Sharia Invades Britain, Cultural Relativists Quietly Pack Their Bags
Mike Riggs | September 16, 2008, 3:19pm
First, the big news:
Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.
The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.
Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court....
Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.
Next, some thoughtful analysis from the students at the GW Patriot blog:
[T]he act in question--sanctioning Muslim Sharia courts to serve as officially-recognized arbiters in British civil cases--shouldn't be so repugnant to thinking people. As liberals (and, in global terms, all of us here at the Patriot are liberal), we ought only to worry whether these courts are really as "voluntary" as they claim to be, which are similar to the Beth Din courts that decide civil cases between consenting Jews. We might find Sharia law itself repugnant, but the degree of cultural relativism inherent in liberal political institutions is there for a good reason. If we don't like it, we don't have to consent.
It's an open question just how voluntary these sorts of arrangements really can be. The possibility that participation in these courts could be coerced is there, which is worrisome enough to justify significant state oversight. That is not sufficient reason, though, to dismantle the courts entirely. We have to swallow our principles here and admit that--since we allow people to make self-harming decisions elsewhere all the time--it would make sense only to a xenophobe to stop at sanctioning a Sharia arbitration court.
Critics should examine not just the voluntary aspect of sharia, but also its fairness. How many Muslim women will be coerced by their fathers and husbands into submitting to sharia instead of taking their chances with the British court system? And how many of them, as a result of this cultural insulation, will end up being punished for—or as a result of—their gender? Anecdotal evidence suggests quite a few women will end up worse off under sharia:
There are concerns that women who agree to go to tribunal courts are getting worse deals because Islamic law favours men.
Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons.
The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.
Almost as disturbing as the people who advocate for sharia on principle are the people who ask why the Jews get special treatment and the Muslims don't. Where are the advocates for dissolving both Beth Din and Sharia?
Bruce Bawer saw this coming, and said as much three years ago in reason.
Addendum: The astute Jesse Walker brought this H&R post to my attention, as well as this defense of alternative forms of arbitration. Despite his seductive intellectual prowess, I maintain my disdain for sharia.
Famous Mortimer | September 16, 2008, 8:27pm | #
"If you set the bar low enough, there is very little in the way of contractual exchange that cannot be considered coercive. A rental contract, for example - after all, in most climates, shelter is necessary to survive. You can't forgo shelter, which is a form of coercive pressure to find housing. One can say something similar about food, or medicine."
You do realize that we're talking about a human relationship here, and not a business deal, don't you? There are emotions involved in deciding to leave such a situation. It's not simply a pragmatic business decision.
Saying "too bad" may satisfy your sociopathic tendencies, but thankfully you're a minority.
I think I'm recognizing a trend here. Libertarians routinely make false analogies by failing to display even a basic understanding of human nature.
It's like the poster who compared slaves to cattle by suggesting that they were at least taken care of.
There should only be one system of law that applies to every citizen. This rinky dink People's Court for Muslims only strengthens extremist ideology, and bastardizes an already established system of justice.
Why not just cede a portion of the Island to Muslims? It's certainly heading in that direction.
The big bad U.S. has an M.E. population that has very little interest in upsetting its economic dreams through extremist rants, yet many are able to actually plants seeds for their own Banana Republic in England.
Can countries be given Darwin Awards?
Famous Mortimer | September 16, 2008, 9:07pm | #
"Why?"
Because it turns what should be a criminal matter into a civil matter, thus taking precedence over established law.
"More specifically, isn't the act of say, becoming an expatriate specifically choosing to place yourself under another jurisdiction?"
Not if you're actively working to usurp the power of that jurisdiction.
"Oh, well, then we should treat people as children. That settles that."
The fact that you think that it has anything to do with treating people like children proves my point. It's acknowledging the complex psychology of the situation, as well as the family dynamic which is the basis of human existence.
You see A.O., on the planet Earth where human beings exist, there also exists within those human beings a biological/social concept called "human psychology" that no matter how hard you try to to trivialize, will never be erased from the human animal.
Turning the concept of free will into nothing more than an algorithm is what Libertarians, and Soviet Communists generally have/had in common.
"As for the rest of your post, it's nonresponsive emotional blather."
At least there's life in here somewhere.
"yes, because it's well within our liberal tradition to brutally suppress voluntary associations that arbitrate disputes."
Do you hear what you are saying? We are discussing assault, and domestic abuse. We're not discussing a business transaction, In the case of "suppression." It's relevant, only if you're talking about not allowing established law to take a backseat to an emotionally manipulative cult ruling.
I don't know where the "brutal" aspect comes, but I'm sure you have some kind of paranoid, "statist" equivocation in your Libertarian tool belt somewhere.
Hyperbole, and terrible analogies consistently go hand in hand around here.
Fluffy | September 17, 2008, 9:06am | #
Famous Mortimer and killtoohey, your arguments in this case aren't just misguided, they're evil.
They rely on two of the most pernicious concepts in the arsenal of leftists: the concept of "false consciousness" [that a person can "think" they want to do something they don't "really" want to do] and the belief that someone can be "coerced" by the private non-violent actions of another.
Let's just discard the first one out of hand, shall we? If someone believes they want to do something, then they want it. There are no other factors to consider. Anyone who says otherwise is a presumptuous, dictatorial piece of crap. You don't get to say that the conscious statement of another that they want to resolve their dispute in this way isn't "real". Any attempt by you to do so should be met with a great big "Go Fuck Yourself".
Second, the "emotional dynamic" Mortimer wants to talk about doesn't mean a god-damned thing, unless you are asserting that you should have the power to force people into private associations in order to make sure that someone doesn't feel bad. If a Muslim woman decides that she wants to take part in this sort of arbitration because, if she doesn't, her family will ostracize her or her community will ostracize her, that's a valid part of her decision-making process. You don't get to tell individual Muslims who they have to associate with, and who they can't ostracize. You can't make them continue to associate with an individual Muslim woman, any more than you can reach down from your throne and force
me to associate with them. Each individual gets to make those decisions on their own, and if you try to use the power of the state to override those decisions, you are evil. Period.
BTW, several people in this thread asked why the "real" courts have to backstop these decisions, if they're voluntary. Well, that's a common feature of private arbitration. It's to prevent people from going to arbitration, and then simply ignoring the outcome if they don't like it, and trying to replay the dispute in "real" court. Submitting to the arbitration process has to mean you're submitting to the arbitrator's decision, or it's pointless to have it at all. This is something that would not make most people here even raise an eyebrow, if we were talking about a secular arbitrator. It's the identity of the arbitrator that you object to, and since you're not a party to the disputes in question, your objections amount to empty religious hatred.
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