I’ve never had much time for Rowan Williams: touted and hyped as a man of liberal progressive principle, and the highest posisble intelligence, he has in fact shown himself as prepared to bow to hatred of homosexuality rather than stand up for fairness and as showing a lack of moral focus on abortion. I see no principle in him whatever, except that he will be vicar of Lambeth, and I agree completely with Polly Toynbee’s characterisation of his as a pathetic weather-vane windbag. He fully deserves this kind of public ridicule in my view.

No surprise, then, that such a great liberal thinker should come up with the suggestion that Sharia law is in some sense “unavoidable” in the UK. We must, he says, “face up to the fact” that some British citizens do not relate” to the British legal system. In typical ringing (should that be wringing?) Williams style he says the idea that there is one law for all, surely one of the fundamental ideas essential to a liberal democracy, is

“… a bit of a danger.”

What he wants is a “constructive accommodation” with Islamic law.

Now, I’ve no problem with Islamic law governing Islam: who’s married to whom in Islamic terms, for example. I’ve no problem with Muslim traders choosing to arbitrate commercial disputes using Islamic law arbitration systems. But I think he must be arguing for more than that: for the secular law of the land somehow to recognise an Islamic jurisdiction separate from its own, as in the frightening example of the “criminal trial” mentioned in this article, or for instance by Islamic rules on divorce to be recognised here.

I’m with John Bolch of Family Lore on this: integrating sharia law into the fabric of our legal system in that kind of way would be unfair to the women it would undoubtedly oppress, and would be the real bit of a danger to our society. But then, it should come as no surprise by now that Williams want to constructive accomodate unfairness and wrong.

Actually I think his use of the word “unavoidable” gives a real insight into the psychology of moral compromise: it seems unavoidable; therefore one should accomodate it.

I think he’s the most ridiculous man in England.

2008-02-07T15:26:00+00:00Tags: , |