Well this is somewhat heartening; it seems like pretty much everyone agrees with me on the recent statement from Dr Rowan Williams, that the UK should adopt aspects of Sharia Law.

This also neatly demonstrates something I’ve been saying for a while; The UK really is a much more secular nation that the US, state religion notwithstanding. British people tend to know this, but some (by no means all) Americans seem to labour under the impression that the Church here is actually wields some real power. This is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, and yet pretty much everyone in government has come out and publicly criticised him for speaking rubbish. Can you imagine the US president speaking out against a religious leader like this?

I know it sounds insane, but it’s true.

The BBC is reporting on an interview he gave, in which he argued that many Muslims don’t relate to British law and would seek to practice Sharia Law anyway. To avoid this going underground, or being a source of cultural tensions, he thinks we should implement “aspects” of Sharia Law in a controlled way, in order to “maintain social cohesion.” It sounds sort-of reasonable on the face of it, until you ask how exactly it’s going to maintain social cohesion, and remember exactly what particular wedge this could be thin end of. Dr Williams know this, and he says:

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 what he either doesn’t know or doesn’t say is that you can’t draw that distinction in a useful way. This is what Sharia Law is about, it’s not some optional extra that sits on top of a bunch of more acceptable legal constructs. Of course there is more to Sharia Law than oppressing non-Muslims and brutalising women, and it would (arguably) be possible to implement some of the less offensive aspects of it in the UK — but that wouldn’t help. And this is why it would have no positive effect on social-cohesion: No one who can’t relate to the British legal system is having a problem with the way it handles financial matters or what bank holidays we have; that feeling of alienation doesn’t stem from minor administrative details, it comes from a fundamental disconnect with the basis of the law. British law is, by and large, secular, egalitarian and liberal; Sharia Law is none of those things; it’s religiously motivated, patriarchal and authoritarian, and those are exactly the features that the Muslims who can’t abide by UK law want to see introduced. Making a few token gestures won’t appease those people, but it will give them a sense of momentum and a legal precedent for Sharia Law being enacted in the UK. I don’t know about Dr Williams, but that’s not a situation I want to find myself in.

Actually, I think I do know about Dr Williams. I’m sure he doesn’t want Sharia Law to make significant headway in the UK – he’s a civilised man, after all — but, as is so often the case with the religious, he sees any religion as better than no religion, to the point that he thinks any religion is due special privilege:

What we don’t want either, is I think, a stand-off, where the law squares up to people’s religious consciences.

Personally, I’d like to rephrase that second paragraph as “What we don’t want either, is I think, a stand-off, where people’s religious consciences lead them to claim special privilege to break the law that applies to everyone else.” But then, Dr Williams doesn’t believe in the law as I understand it:

An approach to law which simply said — there’s one law for everybody — I think that’s a bit of a danger

OK — what? What is the law if it doesn’t apply to everybody? It’s nothing more than a tool of oppression, and an educated man like Dr Williams should be ashamed of himself for even suggesting it. The law, one law, must apply to all people equally, otherwise we have no claim to be a liberal, free society, and we might, as Dr Williams suggests, resign ourselves to being on the inexorable path to Sharia Law.

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Standard disclaimer: I have nothing against the vast majority of Muslims, and have a lot of respect for many of them. It’s the barbaric misogynists who believe that women are property to be used and abused as men see fit, that it’s perfectly reasonable to behead “the enemies of Islam,” and (most importantly) that the “law of God” is the only one to which they are beholden, that I’m talking about here.

Apologies for the lack of updates recently; I’ve been busy enjoying a veritable cornucopia of symptoms for the past couple of weeks, and haven’t really been up to writing about much, even though there’s been plenty going on:

• The Texas Education Agency has fired Chris Comer, a staff member of nine years, for sending an email announcing a talk by a Barbara Forrest, a prominent critic of ID. The internet has been buzzing, and Forrest herself has written on how this proves her point that ID, rather than being a scientific position, is an attempt to force the religious right’s agenda into the classroom (and the public consciousness) through power-politics and outright bullying. Just remember kids; it’s the Darwinists who have a shady global conspiracy to suppress the opposition and get people fired just for supporting ID.

• The British government has given up all pretense at seeking consensus and is forcing through legislation that will increase the time “suspected terrorists” can be held without charge. If you’re a UK citizen, you can register your displeasure by signing this petition. Please take the time; this is a hugely important issue that bears directly on our most important human rights.

• Some poor teacher was arrested, tried, jailed and then deported for calling a Teddy Bear Muhammad. Local people took exception to the fact that she wasn’t executed and took to the streets in protest. Governments the world over seem not to notice that whenever a group of people go batshit insane and start demanding innocent people are beheaded for some utterly trivial slight to their culture, those people always seem to be Muslim. The British public seems not to notice that the laws Gillian Gibbons were arrested under bear a striking resemblance to the laws our government put in place a few years back with the express purpose of arresting Muslims for making utterly trivial slights against our culture.

That’s probably enough for tonight. I should be back to a more reasonable posting-schedule now, so if I think of anything else I missed, I’ll sneak it into a future post.

From the BBC:

Members of Scottish Muslim groups and mosques are to gather in Glasgow later for a rally against terrorism.

I think this is a important for two reasons. Firstly it sends a message to the terrorists that they do not have the support of the mainstream Muslim community. I doubt this will make a difference at all to the real hard-liners (they don’t consider the mainstream Muslim community to be Muslim anyway,) but if it widens the gap between the mainstream and the extreme, then it will, hopefully, make it a little less likely that people cross that gap. Any measure that prevents even one person being convinced that the best way to express their faith is to blow themselves up in a crowded street is worth pursuing in my book.

The second reason this matters, is that it underscores, in the wider public’s mind, that there’s a difference between “Muslim” and “terrorist”. It’s shocking that Muslim communities should have to make that distinction to the rest of us, and I think the reason it’s taken so long for something like this to happen probably has a lot to do with moderate Muslims assuming that it’s a given that they don’t support (and are not) the extremists. Unfortunately, many people see the continuing silence (barring the odd statement by members of the Muslim Council of Great Britain) of the wider Muslim community as tacit approval of terrorist activities. It’s true that the rest of us don’t have to march and demonstrate to show our disapproval (although maybe we should; it never hurts to make sure everyone knows how you feel,) and it’s equally true that the entire Muslim community should not have to feel responsible for a few loonies who happen to share their religion. But the point is that as long as those loonies are shouting loudly that that religion demands they kill themselves and the rest of us in the name of Allah, then the moderate community has a responsibility to tell us (and the loonies) in just as uncertain terms that is demands no such thing. If people don’t hear the opposing view, is is surprising that after a while, they start to believe what the extremists are telling them? And that’s exactly what this march is; it’s the larger Muslim community of Scotland standing up and saying “No. That’s enough. This violence is wrong, it’s anti-Islamic, we won’t condone it, and it has to stop. Now.” Make no mistake, this will drive a wedge between the moderate and extreme Muslim communities, but that’s important too; by being seen to distance themselves from the fringe, the mainstream will be perceived as closer to the rest of us (which is where they’ve always been,) and that sort of coming-together, that sort of unity in the face of adversity, is exactly what this country needs. For everyone’s good.