Shari'a Law Controversy

You may have heard recently about this controversy that is going on here in England about a comment made by the Archbishop of Canterbury about incorporating shari'a law into UK law. As someone who is interested in shari'a law and also as someone who is living in Britain, I thought it might be good to give our perspective on this. Basically what has happened is that the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the leaders of the Anglican and Episcopalian Church has said that in order to encourage 'social cohesion' British law should incorporate aspects of Shari'a law, the code of law derived from the Koran which regulates all aspects of private and public life for Muslims.

Americans may not realise it (we didn't before we moved here, and especially after moving to London) but Britain has a lot of Muslims residents. Britain has a lot of immigrants anyway, but due to their prolific colonisation of the world, many of the inhabitants of the colonies (frequently still 'Commonwealth' countries) have immigrated here. Immigration is not quite the same issue here as it is in the US. There is only one party that believes that immigration should be stopped, and they are almost universally reviled and very small in number. A lot of those countries, such as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Iran, are Islamic countries or have large Islamic populations. Obviously when they immigrate, they do not automatically assimmilate into British culture and start wearing Wellies and eating Sunday roasts. More accurately, immgrant cultures have really shaped modern Britain. For example, the national dish is chicken tikka masala, which is an Indian curry dish, invented in South London by immigrants. Britain is a true melting pot. The US is extremely homogenous by comparison, whatever platitudes we make about the American melting pot.

The mixing of extremely different cultures in Britain has been a long process and it has not been without controversy. There is the perennial debate about headscarves. Some codes of shari'a law (the exact codes differ depending on the country you come from, the particular type of Islam you practice, ethnic background, etc.) require women to wear clothes to cover their bodies in public. It can be a scarf covering the hair and neck, or you could be required to cover your entire body leaving nothing exposed and nothing but some sheer-er fabric to see out of covering the eyes. Matt and I see women in this dress all the time here in London because there is of course a big Muslim population here. At first, it was a little disturbing seeing a woman on a shopping street covered with a thick black cloak from the top of her head to her toes, but this is a sight we have now become used to. That doesn't mean we are entirely comfortable with it, but if you know anything about the treatment of women in Islam, you will know that headscarves are the lowest on the list of things to worry about.

Almost everyone thinks this claim the Archbishop of Canterbury has made is absolutely absurd on multiple levels. One aspect that Christopher Hitchens points out really well in an article on Slate.com is that Muslim women who have immigrated to the UK need the legal protections that all British women have, to protect themselves against the abuses to which they are subjected by shari'a law. And if the UK incorporates aspects of shari'a law into its own legal code, they will have no protections.

I think the most obvious point here is that the UK does not give special recognition or protection to any particular religion, why should it do so for Islam? The Archbishop's implicit argument is that if Britain shows more deference to Islamic law, British Muslims will be less likely to become extremists and terrorists. To my ears, it sounds like he is sacrificing his values as the head of a Christian denomination in the fear of future terrorism. Isn't that exactly the goal of terrorism, to make a society so afraid of physical violence against it that it will abandon its own values and goals and accept those of the terrorists?

One of the reasons this is so odd to most Britons is the fact that Britain has already been the subject of massive campaigns of terrorism from the IRA without having this sort of capitulation maneuver. And the IRA did much worse things than have been done in the last 6 years. Most British people are not afraid of this new threat. They have been through it already.

As Lily Allen says, "Sun is the sky, oh why, oh why would I want to be anywhere else?"

For that classic Christopher Hitchens hackjob article, go here. It's brilliant.