“Law” that is separate from religion is a belief system that many do not hold. By it’s very nature, the application of law is not multicultural. It is a system that applies to everyone in a country regardless of what fucked up cultural baggage they bring to the party.
Here is a cite: http://www.dutchdefenceleague.nl/
On their Facebook page, at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=161645167198517 which is in English (not perfect English, but a lot better than my Dutch), the Dutch Defence League says : “The Dutch Defence League is an apolitical social movement, founded after the English example*, who are, besides protecting the Dutch society against evil domestic-, and imported influences like fundamentalistic range of thought, actively and peacefully making efforts against the progressing radical Islam and its associated Sharia laws: a dangerous ideology clashing with our present western freedom and modern values.”
Why does this surprise you? Have you not heard of Geert Wilders, the leader of a party that has done ver well in recent elections but who is still being prosecuted in court for telling the truth. Or have you not heard of Theo van Gogh, murdered in the streets in Holland for producing a film Muslims did not like?
The problem is that many (probably most) Muslims see no separation between religion and state and therefore see no difference between religion and law.
I had a Muslim argue with me that Islam is much kinder to gays, because they are, according to many Muslim scholars, generally to be flogged for a first or even second offence, and then killed only if they do not mend their ways. Now, this same Muslim pointed out to me that in the old Testament (Leviticus) homosexuality is punishable by death, period.
What I could not make this guy uinderstand is that the presence of the death sentence in the Old Testament is completely irrelevant, because no modern western democracy follows the OT. In fact, most western democracioes have decriminalized homosexuality, have protection for the civil rights of gays, and in many cases allow full marriage or civil union.
But it was like talking to a wall to try and explain to this Muslim the idea that religion and law are separate.
This is why groups like the English Defence League are fighting for the abolition of Britain’s 100 Sharia Courts.
How can ANY liberal democracy accept the idea that two persons in the same country should obtain different results from the law system based on their religion?
And before you tell me Sharia Courts are “voluntary”. Take a Muslim woman in Britain who is maybe illiterate, maybe does not speak English, maybe is forbidden to leave the house inveiled and maybe rarely speaks to anyone outside the Muslim area. Are you seriously going to tell me that this woman will exercise a free choice between English courts and Sharia Courts when her husband and male relatives demand she appear before a Sharia Court? Get real!
Hey, I’m on your side, and Valteron’s as well.
What you’re talking about are arbitration courts where people agree to have independent mediators settle a dispute. This happens in the US as well.
Now, you live in Canada where they allowed for “faith-based arbitration” in Ontario including allowing Jewish courts, which refuse to allow women to get divorces without the permission of their husbands, to handle family matters.
Sorry, but you live in a “liberal democracy” that “accept[s] the idea that two person in the same country can obtain different results from the law system based on their religion”.
Well, they may have crippled their chances of getting the Not-Tory seeking Labour-Lite vote [the legions of Labour schismatics], but they have new opportunities to peel off Conservatives.
And now they’re gaining an actual operational track record.
Labour Govs are unpopular w Tories. Tory govs are unpopular with Labourites & Left in general. In between the centre waffles.
Each is unpopularish because of course reality requires less-than-idealised choices and people oft - perhaps always - desire to have Cake & Eat Cake policies, often self contradictory policies.
Imperiously conquering unwilling natives and imposing foreign rule?
No, its not. Whatever melodramatic hyperventilating from the hysterics.
:rolleyes:
Most of the problem in the UK is in the alienation of descendants of immigrants, not the immigrants themselves, and concentrated in a few districts.
Looks no different to my eyes than the anarchists and the rather similar doom and gloom wailing of the late 19th c., then focus on Irish and Jews.
I’m glad there is push-back on the extreme versions of multi-culti, but I entirely reject the hysteric hyperventilating represented by the fantastical visions of ‘radical Islam’ replacing British culture… Daft idiocy that and usually promoted by bigots.
REality in governance generates unpopularity.
It’s got fuck all to do with Anti Jihad, whatever the bigots would liek to call it.
Many if not all of the problem kids are British born of 2nd and 3rd generations (same in France, same in Germany). We do not expel, any more, British born.
Being a civilised nation. so spare us the ignorant chest-beating.
Problem is mainly economic and with a bit of effort will be solved in a generation or less.
That’s a total mischaracterisation of the arbitration system in the UK and a mischarcterisation of the Muslim Arbitation Tribunal. Arbitartion tribunals are used to resolve disputes bewteen parties and can only be used with the consent of both parties. The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal are not a bunch of ‘mad-mullahs’, they’re a legitaimate ADR (alternative dispute resolution) service that uses Sharia law as some of it’s guding principles (they are of course in all ways still bound by English law).
There’s a debate to be had about immigration and multiculturism no doubt, but your approaching the situation from a state of total ignorance and are relying on the words of quite an unsavoury organisation (EDL) to guide you.
How does that in any way contradict what he posted about Muslim women being forced/coerced into using the Sharia tribunals?
In Canada, the administration of Justice is provincial. And yes, Ontario DID for a while allow Jewish courts. I think if you look up the facts you will find that when Ontario attempted to set up Sharia courts in 2005, people all over the province rose up, led especially by WOMEN who had lived under Sharia law in other countries.
The Ontario premier backed down on Sharia Courts and I believe Jewish courts will no longer be allowed. If I am wrong, the time has come to form a Canadian organization to ensure that religion-based courts have no place in our country, Jewish, Islamic or otherwise. We should challenge this attack on our secuilar democracy right up to the highest court if we must.
You are also mixing up two facts. Arbitration is essentially when two people agree in advance that they will abide by the decision of an arbiter. He/she can be of any religion. He can be a Star Trek enthusiast who arbitrates using Klingon law. You don’t need officially recognized courts to do this. It is nothing more than an application of the law of contracts.
What Muslims want to do is set up recognized or semi-recognized Sharia Courts whose decisions are enforcerable. Do you honestly believe that a Muslim woman living behind a veil, who perhaps does not speak English, who is perhaps illiterate, who hardly speaks to anyone outside her Muslim enclave, will have the freedom to choose a Sharia Court or a regular court? Do you honestly believe her husband, her brothers and her father will allow her full freedom to choose without exerting any influence over her?
Most Muslim women in the UK and Canada don’t live behind veils and speak English.
By your own admission, Canadians didn’t care about Jews have such religious courts. They only shit their pants when Muslims asked for the same rights as Jews and Christians.
It’s total ignorance. I really don’t know where to start. It’s someone sitting thousands of miles away with absolutely no knowlegde of the issues credlously believing everything they read on the ‘interwebs’.
That women are being coerced in to using the Muslim Arbitartion tribunal is a serious accusation for which there’s actually no evidence for.
Now the idea that there’s a lot of women in the UK confined to their houses in full-hijab, is simply not true. However there is a genuine problem of women’s rights in the Muslim community and coercion is part of it.
However the actual powers of an arbitartion panel are limited, they cannot hand out divorces, they cannot make binding decisons on inheritances, they cannot rule on custody cases.
The MAT itself is actually proactively against the coercion of woman and has highlighted the issue:
First of all, I am not implying that all Muslim women are confined to the home. But do you really think that those women in Burqas with their face behind a veil that one sees by the thousands all over Europe and Britain are suddenly going to turn to their families and husband and assert their right to choose regular law courts when the rest of the family wants a Sharia Court?
Do you know how many Muslim women in the UK are illiterate and/or do not speak English? I do not confess to have the statistics, but do you? At any rate, such women are by no means unknown in the Muslim community and the Muslim world.
How do you prove the absence of coercion? You ask the woman while she is standing there surrounded by her husband and the other men in her life? Or you ask her in private? What good does that do? If she says “Yes, I am being coerced.” and the case is transfered to the regular courts, do you not think her family will suspect what she said?
That is why we have one law for all. You do not choose your court, but you submit to the same law as everyone else in the country. Law enacted by a democratically elected assembly, not by Mohammed “channeling Allah” in the 7th century.
Gee, the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, based on Sharia law, publicizes itself in the Birmingham Post as the PROTECTOR of women’s rights. I guess we can believe them. After all, when has Sharia law and Islam ever opressed women or treated them as second-class? Never, of course!:rolleyes:
I believe the Ontario government decided in 2005 to abolish all religion-based courts, as long as it was bowing to the pressure against Sharia Courts. I actually live in Quebec, not Ontario, where we have NO religious courts of any kind. If I am wrong about Ontario still having Jewish courts then you can bet that humanist and secular alliances will be taking this outrage to court to have them abolished.
I DO WANT MUSLIMS TO HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS AS CHRSITIANS AND JEWS. The right to be judged under the same laws, by the same courts.
BTW, what would you do when Atheists, who make up 44% of Britain and 25% of Canada, ask for Atheist Courts?
What about witchcraft courts for those who practise Wicca?
Which of course you can’t, because if she was alone with an adult male that was not her family member they would stone her.
Again thoguh you’re showing your ignorance of the reality. Burqas are rarely seen in the UK, most Muslim woman wear normal clothes, with the more devout wearing headscarves. Don’t get me wrong they are worn, but for example I live in the a large town in the UK with a large Muslim population, butI can only remember seeing a burqa worn once.
You haven’t understood what arbitartion is and it’s limitations, it’s not an alterntaive legal system, it’s a method of dispute resolution which was primarily devised as an alternative to costly litigation in a civil court. The kind of cases where the MAT can actually make binding decisions on parties (and then only with their consent) are generally contractual disputes of some form or other. The ‘biggest’ arbitartion service is ACAS, an independent government-funded body that deals with disputes between employers and employees.
Most Muslims in the UK speak English as their first language and are literate, because most Muslims were born in the UK and have therefore educated by the UK school system. Of course Muslim immigrants who do not speak English and are not literate do exist, but that’s a general problem associated with immigrants from poorer countries rather than Muslim-specific one.
Given that there’s no hint that women are being coerced in to using MAT, I don’t actually feel I have to prove it.
There is one law for all in the UK, look up ADR to find out what it actually is.
Because it’s Muslim it MUST be evil. Nevermind that’s actully no accusation of any wrongdoing and that not just anyone can go around setting up arbitartion services.
Like I said there’s a legitimate debate to be had about multicultusim and immigration in the UK and the negative effects it has. There’s a debate to be had about the treatemnt of women in Muslim communities in Britian. There’s a debate to be had about allowing religious law in dispute resolution even in the highly limited form that it is allowed now in the UK. But you’re just so wide of the mark in what you’re targetting and the way your targetting it, what’s the point?
You’d actually do well to read what the MAT has to say about the problems facing women in MUlsim communities in the UK and then you might start addressing the right issues.
Yes I know Muslim men in the UK who carry stones around in their pockets for just this purpose.
Don’t be ridiculous! That stage of Islamization is years into the future. There would be no point in having that weight in your pockets. Even in countries where they stone people, they don’t carry the rocks around with them.
You start by demanding Sharia Courts, Islamic schools, hallal meats, etc. You start by demanding that border guards not bring sniffer dogs into your cars.One step at a time. You start by terrorizing with violence people who use their corrupt western freedoms to draw cartoons of Mohammed. You start by demanding Muslim swimming time at community pools. Mohammed himself knew it would perhaps take centuries until the “religion of peace” had subjugated the whole world.
And demand that driver’s licenses pictures can be done with a veil covering your face and that you not be subject to body searches in the airport.
Hallal meats. LOL.