Rowan Williams is shocked, apparently, by the response to his comments yesterday:
The Archbishop of Canterbury is said to be overwhelmed by the “hostility of the response” after his call for parts of Sharia law to be recognised in the UK.
I’d have thought the firestorm was both predictable and inevitable; given that he was suggesting allowing an alien legal system recognition under English law. A legal system that is based not on the rules of evidence, but on religious texts; a system that teats the testimony of women as half the value of that of a man; a system that is not even wanted by the majority of Muslims living in this country. A system, some (if not many) have come here to escape.
However, the Bishop of Hulme, the Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, criticised the “disgraceful” treatment of Dr Williams.
I’m sorry, but the vigorous criticism was well deserved and understandable. Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury – he is the leader of the Anglican Church, he should be defending his faith; if he has any. What he did yesterday was attempt to appease the extreme fundamentalists of Islam. Appeasement does not work.
The BBC understands from sources who work on Christian-Muslim interfaith issues that Dr Williams has faced a barrage of criticism from within the Church and has been genuinely taken aback by how his words were received.
Then he really is a fool.
However, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said it was grateful for the archbishop’s “thoughtful intervention”.
Quelle surprise.
Muhammed Abdul Bari, Secretary-General of the MCB, said: “The archbishop is not advocating implementation of the Islamic penal system in Britain.”
That’s right, he isn’t. However, those who are pushing for this will, sooner or later. After all, Shari’a comes as a package. If we are to have their divorce settlements, for example, what happens to women who would prefer to opt out and go to the civil law courts instead? How will they be allowed to opt out? What happens if they are accused of adultery? That is a civil matter, yet the treatment under Shari’a is typically harsh and misogynistic. How does the archbish believe that we can pick and choose, given its variable interpretation from one country and even one court to the next?
Abdul Bari continues:
His recommendation is confined to the civil system of Sharia law, and only in accordance with English law and agreeable to established notions of human rights.
Except that Shari’a is not compatible with human rights and therefore has no place in a post-enlightenment legal system.
Bishop Lowe said the archbishop had been “ridiculed” and “lampooned” by some people.
Well, if you make an absurd suggestion what do you expect?
“We have probably one of the greatest and the brightest Archbishops of Canterbury we have had for many a long day,” he said.
And your evidence to support this assertion is?
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Update: Williams is responding to the criticisms,
The Archbishop made no proposals for sharia in either the lecture or the interview, and certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law.
Uh huh… So how does this statement not suggest Muslims opting out of English law?
…a lot of what’s written suggests that the ideal situation is one in which there is one law and only one law for everybody; now that principle that there’s one law for everybody is an important pillar of our social identity as a Western liberal democracy, but I think it’s a misunderstanding to suppose that that means people don’t have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society and the law needs to take some account of that, so an approach to law which simply said, ‘There is one law for everybody and that is all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or your allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts’. I think that’s a bit of a danger.
A parallel system is exactly what he was suggesting. The idea that people can arbitrate voluntarily according to religious codes already exists and needs no change to our system.
Either the archbish is very forgetful or he is being disingenuous.