We’re all for tolerance but..
… What I think he said is an OUTRAGE!!!
If you felt a slight tremor sometime yesterday afternoon, it’ll have been caused by an enormous number of knees all jerking at the same time. Just the mention of the word Sharia is enough to cause many people to disengage their critical faculties and become subsumed by righteous indignation.
The BBC’s Have Your Say has been inundated with outraged comments (over 11,000 comments since yesterday afternoon, most still in moderation) and demands for the Archbishop’s resignation. There, and on blogs, a common theme is “I can’t believe he said that”. Unfortunately, this thought does not seem to have provoked any great desire to find out exactly what he did say. How many of those 11,000 people actually listened to the Archbishop’s 10 minute interview or read his speech? (Both available from the BBC article above.) How many bloggers offered their opinion based on nothing more than a badly written news summary of Williams’ views and their own deeply felt misunderstanding of the concept Sharia law? Too many to count.
But it wasn’t just Joe Bloggs. Here’s a quick analysis of some of the responses detailed in this morning’s BBC report.
The prime minister’s spokesman said Sharia law could never be used to justify a breach of English law.
Indeed. Williams never suggested otherwise.
Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said: “To ask us to fundamentally change the rule of law and to adopt Sharia law, I think, is fundamentally wrong.”
He didn’t say that either. Nice double use of fundamental there though.
For the Conservatives, shadow community cohesion minister Baroness Warsi said the archbishop’s comments were “unhelpful”.
She told BBC News 24: “Dr Williams seems to be suggesting that there should be two systems of law, running alongside each other, almost parallel, and for people to be offered the choice of opting into one or the other. That is unacceptable.”
Slightly different problem here. This already happens to some extent as the Baroness would have know if she’d read Williams’ speech. Is it Conservative policy that Jewish Beth Din courts are unacceptable and should be closed down?
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said he had “an enormous amount of respect” for Dr Williams, but could not agree with him on this issue. He said: “Equality before the law is part of the glue that binds our society together. We cannot have a situation where there is one law for one person and different laws for another.
“There is a huge difference between respecting people’s right to follow their own beliefs and allowing them to excuse themselves from the rule of law.”
Williams did not suggest that anyone should be allowed to excuse themselves from the rule of law. In fact, he made a point of saying, in his customarily confusing way, that this shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
All in all, not an edifying sight. And I’ve not even touched on the idiotic “they’ll be trying to behead you next” stuff.
In reality, as the Global Dashboard rightly notes, the Archbishop’s view is “thoughtful, considered and nuanced” (via another good post over at The Wardman Wire). The same certainly cannot be said for the majority of reactions to his comments.
An update is likely later this afternoon.
thabet said,
February 8, 2008 @ 1:05 pm
Did you read Tory MP Mark Pritchard’s response? Here’s the snippet at the BBC:
I thought Andrew Brown at Comment is free had a sensible response to Willams views.
More Power to Your Elbow er Knee: Archbishop of Canterbury/Sharia | The Wardman Wire said,
February 8, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
[…] wasn’t planning to revisit Archbishop Rowan until tomorrow, however Mr Sticky Carrot (aka Garry Smith) comments: If you felt a slight tremor sometime yesterday afternoon, it’ll have […]
Garry said,
February 8, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
Yes, it’s like a competition to see who can be most outraged. Just saw some guy on BBC News 24 spend the entire interview condemning Williams for stuff he didn’t say.
Just looked up that Andrew Brown piece and it’s certainly a lot more sensible than most of what’s been written. Thanks for pointing it out.
Rowan Williams and “sharia courts”: reaction in the media and blogosphere « pixelisation said,
February 9, 2008 @ 7:39 am
[…] Garry Smith, “We’re all for tolerance but…”: The BBC’s Have Your Say has been inundated with outraged comments (over 11,000 comments since yest… […]
Scottish Roundup » Blog Archive » It’s all about the money, it’s all about the ding-ding dinga-ding-ding-ding said,
February 10, 2008 @ 1:23 am
[…] MSM has picked up on Dr Williams’s speech and entered nto a state of hysteria, exasperating Garry, who compares the media’s reporting of what Williams said with what he was actually getting […]
akatsukira said,
February 10, 2008 @ 7:22 am
Thanks for the link to the interview, Garry. I must admit to being as surprised as Archbishop Williams at the adverse response. It was, even to an atheist, an even-keeled, rational discussion about religious laws/code and how to accommodate that within the current legal structure.
I reckon the word “sharia” is misused / misunderstood by non-muslims, as is the word “fatwa”. Hence the knee-jerk reaction.
Garry said,
February 11, 2008 @ 4:22 am
My pleasure.
On the widespread misunderstanding of “sharia”. Williams attempted to discuss this.
He tried to explain a little about the reality but the media weren’t really interested in reporting that. It’s not something to get the juices flowing and, worse than that, it highlights the fact that their own activities are part of the problem.
Instead, some of the coverage has been disgraceful. The Sun headline (alongside a photo of the bus from the London attacks) was a case in point. The headline is sort of right but not for the reason they’re trying to suggest.
I’m guessing Williams was expecting some “sensational reporting” of his remarks and some adverse responses but not this extraordinary outrage. There are calls for his resignation which are descending into witch hunt territory.
There seem to be more ironies here than you can shake a stick at.