It’s Over!
Golly. It’s over. I’m a bit choked. I told you I was looking forward to congratulating Homa – but she got there first. I tell you what, honey, when I clicked onto my email page and saw that subject line in an email from Homa – ‘congratulations to you all for a battle well fought’ – I must have jumped a foot.
I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t be all that elated, it’s just the prevention of something that never should have been suggested in the first place. But I don’t care. It was suggested, and it has been prevented, and that will make a difference, so I am elated.
And so is Homa. It says so right here.
Homa Arjomand, the women’s rights activist who organized a series of protests across Canada and Europe last Thursday to convince McGuinty to abandon Shariah, was elated when she heard the news late Sunday. “I think our voice got heard loud and clear, and I thank the government for coming out with no faith-based arbitrations,” said Arjomand. “Oh, I am so happy. That was the best news I have ever heard for the past five years.”
Homa led the entire protest, all this time, and it’s finally worked. Well done Homa! Congratulations! Hurrah!
Yes, a good and just result.
Interesting comment, though,in the Canadian Press story:
Opposition leader John Tory agreed with the NDP’s position that McGuinty mishandled the Shariah debate.
“One of the tests of leadership in a diverse society is that you not allow issues like this – which are complex – to boil over into angry, polarized debates,” said Tory.
“By letting it go on, and suddenly ending it mysteriously on a Sunday afternoon, is not probably the best kind of leadership that one could show.”
I think I disagree. I prefer politicians to let public debate go on a while, rather than stopping it early with a decision. In this case, a suggestion was made, discussed and resolved. What if McGuinty had excercised leadership early and taken the oppositie position?
Yes, I saw that; I’m not sure what I think either.
And, actually, that ‘polarized’ debate probably has brought the attention of a good many people to what’s wrong with sharia. And maybe created some coalitions among reformers, as with that conference with Irshad Manji and Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Homa, a few weeks ago. I think these coalitions are starting to form, and that has to be a good thing.
Excellent news! The best result possible- elimination of ALL religious arbitration. I have no sympathy for the jewish representative who bemoans the end of a ‘status quo’;sorry, but the silly situation is only a 13-year aberration. Hope that the ensuing furore from the religious groups will not cause any backpedaling by the government.
Power to Homa Arjomand!
Another thought. A significant battle has been won but the reach of sharia is pretty long. The story of Shinas you linked to a couple of days ago highlights this. She obtained a secular divorce from her spouse, including custody of her child and maintenance payments. However she was driven to obtain a ‘religious’ divorce to enable her to remarry within her religion and more importantly, to preserve her custody rights since her ex-husband has superior rights under the sharia code of the muslim country he lives in. All he has to do is snatch the kid and and run to home base(it happens often enough, her fear is legitimate) and he gets away with it, legally. Surely something needs to be done to prevent such injustice but what?
Congratulations to all who worked to achieve this excellent result.
Result. Better even than the prospect of regaining the Ashes!
You ‘muscular liberals’ should all be ashamed of yourselves, as Maddy Bunting once again points out (today’s Guardian).
Please accept that you are just an ‘elite squabbl(ling) about Islam’s take on gay rights and gender equality in a charade of moralistic grandstanding’
How many times do you need to be told?
Hmm – Bunting: I notice she doesn’t actually give any examples of these New-Left Arnies; I wonder if she could bend the principles such a crap argument (anyone speaking up against this medieval form of theism is a racist) around the tenets of, e.g. Salman Rushdie’s ‘anti-Islamism’. Probably not, because they’d fall apart in front of her.
Flimsy is the new robust then; that is if you’re on the Fuzzy Left… And does Frank Furedi really consent to her name-dropping his new book?
I’ve been pondering Shinaz’s situation too, Mira. I think what can be done to prevent such injustice is better awareness and better enforcement of (secular) laws – as is happening for instance with child marriage and honour killings. Far from perfect, but it’s a start.
Bunting – did she! Have to find that…
I read Madeleine Bunting’s article. One of its inanities was in claiming that the ‘muscular liberals’ (as she calls those of us who stick to liberal principles) have signed up to the ‘clash of civilisations’ school of thought. In fact, of course, the problem with the ‘clash of civilisations’ idea is that it assumes that the civilisations concerned are homogenous, thus ignoring the dissidents – precisely what the pro-Islamist left does in ignoring the voice of feminists, liberals, etc. in the Islamic world.
No, there isn’t a ‘clash of civilisations’ – but there is a clash of ideas. It would be nice to know what ideas Madeleine Bunting actually believes in – obviously not the feminism that has allowed her the freedom and position that she enjoys.
Yes, I’ve read it now too. Her airy contempt for feminism is pretty breathtaking. How happy does she think she’d be under an anti-feminis regime?
Am and have been short on time, but, as I actually did the unusual (for me) and signed the online petition a while back, I thought I ought to register my satisfaction and relief at this long-overdue outcome. Now other people should start using this decision as a precedent worthy of emulation (although, let’s face it, it would have been better if it had never even been up for discussion). It is nice to know that some very predictable unjust suffering has been avoided.