No to sharia law in Britain

Sharia has no place in a civilised society. Ban Islamic tribunals and let everyone in this country abide by a single code of laws

But sharia is much wider than that. It moves seamlessly from the public to the private realm, and it is in the latter that we find demands that a measure of sharia be introduced to this country. Such demands have been made, not just by Muslims, but even by an astonishingly naïve Archbishop of Canterbury. Sharia is only marginally about how a believer prays, fasts, pays the alms tax, or performs the pilgrimage. For the individual it carries obligations and penalties that cut deep into personal life. Here is a very simple example. If a Muslim man in a fit of temper uses the triple divorce formula, even if his wife is not present, the law considers the couple divorced. But if he comes to his senses, he cannot simply resume relations with his wife. In order to remarry, she must wait three months to determine that she is not pregnant. Thereupon, she is obliged to marry another man and to have sex with him, and this man must then divorce her (or not, if he decides to keep her). She must then wait another three months, after which her first husband may remarry her – see also Ask Imam). This revolting practice, known as halala, demeans the woman. In British law, it would be considered a form of coercion into unwanted sexual relations. Is this what the archbishop wants?

But sharia has already entered the UK through a back door. In October 2008 Bridget Prentice, parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Justice, stated that the government does not "accommodate" any religious legal systems, but confirmed two developments. First that sharia courts are operating under the 1996 Arbitration Act, which allows private disputes to be settled by an independent arbitrator. And second that sharia rulings on family matters (that are not covered by arbitration) could be given the authority of a British court by seeking "a consent order embodying the terms" of the sharia court ruling. There is now a Muslim Arbitration Tribunal which claims that the lord chief justice endorses alternative dispute resolution under sharia law.

The idea that Muslim tribunals arbitrating in matters of family law can take place without introducing contradictions to UK law, mainly through severe discrimination against Muslim women, is not well thought through. We have already seen one way that sharia law may have repercussions for wives in certain instances of divorce. Giving tribunals semi-official status will, assuming they work according to sharia, introduce similar anomalies.

I have not been able to get reports of live rulings from tribunals, but there are a large number of online sites which offer fatwas in answer to questions posed by believers and these seem likely to represent the kind of answers which tribunals in Britain must produce.

If couples do not marry according to UK civil law (and I have seen a fatwa ruling that they need not register their marriage with the British authorities), there may be serious consequences in the event of divorce; in the custody of children (which always goes against the woman); with respect to alimony (a man does not have to pay any, except for the children) and with regard to rights to a share in the family home (which a woman does not have). During the marriage, a man may coerce his wife to have sex, (though wives do not have that right); a husband may confine his wife to their home; if one or the other partner abandons Islam, (the marriage is declared null and void). It is considered wrong to reject polygamy. If a woman wishes to divorce her husband, it is made dependent on obtaining her husband's permission and the agreement of a sharia court. A woman may not marry a non-Muslim and a man may marry only a Jewish or Christian woman. Legal adoption is prohibited, but if a child has been adopted, he or she may not inherit from the adoptive parents. The Leyton-based Islamic Shariah Council has issued rulings including one that forbids a woman of any age to marry without a male "guardian"; another that says a man only has to intend to divorce for it to be valid; one that insists that a polygamous marriage must be maintained even in the UK (Islamic Shariah Council); and another that excuses a man from making alimony payments after divorce.

If Islamic tribunals are to arbitrate according to such antiquated and discriminatory rulings, they condemn British Muslim women to a life as second-class citizens with barely any rights. And if they claim to advise only within the framework of British law, then what are they doing in the first place? The only solution to this scandalous situation is to ban such tribunals entirely and let Muslims, like everybody else in this country, abide by a single code of laws. Sharia courts must be excluded from recognition under the 1996 Arbitration Act if justice for all does not become a farce.

Denis MacEoin's report into sharia law in the UK was published by Civitas on Monday 29 Jun

Dawkins is wrong about believers

Richard Dawkins' tactic of ridiculing religion will inspire only hostility among those who feel their worldview to be under attack

Yet I have been bothered by an inconsistency in his approach, particularly in the last years since his God Delusion. In this book he basically tries to demonstrate that a) arguments for God's existence and the truth of sacred text of the various monotheistic traditions are invalid; b) arguments that religion makes people more moral are fallacious; and c) religious education is largely noxious and prevents human beings who have been subjected to it from becoming truly free minds.

I happen to agree with him on all three points, but I wonder what he is trying to achieve. He says in a recent post discussed by Andrew Brown that he hopes to convince religious people that haven't given the issue much thought by ridiculing religious belief, and he thinks that this might be a useful way to win them over to the scientific worldview.

Given his deep commitment to science, it somewhat surprises me that in formulating this strategy of ridicule and frontal attack he does not take into account scientific knowledge about the functioning of the human mind. In the last two decades, the discipline of existential experimental psychology has investigated the function that worldviews (whether religious or other) play in the human mind. One of the most important findings is that belief systems, by connecting individuals to a larger whole (a religion, nation, community or an endeavour like science), protect us from the unbearable anxiety generated by awareness of our own mortality. This holds true for all belief systems whether religious or secular.

These results are pertinent to the question of how to deal with the conflict between science and religion. A variety of researchers have produced strong research results demonstrating that when the belief systems that provide humans with meaning and worldview protection are attacked, the result is inevitably that humans dig more deeply into the trenches of their belief systems. The meaning and psychological protection that humans derive from their worldviews is so important to them that they will go to enormous lengths to defend these beliefs against any attack.

This is exactly what has happened in the last decades: the more western secular culture impacted traditional forms of life in all three Abrahamic religions, the more they moved towards fundamentalist versions that vehemently attacked science and western liberalism as decadent and corrupting. If Dawkins' theory were right, the technological superiority of the scientific worldview should have made them feel ridiculous, and hence they should have given up on their belief systems. But the opposite happened: from Wahhabist insistence on purifying Islam from western influence to the frontal attack on evolutionary theory by the American religious right, the fundamentalist backlash has been rather disheartening.

Equally dismaying was the timid way in which secularism, both in Europe and the US, tried to appease religious attacks ranging from Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie to stopping funding of stem-cell research by the Bush administration. Such appeasement only encouraged further attacks.

Within this context there was great value of polemical work like Dawkins' God Delusion, Daniel Dennett's and Christopher Hitchens' salvoes against religion and the fiery insistence of philosophers like Bernard Henri Lévy and Alain Finkielkraut that the western tradition of freedom of thought needed to be defended. I identify strongly with all these works and try to contribute to this effort of rallying the forces of the enlightenment tradition in my own way.

But let us not delude ourselves: the value of these books is to raise the spirits of liberal atheists who had been made to feel that they had no right to fight for their views. These spirited counterattacks certainly succeeded in reestablishing some esprit de corps of those committed to enlightenment values and the scientific worldview. But the primary effect of such aggressive rhetoric is primarily to rally our own side. We should not think that all-out attack on religion will convert anybody. The scientific evidence shows that the opposite is likely to be true.

I am in no way arguing for a return to the timid politically correct tactic of seemingly paying respect to views that are irrational and/or morally repugnant. But I believe that it is of crucial importance to get religious communities, particularly in third world countries, to accept scientific precepts on global problems ranging from the population explosion to the epidemic spread of HIV. In doing so we will have to find ways to convince religious leaders to endorse scientifically established methods of dealing with these issues. The strategy of ridiculing religious belief is very unlikely to achieve this, and may instead increase resistance to science where it is most sorely needed

Comment is free

Hamas no, human rights yes

Why are the left and the anti-war movement ignoring Hamas's repression of the Palestinian people?

Amnesty International is highly critical of the Hamas "campaign of abductions, deliberate and unlawful killings, torture and death threats".

Referring to Palestinians who were beaten or murdered by Hamas, Amnesty notes:

"Most of the victims were abducted from their homes; they were later dumped – dead or injured – in isolated areas ... Some were shot dead in the hospitals."

In a media briefing, Amnesty International added:

There is incontrovertible evidence that Hamas security forces and armed militias have been responsible for grave human rights abuses and that the victims of such abuses and many others are being intimidated and discouraged from testifying about their ordeal. The Hamas de-facto administration has displayed a flagrant disregard for the most fundamental human rights norms, not only allowing such abuses to be perpetrated, but actually facilitating and encouraging the abuses by justifying them and by granting absolute impunity to the perpetrators.

A dossier (pdf) by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights independently corroborates Amnesty's allegations:

The human rights violations perpetrated ... have included killings of fugitives, prisoners and detainees, injuries caused by severe physical violence, torture and misuse of weapons, the imposition of house arrest, and other restrictions that have been imposed on civil society organisations.

These abuses, which are part of a long-standing pattern of human rights violations, reveal Hamas's totalitarian agenda and are a portent of the Iranian-style theocratic tyranny they would impose on the Palestinian people if they ever secured absolute power. It is an antisemitic, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-trade union, authoritarian, clericalist movement.

Nevertheless, none of Hamas's crimes excuse Israel's disproportionate, reckless and indiscriminate attacks on Gaza. The Israeli armed forces wantonly targeted civilian areas and caused thousands of civilian casualties, including the deaths of over 400 children. Under international law, such as the Geneva conventions, Israel's actions are war crimes and its political and military leaders should be taken to The Hague and put on trial.

This is the broad consensus among much of liberal and left opinion in western countries like the UK and US. I agree. But while progressive opinion is justifiably quick to condemn Israel, it is oddly silent when Palestinians are being persecuted by fellow Palestinians. Why the double standards?

Hamas styles itself as a resistance movement. In fact, it is as much a repression movement and the victims of its repression are fellow Palestinians who don't toe the Hamas line.

In the future, Hamas is potentially as much of a threat to Palestinian freedom as Israel is today. Hamas shares a similar religious-political ideology to the tyrants in Tehran – Islamism. More than a faith, Islamism is a religious-inspired fundamentalist political movement. The Islamists of Hamas have the ultimate goal of establishing a theocratic state, where every detail of Palestinian life is governed by its hardline misinterpretation of the Qu'ran.

If it ever managed to secure total control of a Palestinian state, Hamas would begin to impose its own restrictive Islamist version of democracy, as has happened in Iran under the ayatollahs. It would eventually ban non-Islamist parties and candidates. Gradually, genuine democracy and human rights would be dismantled and replaced by Hamas's own qualified, limited Islamist version, which would not be true democracy at all.

This is obvious to anyone with knowledge of Hamas's founding documents and guiding principles. These set out its plan to create not a Muslim state, but an Islamist one, where harsh religious edicts become the law of the land. Many Palestinians – probably most – reject theocracy. They do not wish to live under religious tyranny. Their desire is a democratic, secular state where people of all faiths are free to practise their beliefs but where religion does not dictate legislation and control government policy.

It is therefore disturbing that significant sections (not all) of the left are flirting with Hamas. During the January protests in the UK against Israel's barbaric bombardment of Gaza, there were frequent pro-Hamas chants and placards. "We are all Hamas now!" some marchers yelled. At one rally in Hyde Park, speakers on the main stage urged "Victory to Hamas!" and received tumultuous cheers of approval (with only a few boos).

I am tired of hearing leftwingers defend Hamas on the grounds that it was democratically elected. So what? The Israeli leaders are democratically elected but that does not make their war in Gaza right. A democratic mandate is not, by itself, sufficient to secure legitimacy for the government in Gaza – or anywhere else. If democratically elected governments violate human rights they forfeit their legitimacy, as in the case of Britain when it was torturing and assassinating Irish republican suspects in the 1970s and 80s.

Besides, support for Hamas has declined dramatically as people have experienced the consequences of its administration in Gaza. If a genuinely free and fair election were held today, Hamas would not win.

Another favourite left and liberal justification of Hamas is that it is less corrupt than its Palestinian rivals in Fatah and that it organises social programmes for the poor. You could say the same about the Nazis, compared to the indulgence and incompetence of some Weimar Republic leaders. No, a few good works do not exonerate Hamas. Yes, their critique of Fatah nepotism, pocket-lining and thuggism has some truth. But the alternative they are offering is far worse.

Some of the left seem to see Hamas as a Palestinian equivalent of the African National Congress of South Africa – a heroic national liberation movement that is resisting the iniquities of Israeli occupation. Sorry, this analogy does not wash, as Brett Lock argued on the Harry's Place blog a couple of weeks ago. He pointed out that Hamas is offering nothing akin to the political and ethical stature of the ANC's Freedom Charter. In fact, Hamas's charter is a charter for discrimination and religious tyranny – the exact opposite of what the ANC stood for.

Moreover, Hamas's macho posturing mirrors that of the Israeli extreme right. It has a juvenile tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye war mentality. To supposedly prove its resistance credentials and outdo Fatah, it fires rockets into Israel against non-military targets, with no concern for the civilian casualties caused there and no regard for the effects on Palestinian civilians of Israeli retaliatory attacks.

Far from advancing the Palestinian cause, Hamas's strategy is constantly weakening and undermining it. The people of Gaza are worse off in every way since Hamas took control.

The Gazan people are lions led by Hamas donkeys. These donkeys keep giving Israel an excuse to attack the Palestinian people and to frustrate the urgent task of creating a viable, independent Palestinian state.

I have some sympathy for a one-state solution – a unified democratic, secular state of Palestine-Israel, based on a confederation of autonomous, self-governing Jewish, Arab and mixed towns and cities, where all Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace, security, harmony and equality.

As well as the intransigence of short-sighted Israelis, one of the major obstacles to this dream is Hamas. It demands an Islamist state governed by sharia law. It won't accept equal co-existence or secularism, democracy and human rights.

Despite my many criticisms of Hamas, I also believe that Israel and the west should negotiate with them, just as the British negotiated with the Irish Republican Army, the US negotiated with North Korea and Pakistanis are now negotiating with the Taliban. The ideology that Hamas represents has a sizable, if shrinking, minority following among Palestinians. You cannot defeat an ideology by military means; especially not an ideology that is fuelled by the fundamental injustice of Israel's dispossession of the Palestinian people from their land. Even with the opponents of freedom, talk, talk is better than war, war.