Forgive me for returning to the claim made last week by the Archbishop of Canterbury that it is now unavoidable in the interests of social cohesion that certain elements of sharia become recognised by or incorporated within British law.
Despite having been gone over so well by now, his remarks raise such an important issue concerning the future direction of this country that they are well worth revisiting. For, despite all the attention his remarks have received, there are certain dangers in what the Archbishop is calling for that have yet to be sufficiently spelled out.
The general issue that the Archbishop was seeking to raise was just how far Britain can and should go towards accommodating the religious sensibilities of its various different religious minorities, especially its Muslim community.
Among today’s ruling elite, of which for better or worse the Archbishop is very much a part, the prevailing orthodoxy appears to be that, by having become as ethnically diverse and plural as it has, Britain has become and should acknowledge it has become a multicultural country. As such, community cohesion demands all its minorities be accorded as much recognition and freedom by the state to adhere to their own religious traditions as is compatible with equal freedom and recognition being accorded everyone else there.
This multicultural orthodoxy, as the Archbishop has pointed out, unavoidably requires having to amend the law of the land.
Sadly, indeed tragically, however, Rowan Williams is in favour of such amendment to the law for the sake of the greater accommodation it will bring. I, for my part, think such a degree of accommodation to minorities needs opposing, precisely because of the changes to the law that it would necessitate.
What Williams sees, yet is prepared to accept as the price to pay for the degree of accommodation he thinks is now unavoidable if community cohesion is to be retained, is such a degree of accommodation of minorities as necessitates compromising the rule of law. This is a juridical principle our law and courts have long observed. It goes well beyond mere legality. All of Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies enjoyed the veneer of legality showing that legality and the rule of law are by no means identical.
What the rule of law above all demands is equality before the law – an idea that involves, when laws are made, their scope apply to all without exception and each be accorded by them an equal moral worth and standing.
For some time now, the rule of law in Britain has become steadily eroded by creeping legislative exemption being granted to its religious minorities.
Sikhs, but no one else, may now lawfully ride motorcycles without crash helmets. Everyone else must wear one to ride a motorcycle lawfully. All animal slaughter requires the pre-stunning of animals, save in cases of Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter. Last year, a high court judge approved an application by an elderly devout Hindu for judicial review of the law that forbids open-air cremations so he could receive one when he died.
In all these cases, the rule of law has undergone steady erosion in the interests of accommodating religious minorities.
By the way, lest anyone think that I am in favour of Jews and Muslims bring denied the legal right to slaughter animals according to their religious requirements, let me quickly say that I am most definitely not. It is my view that a law that otherwise demands pre-stunning was ill judged and is wholly unnecessary on humanitarian grounds. All compassion towards animals required was that it be forbidden for anyone to slaughter them inhumanely or in a way that causes them wanton suffering. There is no good reason whatsoever to believe that, when the throats of conscious animals are slit with the very sharp blades used in ritual slaughter, they suffer any more than animals that have first been stunned before being slaughtered.
Britain’s Muslims form the country’s largest, least well-integrated, and most powerful minority in every sense of the word ‘powerful’. They have an exceedingly powerful foreign lobby to plead their case in the form of the Middle Eastern dictatorships on which Britain depends for much of its oil-supplies, major arms deals, massive endowments to its universities, and notional cooperation in the war on terror. Moreover, let us not forget the ever-present threat of violent extremism in the name of Islam that serves as a constant reminder to the authorities to try and do their utmost to accommodate Muslim demands.
Not surprisingly, in view of all this Muslim muscle in Whitehall, the pace of legal accommodation in this country to Islam has been fast and furious and on a scale unprecedented. British Muslims seeking to buy houses can now enjoy exemption from the same law as applies to everyone else concerning payment of stamp duty. I appreciate their exemption is only to enable them to have to pay stamp duty once, like everyone else, but it is a legal exemption to a law nonetheless. British Muslims now uniquely enjoy the legal recognition of their multiple wives, the state having recently become willing to pay each of these wives benefits in that capacity despite polygamy being unlawful for everyone else.
All these legal exemptions for minorities undermine what has always been understood before as the rule of law. For they grant differential treatment in law to different groups. We now increasingly have one law for one group and another law for another group.
Rowan Williams sees nothing wrong in principle with such a degree of accommodation. I see plenty.
Above all, what I see wrong with such a degree of accommodation of the country’s minorities is that it places the country on the verge of a slippery slope from which there can be little principled escape from its eventual full-scale Balkanisation. That would be a disaster for practically all its inhabitants, save those who indeed do hanker after such Balkanisation for the sake thereby of being better able to institute some full-blown favoured alternative religious legal code, at first only over their own enclave but eventually over the entire country.
In making this claim this, I have absolutely no wish to suggest that all British Muslims would like to see full-scale sharia introduced and made law in their own Muslim neighbourhoods, let alone over the entire country. Many Muslims look with as much horror on such an idea as their non-Muslim compatriots.
I do most certainly wish to suggest there are many British and non-British Muslims who would very much like to see such a development here and are doing their best to bring it about.
It is Rowan Williams’ seemingly wilful failure publicly to acknowledge the very real danger to social cohesion posed by this radical yet very powerful minority of British Muslims that represents his biggest intellectual and possibly moral failing.
Let me illustrate his naivety or possibly worse still wilful blindness by quoting from a lecture the Archbishop delivered at Al Azhar University in Cairo on 13th September 2004, two days after the third anniversary of the events of September 11th 2001.
Rowan Williams began that lecture by explaining he had come there: ‘as a Christian, to speak ... of some of those matters which both unite us and divide us.’
He went on to say that it was important for ‘Christians and Muslims to understand one another better … and [that] better understanding meant understanding our differences as well as our common vision’. He then goes on to expound his understanding of the Muslim doctrine of tawhid or the unity of God as follows:
‘If I understand the doctrine of Islam correctly its most important conviction can be expressed in the word tawhid. God is one. No being is associated with God as a second reality deserving of worship or obedience.’
Much of the rest of the lecture is taken up with Williams explaining why a belief in the Incarnation and the Trinity are nor at variance with the Muslim understanding of God. He said:
‘In no way does the true Christian say that this life and action of God could be divided into separate parts, as if it were a material thing. In no way does the true Christian say that there is more than one God or that God needs some other in order to act or that God promotes some other being to share his glory. There us one divine action, one divine will; yet (like the fingers of one hand) there are three ways in which that life is real…. ‘
He concluded his lecture by saying to his Muslim audience:
‘What I wish to say to you is simply that the disagreement between Christian and Muslim is not, I believe, a disagreement about the nature of God as One and Living and Self-subsistent.
‘But there is a practical consequence of this belief about the One Living God. If God is truly not a part of the world, truly self-sufficient, then his will never depends upon how things turn out in the world.…
‘The biggest challenge today for our world is how to react to circumstances in a way that is faithful to God’ will. … [W]hen we act in … anger and bitterness and unforgiving cruelty … we show that we do not really believe in a God who is living and self-sufficient. We do not believe that God’s will is enough.’
The reason why what the Archbishop says here exhibits woeful naivety or wilful blindness is that, so far as all Islamists are concerned, the doctrine of tawhid extends well beyond the gloss that he places on it. They consider it to be an implication of God being the sole rightful authority over men that all forms of political authority that do not similarly acknowledge God as their sole rightful authority are guilty of shirk or of worshipping wrongful gods. Not only that, they also consider all such political authorities will necessarily be preventing those over whom they exercise their political authority from acknowledging God as their sole rightful authority. Even if these authorities enjoy the consent of those over whom they exercise it, in the eyes of Islamists they enjoy no greater moral legitimacy than if these authorities were tyrants. It simply means that the governed have acquiesced in the same shirk or polytheism as their rulers have by also not having recognised God to be the sole legitimate authority over them and everyone else.
Now, what truly acknowledging God to be the sole legitimate authority involves is recognising the second pillar of Islam - namely that Muhammad is God’s messenger who, through the Quran and his example and what he said, has conveyed God’s will to man in respect of how God wishes mankind to behave. Sharia is precisely the articulation of what that divine will is, and, so far as Islamists are concerned, it is binding on all humanity regardless of whether they recognise this fact.
Save as a matter of temporary expediency, those who think like this will never be content with any form of governance other than that according to sharia. While they accept no one can or should be forced into accepting their faith, those who think like Islamists do also think it is not only permissible for them but their duty to struggle to overturn all political authorities that do not share their faith in order to impose sharia on all. They see it as their duty to do so in order that the correct form of authority, i.e. God’s, be imposed everywhere. Those not willing to embrace their faith must, in the view of Islamists, at least be compelled to submit to the rule of sharia on pain of death. For this is what they consider to be the will of God as revealed by the Quran and the sayings and doings of Muhammad.
This is the reason why any official recognition or incorporation of sharia in British law should be vehemently resisted at all costs. It is the beginning of a slippery slope to a hell to which this country must never be allowed to begin a descent.
As to the Archbishop’s suggestion that Christians share with Muslims the idea that God does not delegate his authority to humans, it would be laughable, were it not tragic, to hear such a claim coming from someone whose office means one day he might be called on to anoint the country’s future sovereign. He will have been given this task precisely because he has supposedly been given the authority to do so by a chain of apostolic succession that can be traced back through St Peter to Jesus himself.
It is worth recalling exactly what at the last coronation the then Archbishop bid our present Queen swear. One hopes and prays that no present or future Archbishop or any incumbent sovereign is ever tempted to amend that oath in the supposed interests of greater inclusiveness.
What the Queen was made to swear was to:
‘do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the Holy Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, retire the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss and confirm what is in good order.’
Until very recently, the law of this country was in perfectly good order so far as concerns the universality of the scope of its provisions. It certainly does not need, for the sake of any better accommodation of its religious minorities, especially its Muslim one, yet still more tampering with by any legislative creep however well intentioned such a creep might be.
Comments (13)
It's the numbers, lads...and the demographics...by the time you lot sort out the incidental effect to our legislation, the fundamental effect of Islamic creep will see each of you in charge of your own prayer mat.
This is not an issue concerning the treatment of any minority. This is an issue concerning the survival of the majority. The majority have lost in every country colonised by Arabic Islam since the time of the Prophet.
It's not a question of incidental right or wrong, it's a fundamental question of live or die.
Fortunately for some of you, minorities have never had a problem under Islam. If it's a deserving minority, it pays the jizya tax as second-class debased citizens and exists. If it's an undeserving minority, ie not Jewish or Christian, it gets wiped out.
Perhaps rather than choosing which side we should be on, we could waste more time discussing the philosophical aspects of creepology?
Posted by Andrew | February 17, 2008 1:56 PM
Posted on February 17, 2008 13:56
It is a measure of the success of multiculturalism that this debate is had in these terms - and we talk of the challenge of accommodating Muslim principles into our legal framework.
This presentation of the argument has now tied opponents in knots for several years; rendering them desperate to find ways of opposing affronts to their own values without criticising the group who represent the affront, for fear of the de-facto accusation of 'racism' that inevitably follows.
However, were the debate not about races or cultures, but about the common rights of any man or woman, then the matter would be simpler. The ultimate common right might be equality.
Under these circumstances, were I to rise up and declare exemption from the law, my claim would be thoroughly rejected and I most probably ridiculed.
Similarly, this need not be about rejecting the claims of Muslims or Islam, but all individuals, for whatever reason, who make the claim of exemption from a common law.
Moreover, when the left argue for the accommodation of minority rights, it is not the rights afforded to these few we ought oppose, but the discrimination suffered by those not afforded the same.
One rather obvious prejudice of the left is that those not a member of their chosen minority groups are not members of groups, cultures or schools of thought not equally important to them or wider society.
We ought to strive for an idealism that is libertarianism; removal of the state’s meddling hand from all of these matters. An end to any sort of racial or cultural differentiation; making all of these issues private ones, in the sense that they do not merit legislative or fiscal favour.
Common rights are an entitlement to speak, believe, express and think as one wishes, affiliate with who one likes, trade with who one likes, so long as such interactions do not prevent others from doing the same.
Those following Islam will have the freedom to decide whether to continue to isolate themselves, without current favour and support, or engage positively with the rest of a highly diverse and opinionated society.
In this context, laws protect this modus operandi of social interaction. They make no distinction to whom they protect.
Posted by Anthony | February 16, 2008 1:19 AM
Posted on February 16, 2008 01:19
Michael
I was saying that the State was making it a criminal offense for religious people to affirm and proclaim their traditional belief that homosexuality is a sin and also preventing them from discriminating against them as they have traditionally done. In this the state is taking away the religious freedom of Christians and other religious people. That is not very British and certainly not very English.
Did you know that the Old Testament has always been the basis of English Law. You may want to read about the Father of the English people - Alfred the Great. This has been a Christian country for 1500+ years. So it is natural for Christians to wonder what is going on in their own country. Incidentally Christians have never expected or desired to have the full rigours of Leviticus. The Christian conscience doesn't and never has called for this. I am just sorry you know so little about the history and culture of your own country.
Posted by william | February 14, 2008 10:18 PM
Posted on February 14, 2008 22:18
Michael:
William is anxious that the state is saying that homosexuality is not a sin and is thereby violating the consciences of religious people who want to continue discriminating against homosexual people. Will he and the Archbishop now seek to accommodate the Christian conscience by suggesting that parts of Leviticus be incorporated into British Law? Perhaps gay people and adulterers could be stoned to death on the same day in a sort of multicultural festival of faith?
Posted by Michael Snelgrove | February 14, 2008 3:30 AM
Posted on February 14, 2008 03:30
If only this discussion could result in finding a way of allowing our way of life to continue. But we're at tipping point now. Islam is here with around fifty million Muslims. All arranged and justified by the European Union (EU) through the EuroArab Dialogue (EAD).and the Parliamentary Association of Euro-Arab Cooperation (PAEAC). Such heavyweight political manouvres plus Islamic demographic dynamism will almost certainly prevail.
Too late now to castigate our leaders for their short-terminism. They follow earlier traitors, conquest-enablers, who mistakenly thought they could play both sides during the centuries of Arab Islamic colonial expansion. They need removing
If not removed, we had better prepare for the new Dark Ages as, lemming-like, we rush headlong back to the 7th century to a time when Muhammad stopped the clock forevermore.
Or, invest in prayer-mats, they'll be needed in our Mecca-facing qibla future.
Posted by Andrew | February 13, 2008 10:27 PM
Posted on February 13, 2008 22:27
Additional comment: Dear Sir The Archbishop discusses what is a very complex problem without engaging in an equally complex analysis. His concepts are not expressed in clear and distinct language - without ambiguity. His narrative is incomplete and inconclusive and he appears to be discussing problems, which lie outside the boundaries of his knowledge and competence - or indeed his remit as leader of the Anglican communion. His claim that an accommodation with Sharia is almost inevitable, is regrettably correct, because we do not have in place mechanisms for regulating what takes place in private deliberations, combined with private decision making, which, if enacted, would almost certainly militate against the best interests of the host community, as well as the most vulnerable members of the Muslim or Islamic nomos - particularly women The Archbishop is the architect of his own misfortune, because the subject is just too complex to be discussed in such a manner and with such brevity. Stuart-Edward Hopkins.
Posted by Stuart-Edward Hopkins | February 13, 2008 9:35 PM
Posted on February 13, 2008 21:35
The creep you refer to, David, really worries me.
I am finding that I see more worrisome things happening everyday.
Do any of the ruling elite consider the sensibilities of indigenous Britons anymore?
If not, why not?
This is what I find scary.
I sometimes think we are on the slippery slope to the abyss...
Multiculturalism has been a disaster for this country.
Multi-racial society, yes!
Multi-cultural society, a big no...
How can any attempt at social cohesion be successful, when we have large communities (who number in the millions) whose faith inherently demands exclusionism of its believers?
Posted by Robert | February 13, 2008 2:51 AM
Posted on February 13, 2008 02:51
The exception that you mention, that liberty be granted so far as it does not interfere with another's liberty, is, I believe, the classic Aristotelian conception of the politeia. This underpins the unwritten British constitution.
If one person's liberty interferes with another's, then the touchstone of the debate is no longer the individual good but the 'common good'. We may have to agree to minor restrictions on our individual liberty; for no liberty is ever absolute in political society. But the substantial and meaningful part of our liberty can remain. For instance, everyone can get to drive a car. (Provided they pass a test, licence and MOT their vehicle, and follow the Highway Code and so don't maim others).
For Aristotle, the aim of political society was eudaimonia, 'happiness' or 'harmony'.
So I don't have an issue with the Sikh not having a helmet, though I would with him carrying a real knife. He should risk no one but himself.
I don't have an issue with sharia courts operating on the voluntary principle, because this carries no weight in law.
Being an establishment figure, Williams seems unaware of the voluntary principle, but voluntaryism is the cornerstone of civil society and the vitality of our democracy flows from it. It is a fundament of the unwritten British constitution. Anyone may form any association they wish and draw up rules for members; (provided the activity is not against the law, like a club for crack cocaine smokers).
The role of the state here is to give sufficient liberty for civil society to flourish.
The mischief in Williams' befuddled thinking is that he confuses civil society with civil law.
He spots this element of Muslim voluntaryism, and being a die-hard, far left, 'big state' establishment interventionist, thinks that the classic liberal laissez-faire ethos is not enough. Instinctively he feels this bit of Muslim initiative must in some way be 'incorporated' into the civil law and shored up by the ever-growing state.
Possibly he nurtures some naive dream that extremism and the more reactionary elements of sharia will be headed off by this!
Now, that I DO have an issue with; because by doing so the state de facto accepts the rules and ethics of this private members club; which are, of course, totally at odds with British personal status laws.
As various Muslims have stated, they do not ask for sharia to be incorporated and the Archbishop of Canterbury is not their representative. He really is being meddlesome all round.
By the same token I object to the recently anouncement by the Department of Work and Pensions that polygamous wives are to receive welfare benefits, because here an area of the law (welfare rights) has taken it upon itself to recognise polygamy, which is against the law in Britain. Why should monogamous tax-payers pay for a polygamist's profligacy?
The correct procedure for such applicants should be a sharia court to seek private Islamic charity.
Posted by M Clyde | February 13, 2008 2:37 AM
Posted on February 13, 2008 02:37
This business about recognising the sovereignty of God over all human life including the political sphere is not uniquely Islamic. Why do you think there are prayers everyday at Parliament? How about the coronation oath you quote????? England is a mild theocracy. Britain is not yet a secular state after the continental model, no matter how much secularists in the media want to claim it is. But I guess the Europhiles want it to conform to the French model.
Belief in Muhammad as the prophet of God is part of the 1st pillar, by the way.
I agree that Sharia shouldn't be included into English law - BTW Muslims have been able to get housing benefit for multiple wives for 10 years or so - check out the HB booklet. But, as I said before, the only reason why the question occurs is the desire of the state to regulate every aspect of our lives. Since Christians have given up on defending the spiritual and moral life of this country (24 hour drinking etc) it looks like the scourge of God will do it. Mary Whitehouse with grenades.
Posted by william | February 12, 2008 11:52 PM
Posted on February 12, 2008 23:52
You mention the exception that Jews and Muslims have in animal slaughter. It doesn't need to be framed as an exception. It should be recognized as a valid method of slaughter that any abbatoir could use.
How about circumcision? At the moment, the law is silent on this. So, according to the logic of uniformity, there should be a law on it. Either everyone should be circumcised or no one should. Why is there an exception at the moment to the humanistic secular view that circumcision is mutilation of a person without their freely given consent (Jewish boys are 8 days old)? This is the problem Williams identified - the capture of a previously Christian state by secularism and the growing imposition of secular (militant atheist?) values on religious communities.
So when the moral law of every religion says that homosexuality is a sin, what are religious people supposed to do when the State says the opposite and forces religious people to stop proclaiming what they believe by threatening them with prison? The secularists whose ranting has filled the newspapers deny religious people the right to even make this point by ridiculing them.
Posted by william | February 12, 2008 11:23 PM
Posted on February 12, 2008 23:23
The problems have largely arisen due to the expansion in legislation and the state's desire to control and regulate more and more of people's lives, thus taking away their freedom. If Parliament had not interfered with our freedom by forcing people to wear helmets the problem of Sikhs and creating an exception would not have arisen. Therein lies the root of the problem.
At the time, there were English people who objected to being forced to wear helmets because it interfered in the way they were accustomed to live. But in the end they just conformed to avoid punishment. Sikhs, however, had a religious reason for objecting to what they thought was an oppressive law.
The Civil War was sparked off when Charles I tried to impose the English Prayer Book on the Church of Scotland in the name of one uniform law for all. It is not necessary to insist on this uniformity. There are areas where the State should not go. We call this limited government - something no one seems to be mentioning.
Another issue - why are people so worked up about Sharia and babbling on about the supremacy of English law when our law is subservient to European Law? Is this an example of displacement??
Posted by William | February 12, 2008 11:09 PM
Posted on February 12, 2008 23:09
Slowly but surely the mood of the country is changing. The Archbishop has not sensed this, but then again he wouldn't would he? He still lives in that false utopia known as multiculturalism. Plus his life is shaped by the London-centric thinkers and advisers who are also clinging onto the notion that all is well with the pot-pourri of religions, races, and cultures that vie for prominence and power.
Well, welcome to real world boys. All is far from well.
Better accept that fact and go head to head with the would-be colonists: the appeasement game is over.
Posted by mike | February 12, 2008 11:03 PM
Posted on February 12, 2008 23:03
I think Rowan Williams is a creep - a Sharia'h creep.
Posted by Mike Woodman | February 12, 2008 7:06 PM
Posted on February 12, 2008 19:06