Dean's World

I always hate to read statements like this one from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury:

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".

Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

He says Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".

'Sensational reporting'

In an exclusive interview with BBC correspondent Christopher Landau, ahead of a lecture to lawyers in London on Monday, Dr Williams argues this relies on Sharia law being better understood.

At the moment, he says "sensational reporting of opinion polls" clouds the issue.

He stresses that "nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states; the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well".

But Dr Williams said an approach to law which simply said "there's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts - I think that's a bit of a danger".

"There's a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law."

if only because I know that in my role as member of the Watcher's Council, I'll be reading squeals of exaggerated outrage and accusations of dhimmitude, if not from my fellow Council members then from some of the non-Council posts that my fellow Council members will be submitting for consideration.

I'm pretty sure that private agreements between individuals to arbitrate grievances and differences according to some mutually acceptable standard including Sharia law is completely consistent with British law. Having the civil authorities enforce such arbitrations probably isn't.

As an American I'm not in any position to tell Britons what they should or should not do but my own private belief is that there should be one law for all Britons and those who aren't comfortable with that law should be free to seek a system that they relate to elsewhere. We've had our own experience with “separate but equal” and rejected it.

Still, it would be nice if prudent consideration were to be given to how the United Kingdom can seek to assimilate its newer residents into the larger culture. Giving them the alternative to do things just exactly as they were done in the old country probably isn't the best choice.

Update

Johnathan Pearce, posting from London:

Alas, Dr Williams is not a great thinker, although he is no doubt a kindly man.

That's pretty much the way I've got it figured. I think that one of the most difficult lines to be tread by great leaders, including great religious leaders, of which by title the Archbishop of Canterbury is certainly one, is that of individual kindnesses amounting to a cruel public policy. What's appropriate, even sought after, in a parish priest, may not be the right course of action to be recommended by the head of the Anglican communion.

Dante really got this notion right in the manner in which he assigned well-known public figures to different circles of Heaven or Hell not merely by whether they behaved well or badly but by how they executed their responsibilities.

My friend thabet, a muslim blogger formerly in the UK, has linked to several excellent commentaries on the matter of Archbishop Williams' remarks regarding Shari'a. The question is really what kind of game is Williams playing? Is he supremely saavy, or astonishingly naive?

First, this by Cranmer:

Dr Williams did not advocate Shari’a law; he said quite distinctly that ‘aspects’ of it might be incorporated into British law. He said other religions enjoyed tolerance of their own laws, and called for ‘constructive accommodation’ with Muslim practice in areas such as marital disputes. But he stressed that it could never be allowed to take precedence over an individual's rights as a citizen. This is an important distinction. [...] the Archbishop’s naivety is astonishing. He treats Radio 4 as if it were an Oxford theological college, and assumes that his audience is made up of academics with the ability to dissect and analyse words with his professorial precision.

Shari’a may be a complex and convoluted legal system, but it means only one thing in the UK: oppression, barbarism and injustice. This judgement may in itself be unjust, but the word is alien and, like ‘jihad’, has taken on its own meaning. Shari’a law is in fact profoundly complex, and varies in interpretation and application from Islamic community to Islamic community.

Cranmer goes on to make the necessary distinction between "private" and "public" Shari'a, noting that the former, not the latter, is acceptable as a framework for inclusion into law. That the archbishop failed to clarify this in his remarks, but rather treated Shari'a as a single static unit, is astonishing.

Another blog, Global Dashboard, notes:

As ever, when you actually listen to what he says, he comes across as thoughtful, considered and nuanced; he points, for instance, to the fact that Orthodox Jewish courts already exist in the UK. But I can’t help wondering whether this is a pretty bad error of judgement in communication terms. Even the BBC’s own coverage of the story on BBC News Online loses most of the nuances; I’ve listened to the whole interview, and I’m not sure that I fully understand where Williams is going with this.

The risk here is that what would have been fine as an article in Prospect, say, or the London Review of Books, ignites a firestorm by dint of appearing first on a broadcast medium, followed by immediate pickup on the internet. Just wait for the reactions from the US right wing blogosphere to roll in as they gleefully take this as confirmation of all their predictions about dhimmitude. It’s the “unavoidable” bit that’ll really drive the story. They’re going to have a hard few days’ work in the Lambeth Palace press office…

And over at The Independent,

Rowan Williams bridles when anyone suggests that he is the Anglican church’s equivalent of the Pope. But he has made the same mistake in discussing sharia law that Pope Benedict XVI made in his ill-fated foray on the subject of Islam at the University of Regensburg two years ago, which sparked protests around the world, the murder of a nun and much else.

The error is assuming that the leader of a major church has the same intellectual freedom that he had when he was merely an eminent theologian. The cold fact is that the semiotics are entirely different. An academic may call for a nuanced renegotiation of society’s attitudes to the internal laws of religious communities. But when the Archbishop of Canterbury does that the headline follows, as night follows day: “Sharia law in UK is unavoidable, says Archbishop.”

And finally, at the Guardian:

Dr Williams, characteristically, is interested in the arguments over what sharia law actually says. The rest of the country is more interested in whether and how it might be enforced. Only if Islamic law can be reduced to a game played between consenting adults can it be acceptably enforced in this country; and that’s not, I think, how it is understood by its practitioners. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

thabet provides a comprehensive roundup of excerpted links to analysis of l'affaire Williams in the blogsphere and the media. Needless to say, the depth exceeds what you find in the jafisphere, where all they can focus on is "omfg sharia cooties". Click over to thabet's blog and take a look.