Bravo is it?
Bravo, Rowan, says Jeevan Vasagar breezily. Well, he’s a man; easy for him to say.
In Tanzania, for example, Muslim family law applies to Muslim citizens. When it comes to questions of divorce, custody and inheritance, Muslim families settle their disputes at courts unique to their communities.
Yes we know, and Muslim family law treats women and men unequally. That is the problem.
There’s an interesting clash here – a classic liberal dilemma. Do you promote the rights of a minority community or do you worry more about the rights of Muslim women, who may get treated less generously under sharia than under secular law?
It’s not really a dilemma once you think about it hard enough. Just for one thing, the rights in question are not that starkly opposed, for the blindingly obvious reason that that ‘minority community’ includes women, so if the rights of women are a priority then at least half of that ‘minority community’ will not be losing any rights for the sake of the rights of women, because they will be women themselves. But in fact no one will be losing rights, because the goal is equality and equal justice under the law, not more rights for some and fewer for others. That’s why it’s not really a dilemma; it’s a pseudo-dilemma. That ‘minority community’ is not losing any rights unless you take unequal rights to be a right in themselves. Does a ‘minority community’ have rights to deprive some (half, most) of its members of rights arbitrarily? Well, you can declare that it does, but if you do you’re abandoning a meaningful idea of rights.
And by the way the goal is not to treat women ‘generously’ but to treat them equally. The goal is not to demand extra, it’s just to demand the same. Patronage not required, mere equality is both minimum and maximum – we want neither more nor less.
The problem is that the right, and their fellow-travellers on the Muslim-bashing left, will seize on this. For them, it’s a case of mediaeval misogyny versus western enlightenment. Suddenly, papers that oppose abortion and believe career women will always be unhappy start cross-dressing as feminists. Don’t believe this ruse – they’re just using feminism as a stick to beat Muslims with.
Bullshit. Some papers may do that, but papers don’t exhaust the category of people on the left who dislike Sharia – or as Jeevan Vasagar so elegantly calls us, the right’s fellow-travellers on the Muslim-bashing left. There are lots of us fellow-travellers on the Muslim-bashing left who do not oppose abortion (hello Jimmy Doyle!), and we don’t use feminism as a stick to beat anything. I don’t use feminism, I am a feminist.
Sharia already plays a role in devout Muslim lives, and has to be accepted and understood. But there also has to be a right of appeal. In Muslim countries that practice sharia, it is not a static entity but a living body of rules – just like secular law…
And? There’s a right of appeal, is there? So those Iranian women who get sentenced to being stoned to death for being in the company of men can appeal to be tried under secular law instead? And in any case, what use is a ‘right of appeal’ to women who are dominated, bullied, perhaps beaten? Like religion in general, sharia might be relatively harmless in the case of decent people who don’t bully others; but not all people are like that. Not all husbands would give their wives the chance to ‘appeal,’ and who else would enforce such a right? But as I said – Vasagar is a man, and it’s easy for him.
“In Muslim countries that practice Sharia, it is not a static entity but a living body of rules – just like secular law.”
And also, in my estimation, not-static entities of “dead bodies” which rule.
“Archbishop wants disputes between believers to be regulated, where both agree, by religious laws.”
“Where both agree”? OMG, from what planet does he hail? He is so utterly out of touch. To think of the atrocities that every single day occur to women in these countries that practice Sharia law. It is so infuriating to think that a man of his educational calibre & power can spout out stuff like this. He should be given by his superiors – his walking card. Who, on earth, could from here on in – take this man seriously?
Lithcol, comments: BRAVO Rowan. You have achieved more for the cause of secularism in the governance of this country than anyone I can recall in living memory.
Hear! Hear!
It is one way, I guess, for Christians to get us all back in the fold. Let us all march behind the banner of a still devout social group to win back a lost soul or a billion for the ‘spiritual’!
When asked whether Christians were not abusing leftist sentiment on Islam for increasing sympathy for the own flock, a Belgian professor – reading Catholic Church law, yes that still exists – is quick to point out supremacy of Anglo-Saxon ways of dealing with religiuos & public affairs. The freedom – at least so he held – to display one’s religion even in public office is the supremely enlightened way to go.
This is what you get in mistaking your freedom with your absolute beliefs – a slippery slope making Turkey look like the secular walhalla.
Beware when the monotheistic religions make a common cause. They will cleanse the atheists & the heathens first, and only after that they will fight it out amongst themselves.
Yeah. I am being very ware.
Not all is lost – Belgian muslims balk at the idea. They said they were under the impression that law had nothing to do with religion. That is at least how they were told to look at it in their, semi-compulsory, citizenry education.
Given this is a place dominated by the Anglo-Saxon tribe, what dó you feel if people in Old Europe refer to superior Anglo-Saxon version of Enlightenment – when defending for instance that those in public office should be allowed the public display of their religion while fulfilling their public office?
That was a long sentence – D. Rumsfeld would not approve!
Hallelujah Ophelia. You should be canonised. I’m just so glad I found your site. You give my ideas voice and you give me new ideas on how to voice them coherently. I get so frustrated by left-wing truth relatavists and the insane belief systems that they either explicitly or implicitly support that I want to scream!!! Amen!
Don’t be under the impression that this brand of hyper-relativism is solely a “left-wing” thing. Yeah, leftist postmodernists created one hell of a toolkit to destroy truth and reduce conversation to “competing discourses”, but then they left the tools out where conservatives of all stripes could pick them up and use them to destroy the foundations of liberal society.
“where conservatives of all stripes could pick them up and use them to destroy the foundations of liberal society.”
You betcha. Could and can and have been and do. The archbishop’s speech is just the latest example. (He’s considered liberal as bishops go, but his speech and the ideas behind it make very plain just how conservative that really is.)
I look forward to canonization, Rose! :- )
I think moral relativism is really just a more consistent version of conservatism.
Conservatives have always made the implicit assumption that what is right is what is traditional. But because it was only an implicit assumption, they never considered how that works outside their own cultural tradition.
All moral relativists did was make the assumption explicit and apply it consistently.
Burkean relativism – very good. We have a new and cogent label.
‘as a matter of fact certain provisions of sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law’.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7234870.stm
Don’t diss Burke – he was opposed to oppression wherever he saw it, and he saw it clearly in the way British imperialism treated Ireland and India. He denounced ‘geographical morality’ [i.e., ‘it’s alright, they’re only n***ers’] fervently. He just happened to think that projects for universal human emancipation were another form of the same oppressive spirit of system. And, given what he saw going on in France before he died, he had every reason to…
He explained that his core aim was to “to tease out some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state” and was using sharia as an example.
His core aim… has now sadly left the media etc, teasing out the broad issue of his continuing role as Archbishop of Cantebury. He could, in all honesty – find himself doing the ‘Lambeth Walk’ quicker than he thought.
Correction >Canterbury< Top ten reasons why sharia is bad for all societies. By James Arlandson.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4726
Well said dvd. I find the left more frustrating because I am left. I expect the conservatives and the fundies to be what they are (50 years behind the times).
I share your frustration with the moral relative section of the left Rose,but I am puzzled by your referance to conservatives and fundies because that definition could include both Fred Phelps and David Cameron isnt that a little sweeping?.
Richard:
You’ve landed upon a common cultural misunderstanding…please accept a genuine attempt to help clarify…
Rose was referring to “small ‘c'” conservatives – US variety, rather than Dave’s party, who are, in US terms, pretty much “libbruls”.
:-)
For a decent summary of the US ‘conservative’ position, here is a good place to start…
Those who refer to themselves as “true” conservatives (the ones who are currently engaged in excoriating McCain) also appear to have an (unfathomable to those who understand that “trickle down”, er, doesn’t) abiding love for Ronald Reagan…
Can’t see Dave C wanting to be tarred with that particular brush! :-)
oh, and there are many degrees of fundie, too – Phelps is simply at the extreme self-publicising edge…it’s the quieter ones ya got to really worry about…the ones who are (still) trying to keep Satan’s Science out of classrooms (latest stushie is in Florida)
Hope that helped.
My God…How many of those ten principles do the Bushite Neocons really follow? I can count at least five that have been violated extensively.
Andy how do I know Rose was refering to the U.S variety of conservative she was so broad in her definition? and even if she was U.S. conservatives come in many differant forms,was she talking about neo-cons or social cons or economic cons or religious right types? and each of those catorgories have various sub groups such as baptists,catholics,prods,born again christians ect, does she for example include log cabin republicans in her definition?
Marie what great beauty is in those ancient sacred texts? pees be upon the prophet!
Hi Richard,
Sorry so long to reply. I’m Australian, not American. That might explain the miscommunication / misunderstanding. Just to clarify, in the previous post, I guess I was referring to left vs right in terms of social policy, not economic policy.
In Australia, the left is typically pro-multicultural, fine with gay people, pragmatic about abortion, union friendly, welcoming toward refugees; ie, it is socially progressive, yet in my opinion is tolerant (and truth-relative) to a fault at times. It frustrates me when I get accused of being a Western supremacist for criticising Islam.
Overall, Australia is a very secular society, and the conservatives and religious types are pretty much all on the same side of the political divide: the right. Thankfully Australians are on the whole very suspicious of people who want to bring religion into politics. The “fundies” are still a minority group on the further end of the right-hand side of the political spectrum, however certain questionable Christian organisations did have links to the recently ousted conservative government.
It seems like the opposite in the US: admitting atheism or even agnosticism would be political suicide, so I guess both sides of politics are “religious” in America. Please correct me if I’m wrong about this, I’ve never been to America.
No you’re not wrong Rose, that’s exactly how it is – at least, in terms of electoral politics. But then, in electoral politics, there is no real left, so that confuses the picture further.