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Sharia Courts in Britain
and the Dangers Ahead Published on October 12, 2008
The news that the British legal system had functioning sharia courts with arbitration status came in a sensational scoop by two large newspapers in that country: "The Times" and "The Telegraph." Apart from the small numbers of Islamic clerics who had managed to persuade the British government to constitute these courts and a very small number of people who had gone to these courts to ask for adjudication in matters of family law, much of Britain's Muslim community itself was as unaware of the courts' existence as the rest of the country was. Subsequent investigation showed that at about the time these courts were quietly permitted, the British government had allowed Jewish courts as well, functioning on Jewish religious law, to adjudicate in disputes within Jewish families. On the one hand, this appeared like an attempt by the British government to liberalize its judicial system and make the handling of family disputes acceptable to migrants who were from different cultures than the vast majority of native-born British people. But, it is clear, when reading between the lines, that the whole business is little more than a cynical power grab being attempted by the Labour government while vested interests in Britain's huge Christian community push their agenda using Muslims and Jews as cannon-fodder. Gordon Brown's embattled government cannot have been ignorant of the Canadian Liberal Party's attempt at trying to force sharia courts upon the Canadian people in the run up to the last Canadian general elections. Then Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin, found himself accused of corruption and nepotism along with Ontario Premier Dalton Mc Guinty and both concocted an attempt at gaining the support of Canada's Muslim community to try and win elections that threatened to consign both men to the dustbin of history. Unfortunately for them, both men tried this openly, mooting the idea along with a bunch of mullahs and posing for the newspapers, drawing the ire not just of the Canadian non-Muslim population, but also of active liberal Muslim activists including Mukto-Mona's own Hasan Mahmud (who writes under the pen name "Fatemolla") and Tarek Fatah. The resulting uproar when women Mps in Canada came out publicly to join the liberal Muslims to show their opposition to this proposal cutting across party lines killed the bill and also saw Paul Martin shunted out in the elections though Mc Guinty managed to scrape through because of the support that he ahd managed tog et among the fundamentalist mullahs among others. Gordon Brown learned his lessons well from the Martin � Mc Guinty debacle. He must have sounded the Archibshop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to discuss his proposal to grant fundamentalists in the Jewish and Muslim communities permission to run religious courts. With centuries of religious cunning guiding him, Williams grabbed an opportunity that he must never have dreamed would ever come up � in February 2008, he made a speech that was widely publicized, supporting the idea of sharia courts. Williams was denounced by his own followers while the secular public condemned him, but, in supporting this idea, the Archbishop had managed to pull off a huge coup: if Jewish and Muslim religious courts were permitted by a weak British administration out to gain votes to win a looming and tough election, then it would certainly be easy for Williams to ask for, and get Christian religious courts instituted afterwards, in demanding his pound of flesh. A toothless Prime Minister like Gordon Brown would be helpless to deny the Christian community the very same privileges that he had already granted the Jewish and Muslim communities, and, from a legal standpoint, a precedent had already been set for religious courts with two religions permitted their own courts with full arbitration powers. So far, Brown's sly introduction of these courts has not caused any major commotion in the British media after the initial uproar in the press. As the world economy slides towards a very uncertain and gloomy future, Britain has been hit, perhaps, harder than even the USA by the huge American housing mess and the corresponding slide in the American financial sector. The average Briton is probably more worried about his / her pension and savings and about property values in a country which saw the highest increase in home prices in the world than in the religious courts that now operate with impunity in the country thanks to their being granted permission to function by a devious politician who heads the country. It is also likely that in this mess, Brown will win the next elections thanks to the support of the fundamentalists who stand to gain from his decision to allow Jewish and sharia courts. As long as an issue is not in the public eye, people are not going to base their voting decisions upon it, even in a country like the UK where the population is as politically aware as it is. It is my guess that the Anglican church, and later, the Catholic and other churches will strike. After re-election, Brown will continue in office but as a lame-duck Prime Minister. The churches will step in to demand their pound of flesh. And Brown will have no option but to give them ten pounds for every one that they ask for. Take the huge number of Christians in the UK as compared to the Jews and Muslims, and, it would be a question of time before the Christian fundamentalists would be able to toss aside the sharia courts and the Jewish ones as they impose their own religious ideas on the country. In the end, the sharia proponents, the Jewish court proponents and Gordon Brown would be together in eating crow along with the vast majority of secular Britons who would be deceived into this state of recalcitrance by the machinations of a power-hungry and slimy politician and an even more sly and cunning fundamentalist in the Archbishop of Canterbury.
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