An important pillar of our social identity hem hem
I transcribed something the Archbishop said just before the ‘bit of a danger’ remark.
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 that the law needs to take some account of that. An approach to law which simply said ‘There’s one law for everybody and that’s all there is to be said’ – I think that’s a bit of a danger.
Very waffly, that. Of course people have ‘other affiliations, other loyalties, which shape and dictate how they behave in society’ – of course the law does not exhaust what shapes and dictates how people behave in society. Who thinks it does?! But it doesn’t follow from that that there should be one law for one group or ‘community’ and a different law for another. It doesn’t follow that it’s ‘a bit of a danger’ to take an approach to law that says there is one law for everybody, period – it’s much more dangerous to take any other approach!
He has a mellifluous voice, the Archbishop (well he would, wouldn’t he, he’d need it in his line of work), and a nicely timed way with a banality (he pauses thoughtfully and then comes out with the most obvious word possible), which make him sound reflective and reasonable – but it’s all either waffle or nonsense. The window-dressing is deceptive.
I wish the Archbishop would, for once, say specifically and clearly what he means, rather than just giving off vague and formless gas.
Does he mean that adherents of a religion should be able, for example, to submit to a council of imams who order them to marry or not marry someone? But don’t British citizens already have the right to surrender their personal freedom to the tin-pot sorcerors of their choice?
Or does he mean that thjose who are born Muslims in Britain should be subjected to rulings of a Sharia court, whether they consent or not?
It appears then that what Williams is suggesting is either completely superfluous, or sinister.
Oooh. I love that trick. I often pause thoughtfully, as if searching for just the perfect word or phrase, then say the most predictable and/or banal and/or not at all perfect word or phrase possible.
Of course, I do it for comic effect, not because I’m a plodding, pompous bore.
(I’m not declaring that I’m definitely NOT a plodding, pompous bore, mind you. I’m just saying that’s not the reason for my thoughtful pre-banality pauses.)
Ah, yes, nice voice tonally, but too sibillant, tempting you into his worldview like a hypnotic snake.
Well, I listened to the interview on The World at One yesterday. No balance, note, no opposing voice wheeled on; not good enough to say they’ll have a fuller report in PM, because some World at Oners won’t be listening to that.
But, for all his scholarship, he doesn’t present a very good argument. He says we should recognise sharia, then says it needn’t be binding in British law. Duh! So why bother?
We already have systems in place, anyway, that are quasi-judicial: trade unions can kick someone out; the BMA can strike someone off; a board of directors might sit in judgment on one of their number. I can’t raise an objection to a group that wants to sort out certain problems in its own way. We do it in families, after all. But, as soon as any decision of that sharia “court” conflicts with the law, then the law should take precedence.
What worries me if we give some sort of recognition to this shite, even if it’s not binding in British law but might, say, be allowed to inform a judge or magistrate, is that it’s then legitimised and woe betide any woman who, once bound by a non-legally-binding sharia decision, transgresses from that. The menfold would be out with torches and pitchforks hunting the transgressor down, shouting how she’s officially in the wrong now, because, hey, UK law thinks sharia is cool.
I am one of the few people at B.W who defend christian leaders, mainly because they usualy seem quite harmless to me, untill now! this is disturbing stuff comming from the Arch Bishop and what makes it even worse is that it comes straight after his obcene call for new speech laws.
In defence of the Archbishop, it must be said that… that… erm…
No, I am afraid he is just bonkers. Not that it comes as much of a shock really.
Somebody needs to explain to him that the law is the very framework in which these different “affiliations and loyalties” interact with each others. The law is not some wishy-washy social concept, it was always meant to be coercive. You cannot choose to opt in or out at your convenience.
It is, however, fun to see politicians lining up to cry ‘shock, horror’ when any attentive reader of B & W, or anyone who watched C4 on Monday, will know that sharia law IS being applied in many places in England already.
With any luck, therefore, the Bish will have scored a spectacular own goal.
Babe, the view over here is that the bishop is toast. The English are a funny lot. They can be spectacularly wrong for a spectacularly long time, then all of a sudden they snap. Williams has made them snap and their fury is cheering to behold.
PS Can I pick your brains on post-modernism? Am writing a book and want to get the idiocies right.
Ha – yeah even from over here I gather that the bish is toast. Few people seem to be rising even to Arnaud’s hilarious level of defense.
Sure Nick, you can always pick my brains, such as they are.
European law, presently supersedes british law in many cases.
As yet there are no ‘Islamic’ countries included in the EU. This in all probability could be the main raison d’être as to why Turkey – by it, keeps being turned down for inclusion – when in fact a lot of poorer Eastern European ‘Christian’ countries were – with open arms accepted.
In the final analysis as more borders come down whose laws in the final analysis will override.
Will the Russian proverb: “I Thought I Saw Two People Coming, But It Was Only a Man and His Wife” rue the European Union day! There could be a few more wannabe Imams lurking about Europe who would gleefully jump on the British Archbishop’s BURmerc!
It appears then that what Williams is suggesting is either completely superfluous, or sinister.
Dr William’s ambiguity is similar to standard po-mo nonsense, where an outrageous claim is made that supposedly transgresses some un-transgressable. However it is done so in a very ambiguous manner. When you look at the claim close up, it ends up meaning something utterly banal, or utterly stupid (but challenges some supposed hegemony and makes the sayer look dangerous). Allows you to flip between interpretations depending on who you are trying to impress.
The po-mos do it deliberately, was the Archbish doing the same?
Applying Islamic (and Somali, and Jewish!) law in England is nothing new:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6190080.stm
B&W News (Sharia law in Canada).
Susan Haack calls that trick ‘the bit where they say it and the bit where they take it back.’
I must apologise to everyone – I was clearly completely & utterly WRONG about the ArchBish.
He is not, nor ever was, involved in a cunning plan to take over the world in a vast theocratic coup…
No.
He is, in fact, a secret atheist ‘fifth-columnist’, who, having read Dawkins et al has realised his previous delusions, and is now working to bring down the edifice of established religion!
:-)
John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
I suggest the Archbishop get that quotation put onto 777 placards and have them carried through the streets from Canterbury Cathedral to the biggest mosque in London by clerics in full regalia, telling all and sundry as they go that anyone who doesn’t believe it is off to Hell in a garbage truck, sharia law or no sharia law.
For a bit of a change of pace, as required.
I listened to the World at One shouting at the radio. Actually if he had said something like:- “as marriages performed in churches and synagogues are recognised so should those in mosques, Hindu temples etc” i would have thought, ok, but why he is he saying this? Those aren’t his patch after all. But he started saying “sharia law inevitable” and of course I started shrieking why?
It’s amazing he used those words –
“sharia law” has had such a bad press that he might as well have said “Nazism”. People say the archbish should get out more, I say he should stay home and cruise about the internet.
What was cheering that whatever Muslim women the Beeb interviewed (a) seemed to know more about Sharia than the archbish; (b) said, no, we don’t want it.
Actually it may not have been the word “Sharia” that acted like a red rag to a bull. It may have been the “one law for us, one law for them”. It’s always been one law for the rich, another for the poor, but there is an ideal of equality before the law which citizens do not like to see treated disrespectfully by one of the establishment.
And boy did he treat it disrespectfully. Disdainfully, really. That absurd comment about its being part of our social identity – ! As if it were just one quaint custom among others. This is the Archbishop of fucking Canterbury talking. What does the Queen think – that one law for everyone is a passing fad that will soon be swapped for something else? No wait, that would be her son who thinks that, wouldn’t it.
OB,
well, here in the UK there’s already one law for the antics of substance-abusing, drunk and disorderly young members of the ‘royal’ family, and another very different one for wee Shuggie McNed fae Muirhouse, ken?
So what’s one more set of exemptions and differences for those with “religious sensibilities” (as BBC News has been referring to ’em) ?
:-))
Come on Andy, you know well he didn’t kill no bird!!
Tree-hugging hippie crap as Cartman would say…
The Archbishop has proposed nothing less than the total domination of Islam. This structure of independent laws for different peoples is the millet, the means by which Moslems ruled for centuries until contaminated by western ideas of a single law and a unified state. The Archbishop intellectually accepts the superstructure of Islam. It is only a matter of time, now; there is no reversing this trend. EU Sharia for all; local ‘tribal’ or ‘religious’ laws for the minorities.