More on the anti-Sharia protests in Canada. From the Globe and Mail, with thanks to Paul:
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty will let down women and help the cause of political Islam if he allows faith-based arbitration to go ahead, anti-sharia demonstrators charged yesterday at an emotional rally in Toronto.The protest was one of 12 in cities across Canada and Europe, as women's and human-rights groups lobbied against a proposal to allow sharia tribunals in Ontario.
Homa Armojand, co-ordinator of the campaign, told about 300 protesters at Queen's Park that the lobby to allow faith-based arbitration for Muslims in Ontario is "not a coincidence, but part of a global move pushed by leaders of political Islam who need validation from the government of the West."
"McGuinty flirting with political Islam is playing a dangerous game," Ms. Armojand said. "He is putting the lives of women and children in jeopardy. Shame."
DOES ANYONE KNOW OF SIMILAR PROTEST MARCHES PLANNED IN THE UNITED STATES? BECAUSE THIS DEFINITELY NEEDS PROTESTING!
Just heard on CBC Radio that Premier McGuinty of Ontario is "going to introduce legislation as soon as possible to end all religion based arbitration" - Hooray! That means an end to Catholic and Jewish arbitration too! Hooray! Protests work! I'll watch for further details.
It's a pyrrhic victory. Now the Muslims don't have what they wanted, but they did manage to destroy the rest, the innocuous tribunals of those they hate. That's Islam for you.
We didn't win anything. We had to lose to ensure that evil didn't win.
sonofwalker: I call it a victory - and I'm not so sure those other religious tribunals are innocuous.
State and religion must be separate. Law must be separate from religion. I'm not sure what exactly goes on in Catholic-based or Jewish-based arbitration, but if they are innocuous why is the state involved in any way? Why don't they just have their faith-based consultations in their place of worship and leave the law to the courts? How can there be an overlap?
McGuinty is apparently thinking this way too: keep it separate. Allowing any religon to have a say in an issue which would otherwise be determined by law is a slippery slope. Allow any religion - and you must allow them all. And what is a religion anyway? How is it defined?
Much better to keep it separate - and this will send a good and clear and simple message to Muslims in Ontario: one law for everyone - or at least, that's the aim.
Next issue: get McGuinty to tackle Ontario's Human Rights Code which allows religious norms to take precedence over the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of gender.
Somehow religion is in the middle of that kettle-of-fish too!
Here is a link to a Toronto Star article where McGuinty states he will end all religious arbitration in Ontario. Thanks to Mentat for bringing this up in another thread.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1126457046775&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
Jen, you are right about the universality of law. I've argued over and again here and elsewhere that there cannot be legitimate exceptionalism. So what am I on about? You've caught me exercizing a double standard, one for Muslims and one for others, all the while writing about universalty.
I'm made stupid by my hatred. I made myself stupid. One will be left wondering how deep is my commitment to universal Human rights if I allow myself to fight against Islam's evils while overlooking or even defending the evils of others. I was not only stupid, I was wrong.
My point, if there's any reasonable explanation for it, is not that it's a good thing to have religious tribunals in government. I can't reasonably state they were innocuous. They are not. I grossly over-stated my case. I will say that the religious tribunals in already in place, though they might not agree with my views of law, and in fact they violate both my view of egalite and egalite as it is by definition, that they offend universality of law, that they do indeed create a precedent for exceptionalism, that they might well have been bad per se, they were not a public issue of import. They were innocuous only insofaras no one cared. If this struggle weren't one of life and death, as it is so strikingly brought home to us this of all days each years, then one might well have been outraged by religious tribunals in government. As it is, to fight against sharia in Ontario we had to turn against those who would not have come to our immediate attention in this struggle. I write that it's a pyrrhic victory because we could have left the Catholics and the Jews alone if not for the Muslims demanding the same rights. No, the Muslims cannot be allowed to have sharia tribunals in government. To stop their greater evil I feel we had to sacrifice the lesser evil, if it even qualifies as such, of the others. We really should not have made the Catholic, for example, pay for the evil of the Muslims, regardless of the benefit to universality of law in the land. Did we gain anything by limiting the Catholics? Yes, we gained a better system over-all of the administration of justice. I argue that we paid a price for that, the price of alienating our friends. In the long term the dismisal of sharia and the other religious tribunals is the right thing. I'm discouraged by the timing and the and impetus. We gained what I consider a trivial furtherance of egalite at the expense of our allies. Muslims gained the destruction of their competitors in a marketplace (of law,) even if we must say religion wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.
How much more will we have to sacrifice to prevent Islam from encroaching? If we refuse to allow sharia practice in private, e.g. the enslavement of females, and I suggest that is a legitimate police action, what's to stop the police from imposing upon those who circumcise their male children? Even if the two are equally wrong, the two are not equally evil. I think we can make these arguments endlessly using different but complementary examples, so I won't belabour the point.
John B, thank you again for providing the copy on the rally in Ontario.
I'll return to this thread tomorrow to see if there's anything else I should have addressed now but didn't. You raised good points, and I like to think I've gained something from that. Please feel free to call attention to my lapses of intelligence whenever you encounter them. But remember, always spare some time for food and water.
sonofwalker:
No need to apologize, because I understand where you were coming from. And there's nothing wrong with speaking out in passion - there's usually a truth lying buried there somewhere. But thanks for taking the time to so eloquently say so.
What has happened here, I believe, is that we've seen the tightening of the defenses against encroaching Islam. In order to maintain our status quo (the core of Western civilization, as we know it) we had to change our existing laws/rules/customs to deny demands from Muslims which threatened to bring in elements not in accordance with our values (I usually avoid that word, but here it seems to fit). Here of course we can be accused of a double standard - and ultimately this is what we'll have to face: Do we in the West want to give equal weight to "our" values (which we've developed over hundreds of years with progressive enlightenment) and to Islamic values (laid down 1400 years ago and essentially unchanged and unchallengeable)? Are they equal? Multiculturalism says they are; human rights codes say they are. But at what point do we say, "No - this is crossing the line!"
Here in Ontario, Premier McGuinty could see that crisis ahead, and he chose to act now (a bit belatedly though) by forestalling the possibility that Sharia courts would challenge the equality that our courts aim to uphold.
That the Catholic and Jewish tribunals worked quietly (I didn't even know about them) and unobtrusively supports your comment that they were "innocuous" (although we know that there are elements of gender discrimination within them too, apparently at levels permissible by Ontario law) - but we weren't so sure where Sharia courts would take us. And so it all had to end.
Neither Catholic nor Jewish faiths have an agenda to take precedence over constitutional law - but we know the underlying agenda of Islam is world domination.
As for your lapse of intelligence - I'll forgive yours, if you'll forgive mine which occur more often than I'd care to admit. And instead of bread and water, how about a double double and a Tim Horton's doughnut? My treat.
Jen, I have to warn you that I'm a totally serious coffee drinker, and that once I start I end up talking as much as I write. Love to go. Next time I'm in Ontario, the second round is on me.
Down with shari'a! Tim Horton for Prime Minister!
sonofwalker:
Great, but Ontario's a rather large place, we'd better pin our meeting point down a little, although all Tim Horton's look the same!