Sharia law may result in 'legal apartheid'

[kurth]

Sharia law may result in 'legal apartheid'
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 9:22pm GMT 09/02/2008

Senior religious leaders attack multiculturalism and sharia law today, warning that they are "disastrous", socially divisive and are destroying Britain's culture and values. Lord Carey and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor rebut the call of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, for Islamic law to be recognised in Britain.

Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, said: "His acceptance of some Muslim laws within British law would be disastrous for the nation. He has overstated the case for accommodating Islamic legal codes. His conclusion that Britain will eventually have to concede some place in law for aspects of sharia is a view I cannot share. There can be no exceptions to the laws of our land which have been so painfully honed by the struggle for democracy and human rights."

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, said that the Government's promotion of multiculturalism had destroyed the unity that used to hold society together. Immigrants must "obey the laws of this country".

Writing in this newspaper, Lord Carey condemns multiculturalism as "disastrous", blames it for creating Islamic ghettos and says that Dr Williams's support for sharia law will "inevitably lead to further demands from the Muslim community". He suggests that such a move could embolden some Muslims to try to turn Britain into a country ruled by Islamic law which, he says, contradicts principles of human rights and allows the persecution of Christians...

Dr Williams sought to defend his comments yesterday, but is fighting to survive calls from politicians and members of his church demanding his resignation. The vast majority of the Church's ruling body believe he was wrong, a Sunday Telegraph poll shows. The survey of the General Synod found that only three per cent agreed that aspects of Islamic law should be adopted.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/10/nsharia110.xml

[msongs]

1. it is a mistake to allow a sect to have its own laws outside the greater laws of the nation nt

[Bad Thoughts]

2. Comical misuse of term

Apartheid was imposed upon African natives by Afrikaaners. While it pretended to preserve traditional legal structures, apartheid (and similar legal systems in other British colonies), it actually created a restrictive category that allowed colonial administrators to restrict Africans from the modern economy and political institutions. We can debate the advantages and disadvantages of allowing legal autonomy for Muslim law. However, calling it apartheid is duplicitous, as if it were the Africans who created it for themselves.

[zazen]

4. but that assumes Muslim females equally participated in creating laws

Perhaps they have. It's just that we have no record of it, since under Sharia they are politically mute. So I'm not sure to which polity you are referring, the polity that you are comparing to the polity of Africaans under South African white apartheid--but that polity of Sharia by definition precludes women's and girl's voices (and voices of men who object), who face violence and death if they object.

Either way, I see nothing comical about raising issues of gender apartheid.

[sam sarrha]

5. or are worked to death in sweat shops..do our labor laws protect women and children

[Bad Thoughts]

6. Not claiming Sharia is egalitarian

Apartheid, though, has a specific meaning that is not applicable here.

[dmallind]

8. I think you read that the wrong way round though

If i judge the mindset of the typical UK Conservative (big C) right - and I used to be one so I should have a fair shot - the concern is that it would be the Muslims creating an apartheid that reszerves special access to social and legal institutions for themselves, but not for the majority. Now yes of course you are right that this will not mean non-Muslim Brits are kept from the mdoern economy and so on, but the fear is of special rights for the minority not available for the majority, which is at least one facet of apartheid.

That said, it is obviously more of a political usage than a strictly historical and accurate one - hyperbole designed for effect.

Personally I would probably be in the middle here. I would have little support for two sets of laws or for Muslim law that overrides UK law, but if two people wish to enter into binding arbitration under a clerical Islamic structure and have the resulting contract be legally enforceable (again assuming it is not contradictory to UK law) then I'd have no worries. It's not like the Archbish is suggesting we start chopping off hands for petty theft.

[Bad Thoughts]

9. I can see that

I still find the dynamic amusing, since in its original use it referred to a dominate group constructing advantages for itself by constraining another to tradition, while in this case it is a minority trying to preserve itself against a dominant culture. But you are correct that it could mean securing special advantages.

[sam sarrha]

3. accepting Sharia law is the state institutionalizing degradation of womens rights, if not slaver

there is the problem of giving an inch and losing a mile, is there limitations to how far the Islamic law will encroach on civil rights of women.

there are valid reasons to accommodate Islamic tradition, like buying property, investments etc.. but in no way should that be considered sharia law.. just accommodation, the word sharia should not be used in the legal definition of the accommodation.

validating any violation of civil law is unacceptable. but we should accommodate necessities of commerce etc. as is already done with other religions, but not civil law

their version of divorce can seriously violate our laws. the clergy would probably never give custody to the mothers, the men have all the rights, the women have nothing, they can be easily dumped for a younger woman and end up penniless on the street..see the documentary:'Behind the Veil', on the basis of a lie.. takes 4 or 5 women to one mans testimony, and if the woman loses in the Kangaroo court the womans whitenesses suffer the same punishment... up to having their heads bashed in with rocks... but that isn't supposed to happen.. only the good sharia laws will be accepted.. not the one with instant double jeopardy do overs.. if the woman wins and or has already suffered the previous sentence such as 99 lashes..

what i understand is that in Islamic dominated cultures the infidel must abide by their laws, and can live their own life within that framework, in their own areas

so what is unfair about the same arrangement with them till they become the majority and impose their rules on us... as the world turns..

America will need to learn from how this works out

[struggle4progress]

7. It's The Telegraph's usual wingnut preference for huff-n-puff controversy rather than reporting news

Apparently many people, who simply cannot be bothered to actually try to read and understand what was actually said, still want to gasp breathlessly in righteous horror about whatever it was