Is He Utterly Mad?
In his great good wisdom, none other than Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has decided to enter the fray with respect to minority accommodations. And it's very good that the majority wishes to make life somewhat simpler, easier if you will, for recent migrants to their country, helpfully offering to aid their settlement.
That bespeaks enlightened communality; expressing compassion for others leaving the familiar behind, and painfully adjusting to a new reality.
Of course that new reality will eventually become familiar, and there will be a relaxation of tensions, and the laws of the land, along with its freedoms offered to newcomers will become their laws and their freedoms, too. Needless to say, along with privilege comes commitment, for no one can simply take and not give in return.
Those who experienced a welcome to a new and unfamiliar place will realize that this is a two-way street, and although raw to the environment initially, obligations must be realized toward the new country. Which, in a good many instances, should not be a heavy obligation. Given that many immigrants leave their country of origin as refugees from politics, religion, war and poverty.
So that the new, adoptive country, offering refuge from all those social pressures, rewarding immigrants with newfound freedoms, equality, safety and respect under a universal law whose purpose is to represent an entire population, must realize that, as citizens of that country they must prepare to obey those very same laws that guarantee their protection.
That's why it comes as such a blaze out of the blue that Archbishop Williams has recommended that "aspects" of shariah law be adopted in Britain. For a good man of the cloth and a world-class religious leader, he appears over-eager to consign Muslim women to the purgatory of shariah, a fate they thought they had finally escaped, living in a democracy weighted toward inclusion, equality and freedom.
According to Dr. Williams it would seem to be "inevitable" that elements of Islamic law be incorporated into British law. Exactly that is what an accommodation-minded Ontario legislature thought a few years back, as they too felt it might be useful to permit the adoption of shariah alongside that of Canadian law, in a fit of misplaced generosity toward the many Muslims living in that province.
Then they reeled at the extent of the backlash. Not necessarily from the general population which, in truth, hardly knew how to respond. But from Muslim women who decried this good-will gesture to bring them back into an inferior social and religious status inimical to their health and general well-being.
Even Muslim feminists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali addressed herself to the absurdity of the recommendation. Pointing out that under shariah a girl is eligible for marriage from menstruation, making child-brides a commonality where Islamic law becomes the law. Directly imperiling the health of young girls through miscarriage, maternal fatalities and consequent infant deaths. Let alone that such young girls may no longer continue their education.
Under sharia women are subjugated, they are chattel, their human rights abrogated to the whims and perceived needs of men. Sharia is practised differently in different Muslim countries, differently under different sects of the Islamic code. Ms. Ali pointed out that in the Arab Human Development Report looking into the state of women under sharia law in 22 Arab-Islamic countries, another offshoot of women's place is guaranteed penury.
Moreover, men are permitted multiple wives, divorce is simply undertaken by a rote repetition of "I divorce you" in the presence of male witnesses. The shed wife is entitled to a living allowance for no more than one year and then she is on her own in a society that isn't given to educating women or accepting a role for them in the workforce. On finalization of divorce, custody of children is automatically the father's right.
If a Muslim woman under sharia becomes a widow, she may be forced to marry her husband's brother. And under sharia, even if she remains unmarried, her husband's family has the right in law to remove her children and place them in the custody of the family. Sharia law ensures that the laws of inheritance are blatantly unequal with women receiving a minor share of property and wealth.
Some interpretations of sharia have it that a family's honour must be upheld at all costs, and if a woman is deemed to have brought shame upon the family her life is forfeit. Her own male family members will undertake to restore family honour by destroying their unforgivably errant daughter's, sister's, niece's or cousin's life.
In many countries where sharia law is the norm a strict dress code is prescribed and must be obeyed. Women can be flogged or imprisoned for flaunting a code imposing modesty of dress upon females. Modesty of dress is often interpreted as head-to-toe covering. Brutality against women through beatings is considered acceptable, for a woman must know her place. If a woman protests her husband can simply remind her that it is directed in the Koran.
Sharia is applied differentially, wherever it applies, but the thrust of its application is to ensure that women be kept firmly under the direction of her male relatives. In Pakistan and Saudi Arabia women suspected of adultery - or women who are victims of rape - are meted out punishment to accord with their insult against Islam and the female code of behaviour.
Morality police are assigned specific duties to harass women and girls impudent enough to believe they can show an uncovered wrist, an ankle. Women are publicly beaten, hauled away and imprisoned for their audacity. Any kind of behaviour viewed as provocative, suggestive, or insufficiently modest will bring the wrath of the morality police to bear.
Under the Taliban female children were not permitted to attend institutes of learning, or women to sing or to dance, or to work. Women who were widowed could starve and their children along with them. They were permitted to beg in the streets. Suicides and mutilations are common among young women desperate to escape forced marriage. Self-immolation resulting in survival leaves young women horribly scarred for life; for them there is no future, no life.
Family disputes can become extremely violent, and the male side of the story - whatever it happens to be - is the only one. Other genders need not apply. Reason is irrelevant, appeal to compassion useless, the law is the law. It is this law, or a portion thereof that Dr. Williams feel compelled to recommend to ensure harmony between Britain's Muslim population and that of the general public.
With whom did he confer before publicly stating his considered opinion? The historian, Islamic theologian who operates the Muslim Education Centre in Oxford, perhaps? Taj Hargey, a trustee of British Muslims For Secular Democracy is beside himself in outrage over Dr. Williams' venture into harmony between British subjects. According to this Muslim scholar, Islamic conservatism already exerts too powerful a role in Britain.
"Sharia", he fumes "is nothing but a human concoction of medieval religious opinion, largely archaic and outmoded and irrelevant to life today. Most sharia contradicts the letter and spirit of the Koran, distorts the transcendental text."
Fittingly, Muslims Against Sharia have awarded Archbishop Williams the Dhimmi Award.
Labels: Realities, Religion, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Friday, February 08, 2008
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