secularism to gain a foothold across the Muslim world. These are all very much in need of debate and discussion.
'It is our intention to open such a debate. We hope others will join us in it. However, we expect many will run away from such an honest appraisal of both systems, prefering abuse and generalisation to debate and discussion.'
More on the story here
9:36 PM, February 12, 2008
Blogger Andy said...
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Melanie Phillips hits back at David Aaronovitch over his line that as a 'conservative Jewish commentator' she has no place to call for the Archbishop of the COE to be dethroned:
'David Aaronovitch writes in today’s Times:
The conservative Jewish commentator Melanie Phillips exercised some extra-jurisdictional powers of her own in calling for the Archbishop to be dethroned (next week the Vicar of Dibley gives her choice of Chief Rabbi), entirely missing Dr Williams's conservative attack on the decline of civility and ‘customary ethical restraints’ produced by our ‘narrowly rights-based culture’.
I wonder which is the greater of my crimes — to be ‘conservative’ or to be Jewish?
Apparently, this should debar me from saying that Rowan Williams should step down as Archbishop of Canterbury or saying who I think should be his successor. Does this mean, perhaps, that correspondingly I would not be entitled to say that Rowan Williams should continue as ABofC and that all other members of the House of Bishops are pygmies by comparison to his titanic moral authority — or am I simply not entitled, as a ‘conservative’ Jew, to criticise?
Are Catholics, atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and other non-CofE British citizens of a society in which the Archbishop of Canterbury plays an important leadership role also not entitled to call for his resignation because they fear he is inviting their country to commit cultural suicide through creeping Islamisation — or is it only ‘conservative’ Jews who are not?
Is no non-Muslim entitled to condemn Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi who says it is a religious duty to kill Israelis and coalition forces; or the head of the Muslim Council of Britain when he says he wants to Islamise Britain; or call upon the Muslim community to deal with imams preaching sedition and hatred – or is it only ‘conservative’ Jews who are not entitled to do so?
Are all ‘conservatives’ who are troubled by the ‘decline of civility’, ‘ethical constraints’ and ‘our narrowly-based rights culture’ to be expected therefore to endorse a) sharia b) the Archbishop’s belief that the principle of one law for everybody is ‘a bit of a danger’ — or is it only ‘conservative’ Jews?'
Full article here
More comments on the Archbishop?
Here's conservative Anglican commentator Peter Hitchen's:
At least the Ayatollah of Canterbury is honest, Mr Brown
'The poor old Ayatollah of Canterbury doesn't actually deserve all the slime now being tipped over his modernised mitre. Just some of it.
Of course it is absurd for the chief of the Christian Church in this country to cringe publicly to Islam. But at least Archbishop Williams is open about his unwillingness to defend the faith – as is his colleague, the wretched Bishop of Oxford, who recently announced that he was perfectly happy for loudspeakers to blare the Muslim call to prayer across that city.
Williams Even on their own liberal terms, this pair are clueless about sharia and its scorn for women.
It was exiled Iranian Muslim women who defeated a similar proposal in Canada. They had travelled thousands of miles to escape sharia law and didn't want it in Toronto, thanks very much.
Compare that with the Government, which poses stern-faced as the foe of "terror" and noisily jails figures of fun such as Abu Hamza while greasily pretending that there's no connection between Islam and terrorism.
Gordon Brown's Cabinet has also quietly agreed that Muslim men with more than one wife can now claim benefits for these extra spouses – while bigamy remains a criminal offence for everyone else, punishable by up to seven years in prison.
And what about the discreet little Whitehall celebrations of the Muslim festival of Eid, attended by highly placed civil servants?
Or the incessant multi-faith propaganda in supposedly Christian State schools, where children known to me have been pestered to draw pictures of mosques but are given virtually no instruction in the faith and scripture of our own established Church?
Why is it that in Britain, alone of all countries in the world, the most exalted, educated and privileged have all lost the will to defend their own home? Most of us liked it the way it was before they began to "modernise" it.
I know of nowhere else where those most richly rewarded by a free society are so anxious to trash the place that gave them birth and liberty.'
And in this article for the conservative magazine Front Page, Daniel Pipes agrees with the Archbishop that Sharia law probably is unavoidable in Europe:
'Although widely denounced (and in danger of losing his job), Williams may be right about the Shari‘a being unavoidable, for it is already getting entrenched in the West. A Dutch justice minister announced that "if two-thirds of the Dutch population should want to introduce the Shari‘a tomorrow, then the possibility should exist." A German judge referred to the Koran in a routine divorce case. A parallel Somali gar courts system already exists in Britain.
These developments suggest that British appeasement concerning the war on terror, the nature of the family, and the rule of law are part of a larger pattern. Even more than the security threat posed by Islamist violence, these trends are challenging and perhaps will change the very nature of Western life.'
More on the Archbishop from Matthew Parris in the Times here
...and from Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post here
Further thoughts from Peter Hitchens on the COE and the Rowan Williams Sharia controversy:
Is the Church of England finished? Should it be?
'I love the Church of England. By that I do not mean its bishops, its arid modern prayers and poetry-free, unmemorable modern bibles, nor its stripped and carpeted modernised churches, its compulsory handshakes, perky modern hymns or happy-clappy conventicles where everyone is saved. If I'm saved it was such a narrow squeak that I think it wiser not to go on about it, as the man said.
What I love is the wondrous Elizabethan settlement which refused to make windows into men's souls and allowed Catholics and Protestants to forget their differences in a rather beautiful ambiguity.
That settlement is expressed in several ways. It lingers in buildings, in books, in music, a sort of ghostly presence just within reach at certain times of day and in a few unravaged, unwrecked parts of this country. It also continues to survive as a body of thought, song and literature, quite immune from the peculiar bureaucratic organisation which currently uses the Church's name.'
[...]
'That's why I care about Rowan Williams, and his excursion into the subject of Sharia law. I may generally ignore Archbishop Rowan, as I have little time for his prose style, designed to conceal rather than reveal, in my view. And he seems to me to be a nitwit in worldly matters, having been a dupe of the disarmers back in 1985 - which rather devalues his later opposition to the Iraq war. My Church-of-England-in-exile continues to exist without him, and in spite of him and those like him.
But I am not sure it can survive indefinitely under such leadership. If parsons and bishops wish to rage against each other in factions, Catholic versus Evangelical, then that is a pity and I wish they would stop. There are better things for them to do. But if the man appointed to head the Christian Church in England declares that the adoption of some aspects of Sharia law "seems unavoidable" in this country; if her muses publicly about the possible recognition of Sharia courts in marital law, financial transactions and mediation (and he undeniably did both these things) then he is toying with something far bigger - the future of England (and Britain) as a Christian society.
For me, the main problem is not what he said, but that it was he who said it. A Muslim cleric, a Guardian leader-writer or a leading academic (perhaps Professor Howard Kirk, as he no doubt now is, Vice Chancellor of the University of Watermouth) might have mouthed this stuff ( and, yes, I have trudged and hacked my way through the whole verbal jungle) and that would have been that.
But for the Archbishop of Canterbury to do this is a clean different thing. Who else, in our ruling elite, is going to argue that we are and must remain a Christian nation, our laws based (as they are) on Christian precept? Crudely, Dr Williams is paid to defend the Christian faith. To say that something is 'unavoidable' is almost always to say that you aren't prepared to do anything to avoid it, or - worse - that you may actually favour it but daren't say so. Supporters of the European Single Currency would often claim that it, too, was 'inevitable, a very effective way of demoralising people who knew no better and didn't understand its importance. Most things are avoidable if you have the determination to fight them. Sharia law in Britain certainly is.
I also didn't like his attempt to say that only Muslim 'primitivists' held to the most worrying tenets of Sharia, or that worries about such things were 'dramatic fears'. This isn't so. Look how difficult it is to get Muslim spokesmen to denounce such things as the stoning of adulterous women, or Sharia's penalties for homosexuals. My discussion with Islamic scholars at Deoband a couple of years ago ( all calm, soft-spoken bearded scholars much like Dr Williams) left me pretty sure that they would never budge on things like the lesser position of women, or the death penalty for those who desert Islam. It couldn't be changed, they insisted.'
[...]
'But, as I've warned before, if the Christian church doesn't take advantage of the approaching religious revival, which I think cannot be long delayed, someone else will. And that someone will argue much more powerfully for Sharia law than Rowan Williams ever did. And I can't see the Muslims, if they become a great force in Britain, paying much attention to the maintenance of a separate Christian law. They are serious and determined people, who believe staunchly in their religion and hope for its ultimate triumph. So, no, I don't think the Church of England should be allowed to die. We need it more than we ever have.'
An American blogger has written his own updated version of the Cantebury Tales (with apologies to Chaucer):
An Archbishop of Cantebury Tale
42 But sharia goes now where nae it should;
43 I liketh bigge buttes and I cannot lye,
44 You othere faelows can't denye,
45 But the council closed my wenching pub,
46 To please the Imams, aye thaere's the rub."
Follow the link to read it all.
Britain's Encounter with Islamic Law
by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
February 13, 2008
Beneath the deceptively placid surface of everyday life, the British population is engaged in a momentous encounter with Islam. Three developments of the past week, each of them culminating years' long trends – and not just some odd occurrence – exemplify changes now underway.
First, the UK government has decided that terrorism by Muslims in the name of Islam is actually unrelated to Islam, or is even anti-Islamic. This notion took root in 2006 when the Foreign Office, afraid that the term "war on terror" would inflame British Muslims, sought language that upholds "shared values as a means to counter terrorists." By early 2007, the European Union issued a classified handbook that banned jihad, Islamic, and fundamentalist in reference to terrorism, offering instead some "non-offensive" phrases. Last summer, Prime Minister Gordon Brown prohibited his ministers from using the word Muslim in connection with terrorism. In January, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith went further, actually describing terrorism as "anti-Islamic." And last week the Home Office completed the obfuscation by issuing a counter-terrorism phrasebook that instructs civil servants to refer only to violent extremism and criminal murderers, not Islamist extremism and jihadi-fundamentalists.
Second, and again culminating several years of evolution, the British government now recognizes polygamous marriages. It changed the rules in the "Tax Credits (Polygamous Marriages) Regulations 2003": previously, only one wife could inherit assets tax-free from a deceased husband; this legislation permits multiple wives to inherit tax-free, so long as the marriage had been contracted where polygamy is legal, as in Nigeria, Pakistan, or India. In a related matter, the Department for Work and Pensions began issuing extra payments to harems for such benefits as jobseeker allowances, housing subventions, and council tax relief. Last week came news that, after a year-long review, four government departments (Work and Pensions, Treasury, Revenue and Customs, Home Office) concluded that formal recognition of polygamy is "the best possible" option for Her Majesty's Government.
Third, the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, endorsed applying portions of the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) in Great Britain. ... Although widely denounced (and in danger of losing his job), Williams may be right about the Shari‘a being unavoidable, for it is already getting entrenched in the West. A Dutch justice minister announced that "if two-thirds of the Dutch population should want to introduce the Shari‘a tomorrow, then the possibility should exist." A German judge referred to the Koran in a routine divorce case. A parallel Somali gar courts system already exists in Britain.
These developments suggest that British appeasement concerning the war on terror, the nature of the family, and the rule of law are part of a larger pattern. Even more than the security threat posed by Islamist violence, these trends are challenging and perhaps will change the very nature of Western life.
I wonder what the Archbishop would say about this particular instance of Sharia Law, an 8 year old caught stealing in Iran and having his arm crushed under a car as punishment.
The Pope baptizes prominent Italian Muslim:
'The Egyptian-born Allam's conversion to Christianity -- he took the name "Christian" for his baptism -- was kept secret until the Vatican disclosed it in a statement less than an hour before the Saturday night service began.
Allam, who is a strong supporter of Israel and who an Israeli newspaper once called a "Muslim Zionist," has lived under police protection following threats against him, particularly after he criticized Iran's position on Israel.'
[...]
'His conversion, which he called "the happiest day of my life," came just two days after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused the pope of being part of a "new crusade" against Islam.'
[...]
'Allam's highly public baptism by the pope shocked Italy's Muslim community, with some leaders openly questioning why the Vatican chose to shine such a big spotlight it.
"What amazes me is the high profile the Vatican has given this conversion," Yaha Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic Religious Community, told Reuters. "Why could he have not done this in his local parish?"
Malaysian woman can leave Islam
BBC News
8/5/08
A religious court in Malaysia has allowed a Muslim convert to leave the Islamic faith, in what is being hailed as a landmark ruling. Penang's Sharia court ruled that Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah was free to return to Buddhism, following the collapse of her marriage to a Muslim man. It was decided she had not had proper counselling during her conversion.
Church of England row over Muslim conversion
Telegraph
26/05/2008
The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, accused the Church of failing in its duty to "welcome people of other faiths" ahead of a motion at July's General Synod in York urging a strategy for evangelising Muslims.
...
[A Church of England] spokesman played down the likelihood of the synod agenda being hijacked by those whose priority was a perceived threat from Islam: "The agenda has not yet been confirmed."
Pakistan-born Dr Nazir-Ali told the Mail on Sunday that, while Church leaders had rightly shown sensitivity to British Muslims, "I think it may have gone too far." He added: "Our nation is rooted in the Christian faith and that is the basis of welcoming people of other faiths. You cannot have an honest conversation on the basis of fudge."
Britain's only Asian bishop, he was tipped to become Archbishop of Canterbury before Dr Rowan Williams's appointment in 2002. Since he was passed over, he has felt able to speak more freely about his inter-faith views and has become a talisman for hard-line evangelicals who see Islam as a threat to culture and religion.
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