sharia law in UK??

[Bells]

Just like the women adopting the hijab in the UK, don't be surprised if efforts to block the use of sharia make people turn even more to its older elements, the kind that emulate the life and times of William Wallace.

How so? It was not the Muslims in the UK who have asked for the implementation of Sharia into the British legal system. Dr Williams did it all on his very own. Now it would appear the religious hierarchy of the Anglican Church in the UK are mostly standing by his views. They would probably have their reasons. After all, why wouldn't they support special provisions in the mostly secular legal system for those of religious faith? Why wouldn't they want to draw a nice dividing line between those who believe in God and those who do not in the legal sphere? After all, if Muslims have special provisions placed in the British legal system that allows the implementation of Sharia Law, it would stand to reason that other religious majorities and minorities in the UK would also expect the same thing.

But there is a deeper concern in Dr Williams comments. And I think it was said best by a Dr Shaaz Mahboob, in his comments about Dr Williams proposal:

Sir, The Archbishop of Canterbury is utterly naive or extremely clever. Either he surreptitiously wishes to use the Muslim community as a test case in order to gradually reintroduce the influence of religion, particularly that of the Church of England, over the affairs of the State; or he believes that allowing certain aspects of Sharia as self-governance for British Muslims would achieve the greater objective of lasting community cohesion (“Archbishop argues for Islamic law in Britain”, Feb 8).

In either case, his presumption that the majority of British Muslims would opt for Sharia courts as opposed to the British legal system will almost certainly turn out to be inaccurate. Any sane-minded Muslim living in Britain under the liberal, secular, democratic system and having the faintest knowledge about Sharia and its implications would prefer the Royal Courts of Justice over the Sharia courts any day.

British Muslims are not a homogeneous group. They are divided along multiple variables such as ethnicity, geographical origin, cultural practices and, above all, interpretation of religious beliefs and principles. To presume that Sharia derived from any single school of thought in Islam could ever be deemed acceptable to all the Muslim communities in Britain is utterly nonsensical.

Sharia, if introduced, would not only jeopardise community relations but also further segregate Muslim communities from the rest of the British public. Every moderate, liberal-minded Muslim like myself would resist the imposition of Sharia in Britain regardless of whether its advocate was a Church of England archbishop or a mullah from the local mosque.
Link

 

[S.A.M.]

Apparently Dr Mahboob is unaware that sharia is already an option in the UK, only it is without oversight.

 

[S.A.M.]

I actually thought about this post on the drive home, and it still just stuns me.

Have you even read what you posted, and thought about what you're trying to say here?

You're comparing the practices of modern day Islam to the French Revolution (1789), and you really think you've got a point?

You do realize, once again, you're defending the side that would sooner see you dead than defend your right to defend them, right? How does that make you feel?

Robert Frost said "A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel." Throw out 2008 descriptions of liberals and conservatives, and just think about it for a minute. That's you, SAM. You suffer from permanent Stockholm Syndrome.

I'm not "defending" anything.

I'm making a comparison between what is revered in one culture and considered grotesque in another.

Do the French consider their revolution to be a national shame?

Sharia is for better or worse, assigned divine status in some cultures, just telling people it is savage or backward is unlikely to lead to any change.

Though it depends on what the aim is, to cause change or merely promote conflict.

Just like telling the French their revolution was a barbaric act.

 

[15ofthe19]

I'm not "defending" anything.

I'm making a comparison between what is revered in one culture and considered grotesque in another.

Do the French consider their revolution to be a national shame?

Sharia is for better or worse, assigned divine status in some cultures, just telling people it is savage or backward is unlikely to lead to any change.

Though it depends on what the aim is, to cause change or merely promote conflict.

Just like telling the French their revolution was a barbaric act.

The French definitely spend a lot of time defending what happened 225 years ago in their country, especially when you look at how pro death penalty they lean. So I guess you make a great point here. If they would only be more open to the enlightened practices of Islam regarding human rights, it might open their eyes to how barbaric they were 8 generations ago.

How could anybody miss the obviousness of that conclusion?

 

[S.A.M.]

The French definitely spend a lot of time defending what happened 225 years ago in their country, especially when you look at how pro death penalty they lean. So I guess you make a great point here. If they would only be more open to the enlightened practices of Islam regarding human rights, it might open their eyes to how barbaric they were 8 generations ago.

How could anybody miss the obviousness of that conclusion?

As usual you miss my point.

My point is that humiliation does not lead to progress. Consider yourself. If you were constantly put down by your partner, would it be an impetus to change in the direction she desired?

 

[Bells]

Apparently Dr Mahboob is unaware that sharia is already an option in the UK, only it is without oversight.

I am sure he is well aware that sharia is practiced in Islamic communities residing in the UK and the inherent problems that arise as a result.

Canon Wilkinson said that the lecture would be “a response to rising concerns about the extent to which Sharia is compatible with English civil law, especially in the extensive Muslim neighbourhoods where informal Sharia councils are widely in operation. In areas such as marriage and divorce, there is evidence that there is no proper connection with the civil courts and that women in particular are suffering.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3346339.ece

Do you honestly think integrating it into the British legal system will change this? I am assuming it will be optional for Muslims to select to have their grievances heard in a Sharia Court instead of a British Court? What of the societal and community pressure on a woman, for example, to not seek justice against an abusive husband in the non-Sharia legal system?

Especially in light of this:

He also made clear that he was not backtracking on his plea for more formal legal exemptions to be made, under the law, for religious conscience to counter the increasing secularisation of society. “While there is no dispute about our common allegiance to the law of the land, that law still recognises that religious communities form the consciences of believers and has not pressed for universal compliance with aspects of civil law where conscientious matters are in question.

“There are signs that this cannot necessarily be taken quite so easily for granted as the assumptions of our society become more secular. We ought to keep an eye on this trend; and if we do, we shall have to do more thinking about the models of society and law we work with. It’s an area where Christians and people of other faiths ought to be doing some reflecting together.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3351854.ece

I am sorry, but I find the thought of anyone using a religious privilege for not following the law to be abhorrent. For example, from the same link:

“The Achbishop has dug himself in deeper with his call for special legal privileges for all religions. There are already unacceptable religious opt-outs in equality legislation.”

He said that Christian and Muslim pharmacists were refusing to process prescriptions for contraception. “There are calls for conscience clauses in other medical and legal matters. The Archbishop seems insensitive to where religious conscience ends and unfair discrimination begins.”

Do you think a pharmacist should cite religious privilege in refusing to process contraception prescriptions? Or should a prosecutor refuse to prosecute a violent crime against a homosexual because he/she deems homosexuality to be a sin and therefore wrong? Should that prosecutor be allowed to cite religious privilege? Should a store keeper be allowed to cite religious privilege in refusing to serve homosexuals because his/her own religious beliefs deems homosexuality to be a sin?

The reason why religion has no place in law is because of the risk it poses to any notion of equality the law attempts to bring. Do you think it was religious doctrines that granted homosexuals equal rights? Or the right to marry? The answer to that is no.

 

[15ofthe19]

As usual you miss my point.

My point is that humiliation does not lead to progress. Consider yourself. If you were constantly put down by your partner, would it be an impetus to change in the direction she desired?

So it would be humiliating to Islam for an Islamist to come out and openly condemn a barbaric custom? Well, if that's humiliating, then bring it on. It's needed. Sunshine is the best disinfectant SAM. You can't possibly say that the Islamic world doesn't need some sunshine shone on some its more disgusting cultural relics that should be kicked to the curb at this point, can you?

That shithead was basically saying "If I come out and openly criticize something as barbaric as stoning, I'm a dead man, and I'm just not enough of a man to stand up to the thugs that run this quasi-religious shitshow, so I'm not going to openly criticize them, for fear of becoming the next Rushdie."

If you don't realize that's what he was saying, you're simply delusional.

You act like tiptoe-ing around these barbarians is the moral thing to do, and I will once again remind you that they would sooner kill you (simply for being a woman with a brain) than tolerate you, but you just can't stand it that somebody not brown could go there, and point that out.

 

[S.A.M.]

So it would be humiliating to Islam for an Islamist to come out and openly condemn a barbaric custom? Well, if that's humiliating, then bring it on. It's needed. Sunshine is the best disinfectant SAM. You can't possibly say that the Islamic world doesn't need some sunshine shone on some its more disgusting cultural relics that should be kicked to the curb at this point, can you?

That shithead was basically saying "If I come out and openly criticize something as barbaric as stoning, I'm a dead man, and I'm just not enough of a man to stand up to the thugs that run this quasi-religious shitshow, so I'm not going to openly criticize them, for fear of becoming the next Rushdie."

If you don't realize that's what he was saying, you're simply delusional.

You act like tiptoe-ing around these barbarians is the moral thing to do, and I will once again remind you that they would sooner kill you (simply for being a woman with a brain) than tolerate you, but you just can't stand it that somebody not brown could go there, and point that out.

Considering I lived among the "barbarians" for five years, I will put down your inability to understand me on a cultural chasm. Good luck with your formula.

 

[Tiassa]

You can't possibly say that the Islamic world doesn't need some sunshine shone on some its more disgusting cultural relics that should be kicked to the curb at this point, can you?

It has taken Western culture hundreds of years, through a trend that can generally be described with words and phrases like "enlightenment", "socioeconomic progress", "increasing quality of life", and the like, and we're finally down to what seems to be a few basic considerations. In the 330 years since Newton and DeDuillier, we've come from the death penalty for homosexuality to an open civil rights dispute at ballot boxes, in legislative halls, and in the courts. Progress has not come easily.

In the five centuries since Cosimo de Medici rose to power, women have enjoyed a rising status that has led them from being property to be traded in marriage for political and economic benefits to governing their own educations, marriages, and very lives and bodies. This has been a long struggle. Women in the United States of America have had the right to vote for less than a century°; before that, it was sporadic, and Congress in 1887 even took the right away from them in Utah.

In 1967, in a controversial ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States finally granted men and women the right to marry across ethnic lines. There are many Americans who consider this development a repugnant offense against humanity.

We have, indeed, come a long way over the centuries, and it is a reasonable question to ask why Muslims have not. And the answers come down to those oft-enigmatic phrases. Enlightenment, socioeconomic progress, increased quality of life. It is hard to say what would have happened in the Islamic world had the Ottoman Empire survived; after all, empires were becoming passé, as the British have had to accept in the years since. But the collapse of the Ottoman Empire heralded an age of struggle and challenge. The Islamic world has come to distrust Western institutions in part because, historically, those institutions only sought to exploit Muslims. Superstition holds sway among many in large part because economic conditions preclude the kind of advanced public educational system that, for instance, we in the United States can so easily afford to botch up. Even if we brought those luxuries to the Islamic world tomorrow, with all the economic might to install those luxuries as rights, it would take at least a generation to make the transition, a lifetime before the culture would follow an arc recognizable to our Western eyes.

Every day that we in the West fight against that transition is another day's effort to make sure some of us can die believing they were right about how evil the damned Muslims are. It seems that whether it's blacks, women, gays, Jews, Muslims, aborigines, Amerindians, Hispanics, Russians, French, Japs, Viets, Chinese, Catholics, Irish ... fill-in-the-blank ... many of us simply aren't complete unless we can find a reason to hate our fellow human beings for existing as they arrived in the world.

And it's tragic. Because for many, as long as they can die without ever having to realize they were wrong, well, at least they had that until the end. And it's such a waste.

Of course there are aspects of other cultures that need to be kicked to the curb. And yes, in the Islamic world are some that most of us could agree take higher priority than French apologies for The Terror, or American apologies for the land-grab otherwise known as Manifest Destiny. The whipping of rape survivors does take priority over chasing male chauvinism out of the workplace. But what in the world would make someone think that a bunch of lying, thieving American bastards wagging their fingers and telling other people what to do will have any positive effect?

Do you ever look at the future, at progress, with hope, instead of as something to be angrily demanded of everyone else? I mean, I would presume so. And I would ask if it really feels so horrible?

I really do believe that progress comes best when it is shared in hope, instead of inflicted upon one another.
____________________

Notes:

° Women in the United States of America have had the right to vote for less than a century — This speaks of a nationwide right. Women's suffrage in the United States runs back to the 1750s, when Lydia Chapin Taft voted in at least three town meetings. Wyoming granted women the right to vote in 1869, and Utah in 1870. Not even the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was enough to win women the right to vote nationwide; this specific right had to be awarded by the Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920.