SOCIALIST UNITY

11 February, 2008

MUSLIMS UNDER ATTACK

Filed under: bigots, Islam — Andy Newman @ 12:34 pm

The last few days have seen an extraordinary series of stories attacking Muslims. I commend the deconstruction at Lenin’s Tomb of the Independent on Sunday’s Islamophobic front page.

The media reaction to Rowan William’s recent speech on the relationship between Sharia law and English law is very illuminating about the current tidal wave of prejudice. I will return later to the Archbishop’s speech because he does make some very interesting points worthy of further consideration.

To quote another recent example, a government minister Phil Woolas MP has raised the issue of arranged marriages between first cousins as the “elephant in the room’. He argues: ‘If you talk to any primary care worker they will tell you that levels of disability among the Pakistani population are higher than the general population. And everyone knows it’s caused by first-cousin marriage.’

We should be clear – first cousin marriages are legal in England and Wales, indeed my own grandfather and grandmother were first cousins - and they were communists not Muslims. It is also legal in Australia, and in twelve states of the USA.

We note that Woolas uses urban myth and anecdote (”any primary care worker” will tell you what “everyone knows”) rather than evidence of the number of birth defects, As Jo Revill writes in the Observer

The risk of a child having birth defects if the parents are cousins is double that of other children, which means the risk rises from about 3 per cent in the general population to about 6 per cent when there is consanguinity (when the parents are closely related).

So given that only a minority of arranged marriages are between cousins, and not all Muslims have arranged marriages anyway there would be minimal impact on the numbers of birth defects among people of Pakistani descent. So where is his evidence that this is a big problem in that community? The argument that there should be advice on the dangers of consanguinity may be sensible, but why was this linked to Muslims? Why was this linked to arranged marriages?

A greater threat to increasing numbers of birth defects in our society is the social pressure to have children later: there is an exponential increase in risk once mothers are over about 35 years old - yet the government does nothing to discourage the trend towards having children later, often forced upon women by the sexist reality that having children younger will damage their career, as well as the high cost of housing, and other financial factors.

Yet he uses the issue of cousin marriages to justify bashing specifically Muslims (even more specifically Pakistanis), without acknowledging the greater public health concern is arranged marriages among Uncle-Niece couples that is still occasionally practiced among Hindus (even though illegal in India since 1955, it is not universally enforced). Indeed, Islam does not allow Uncle-Niece or Aunt-Nephew marriages, but these are permitted by the Jewish and Hindu religions, and have at various historical times been culturally encouraged (they are not legal under English law).

The Jewish community has also traditionally favoured first-cousin marriages.

If we look at “Changing marriage systems in the Jewish communities of Israel” in the Annals of Human Genetics, Volume 24 March 1960 by Goldschmidt et al (of the Department of Zoology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) we see a good example of a society with a high degree of consanguinity.

The rates of consanguinity among the parents of babies born in Israel during 1955-57 were estimated by screening the maternity wards. First-cousin marriages ranged between 1 and 2 % in Ashkenazic Jews, while the majority of the other Jewish communities exhibited far higher rates of consanguinity.

There is little basis for the assumption that the incidence of cousin marriages in Jewish groups reflects the sizes of the isolates in the diaspora. The non-randomness of such unions finds expression in the distinct preference for marriages between the children of like-sexed sibs.

A rough estimate of the genetic risk involved in consanguineous unions was obtained by comparing the mean numbers of live children after different durations of marriage in cousin families and others. In two out of five such comparisons, the cousin families exhibited a small but significant disadvantage.

Why didn’t Phil Woolas raise his concern about patterns of marriage among Jews? Or Hindus? Or the general population? Why mention the Pakistani community only? Unless this is informed by the continued mythology that Muslims are uniquely backward, and a threat to “our” values?

83 Comments »

To be fair Andy,the Sunday Times headline writer attached the “Muslims” bit.
Ann Cryer has also brought up this issue,both represent a constituency with a high percentage of people from Rural Pakistan (which is important).
Yoiu are of course right to bring up the issue of Jewish first cousin marriage (specific genetic diseases being more commonplace) although this is has declined massively since 1960 when the report you quote was written.
Yesterday sadly saw knee jerk reactions.It seems to be calming down a lot today,MPAC yesterday calling for resignation,today a rep claiming on the radio it beeded discussing.British Muslim womens Initiative on Womans hour saying they’ve been trying to raise the profile of this issue.
The figures for first cousin marriage seem to be very high amongst rural Pakistani communities and the genetic risks go up substantially when this goes down through the generations.

People under the radar have been trying to get this issue raised ( particularly to bring up the issue of scanning)

The Sunday Time needs taking to task over its headline,sadly I suspect they made a calculation that it would increase their sales.

Comment by tim — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today3_cousin_20080211.ram

Heres the bit with Ann Cryer,Zulfi Bukhari and a geneticist Steve Jones.

Comment by tim — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7238356.stm

Genetics professor Steve Jones said there was a higher risk but said drinking or smoking in pregnancy was “as bad if not worse”.
Professor Jones, from University College London, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme “mortality and disability go up by almost twice in cousin marriages compared with generally”.
But he said if it was an “elephant in the room”, then it was a “small elephant”, saying that in Bradford it involved just five out of 70 infant deaths.

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
I think Jones was referring to first generation cousin marriages, the risks go up in subsequent years if it carries on down through the generations.
You’re right to say it must be kept in perspective,look at the focus on smoking and drinking during pregnancy in health centres etc and the press over the years.

if you have a look here,I think you’ll see that was an issue waiting to be discussed.

http://forum.mpacuk.org/showthread.php?t=34094

The disgusting coverage in the Sunday Times,need attention drawing to it.
But its an issue that should not be off limits.

Comment by tim — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
The issue itself should not be off limits - you are correct - and it also affects many Hindus.

But if Phil Woolas genuinely thinks that raising the issue in the national press in the context of the misrepresenttaion of dr Rowan Williams’ remarks, and the broohaha about Dr Qaradawi’s visit, then he is too naive to be in politics.

The way forward on issues like this is quiet work with the communities affected, not using a megaphone to the national press.

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
Yeah, the timing was awful and pretty much ensured the issue wasn’t treated seriously and was lumped into a general “Muslim Panic!” media mess.

Comment by unseen — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:06 pm
And I have never heard a Labour Party spokesperson raise concern over the increasing age at which women have babies - which is a much greater health risk in terms of birth defects.

Generally, I am uncomfortable of the “why are you talking about that when you should be talking about this” line of criticism, but I find it hard to beleive that Phil Woolas was acting in good faith when he rasied this issue in the way least likely to get a constructive respsonse from the famillies affected, but most likely to get him on the front pages.

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:17 pm
If there is any hard evidence on the ‘in-breeding’ question we have yet to see any. As mentioned, its unclear that this is a greater problem in the Muslim community then in others. It does seem to me though that something should be done about the Royal Family and the British Aristocracy. The perils of co-existence with ‘medieval’ communities.

NB what a nasty piece of work that Ann Cryer person is.

Comment by johng — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
The Sunday Times headline was: “Minister warns of ‘inbred’ Muslims.”

The use of quote marks clearly implies that Phil Woolas himself used the term “inbred” - if he didn’t then I hope he makes an official complaint.

Good discussion on this issue by David Shariatmadari at CiF.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_shariatmadari/2008/02/breeding_antagonism.html

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
Also worth pointing out that Woolas has form when it comes to the Muslim community: http://tinyurl.com/2sbqf9

Comment by Eugene — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:29 pm
The risks of birth defects only increase amongst older mothers in relation to Downs Syndrome Andy,hence the huge govt screening programme.
If you carry recessive genes,the risks are the same when you are twenty as when you are forty.

Comment by tim — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
Socialists should not defend Rowan William’s arguments. Firstly, those who have tried to defend them have all said that they cannot defend the details because they can not understand what he was going on about. This lack of concreteness is what earns the man his status as an intellectual. In reality this is the emporer’s new clothes syndrome. As Marx explained, the reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question. Until the man is capable of making his ideas concrete, we have no right to defend them. Just because reactionaries have lined up against them for obvious reasons that is no reason to defend what is clearly an indefensible position. If all he was saying is that conflict resolution within a religious community should be handled with the state not getting involved, then there is no problem. This should be the attitude of all democrats and secularists. However, it is clear that he was advocating making the rule of religious bodies legally enforcible. That is the very opposite of what secularists want. Socialists have to defend the rights of everyone, be they man, woman, oap, child, gay, straight, Jew, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Sikh, Hindu, Budhist, atheist, black, asian. We have to defend the rights of those who turn their backs on the religion of their parents. Rowan Williams was clearly trying to make common cause between Christians, Jews and Muslims and others who believe in one deity or another (or some set of deities) against those of us who believe in no supernatural entities. Religious divisions would be ossified if Rowan Williams has his way. There is nothing progressive about this. Any attempt to fragment people in this way will be opposed by the overwhelming majority of people. This will either happen under the hegemony of Christians, and the far right, with the tabloid press and pro-capitallist politicians working with the mob, or else it can be directed onto a sane secular path. That requires socialists and other humanists getting involved, and not simply lining up with Rowan Williamm’s nonsense.

Comment by RF — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
#12 - “hose who have tried to defend them have all said that they cannot defend the details because they can not understand what he was going on about”

Dr Williams arguments are perfectly clear, as you can tell be reading his speech for yourself:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1575

There are two issues, one is what he actually said, and the other is the political perception of what he has said.

The second issue is more important, as most commenters clearly haven’t read his speech, and have imagined he is suggesting something quite different. That is the correct political level to respond, as Salma Yaqoob does here, quoted in the Birmingham local paper:
http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2008/02/08/city-muslims-say-no-to-sharia-law-97319-20454638/

Archbishop of Canterbury’s that elements of Islamic Sharia law should form part of the British legal system.

Dr Rowan Williams said there was a place for finding a “constructive accommodation” in areas such as marriage which could allow Muslim women to avoid western divorce proceedings.

But his comments have sparked a strong reaction, with many Muslims insisting they want to live by the British law.

Coun Salma Yaqoob (Respect, Sparkbrook) said: “It’s clearly an emotive subject and it’s important there is clarity about what is being said. There is some confusion and that is leading to alarm and fear. What I do know is that the Muslim community is not calling for any kind of imposition of Sharia law in this country.

“British Muslims respect the law and don’t want exemptions. We don’t see a conflict which is being presented.”

Mrs Yaqoob said Sharia law automatically conjured impressions of barbaric beheadings and stonings, which was not generally the case for Muslims.
There are more formal courts in the Jewish community already and they are not seen as problematic. I would see no difference,” she said.

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:42 pm
Tim #11

The specific case of Downs does increase with age, from about one in 1400 at age 20, to one in 300 at age 35, and sharply increasing as the mother gets older.

But there are all sorts of other issues, inclusing a much higher inceince of low weight babies, who then have all sorts of other health problems. Not to mention problems for the mothers such as the possible onset of diabetes, etc.

(BTW - all the risk s are still small, so if you are having a later baby don’t be alarmed, but nevetheless these are comparable levels of risks to cousin marriages)

And Tim, of cousre birth defects due to recesssive genetics carry the same risk at al ages, but not all birth defects are due to recessive genetics.

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:52 pm
You say “Dr Williams arguments are perfectly clear, as you can tell be reading his speech for yourself”

If you are right, then I fail to understand why everyone who has leapt to his defence in the media have all said that they cannot defend the details because we will have to wait to hear his explanation as to what he meant. Reactionaries have put words into his mouth, views that he could not possibly have intended. As for what he was saying, no one on the television has been able to clarify what he meant. All his defenders have been left with is an appeal for his critics to wait until he can explain himself. If his words were so self-explanatory, there would be no confusion. And if this was down to our inability to grasp the bleeding obvious, he would have gone onto the telly to sort this mess out once and for all. He clearly has gone to ground because he was talking out of his arse, and needs time to make some sense of what is an indefensible position. Additionally, it is probable that Lambeth Palace are insisting that he loses some control of his PR, because he is demonstrably so bloody useless. I would not rule out his resigning over this, if only as a consequence of men in grey coats piling on intollerable pressure. Then he can say it is his own decision, and he takes responsbility for a crisis that can only be resolved by someone new taking over.

BTW, I have not read his words yet, but will follow the link you provide, but with zero expectation that he will satisfy me that his ideas are both comprehensible and acceptable to secularists and democrats.

Comment by RF — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
You’re right Andy, and thats why the government has put huge resources ito scanning programmes.
Its not dissimilar to the risks of implanting multiple embryos in IVF which the government has also addressed.
The risks seem to rise sharply when parents,granparent were also first cousins.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4442010.stm

Comment by tim — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
RF,

Its incredible that anyone could misrepresent the views of someone talking about Sharia isn’t it? Or that liberals should be so terrified by the naked chauvinism on display that they pretend they can’t understand what the discussion is really all about? I’ve never come across such a thing myself. But then I’ve never come across a self professed rationalist and secularist who does not bother to find out what a controversy is about before opining on it.

Comment by johng — 11 February, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
Tom Delargy (posting as RF now #15) has finally come up with a trump argument, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior clergyman in the Angican communion, and a doctor of theology, is unlikely to come up with an argument “acceptable to secularists ” !!!

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
“In such schemes, both jurisdictional stakeholders may need to examine the way they operate; a communal/religious nomos, to borrow Shachar’s vocabulary, has to think through the risks of alienating its people by inflexible or over-restrictive applications of traditional law, and a universalist Enlightenment system has to weigh the possible consequences of ghettoising and effectively disenfranchising a minority, at real cost to overall social cohesion and creativity. Hence ‘transformative accommodation’: both jurisdictional parties may be changed by their encounter over time, and we avoid the sterility of mutually exclusive monopolies.”

This is a short passage from William’s speech. This is a tiny, tiny percentage of what looks on the face of it to be long-winded drivel. It is clear that the reason all William’s supporters have demanded we give the poor man a break, and wait for him to hand us the key to decoding his pretentious nonsense is for the reason that not one of his supporters have a scoobie as to what he was rabbiting on about. This speech was not designed to let the layman in. It was, on the contrary, designed to impress us all with his extensive vocabulary, and the obscurity of his allusions.

As for Salma Yaqoob’s defence, it is also incoherent. As a kneejerk reaction she has jumped into William’s corner, without having any more idea as to what he was saying as any of the rest of us. She tells us that British Muslims do not want sharia law, which is correct. She then defends it against the popular misconception in other countries. If it works so well elsewhere, then why not advocate it in Britain as well. The reality is that law based on religion is bad law. Socialists have to oppose all such law, regardless of the religion, and regardless of where in the world these systems operate. By refusing to do this, Salma Yaqoob invites reactionaries to portray her as soft on Sharia law, with the intent of portraying all Muslims as secretly in favour of Sharia law in Britain, just not advocating it openly at the moment, for reasons of prudence. This is harmful to Muslims. It is to play into the hands of Islamophobes.

Comment by RF — 11 February, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
Tom/ RF #19

“This speech was not designed to let the layman in.”

But it was a speech about law, to assembed barristers at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
Socialists should not defend what Williams was saying. Anyone who recognises that what he was saying was unacceptable to secularists, but still wants to jump into bed with him, fair enough. Just stop trying to pass youself off as a socialist.

Comment by RF — 11 February, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
Andy, you provided a link to the speech, claiming that it was obvious what he was saying. On setting eyes on it, it became clear that those who have spent the last few days laughing at it’s impenetrability were not being unkind. You told us it was clear what he was saying. Then when I quote from this crystal clear speech to prove the opposite, you tell me that it was not intended for me. It was intended for specialists in the law. Get your story straight. And if it was comprehensible to this select group of legal specialists, why could the media not find a single one of them to explain exactly what he meant. Every one of his supporters who went on to defend him said we will have to suspend judgement until he tells us what he was talking about.

Comment by RF — 11 February, 2008 @ 3:28 pm
This gets better and better. So Tom/RF - despite the fact that you admit you don’t understand what dr Williams is saying you do know that it is unacceptable to “secularists”. How do you know this?

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
Rf/Tom

Yes it is clear what he is writing about. becasue it is aimed at a technical audeince those of us who are not lawyers need to work a bit, but the agument is nevertheless completely clear.

Dr Williams is saying that communities that self-identify with a different set of rules may wish to use those rules instead of the laws of the state, for issues that are private to them, divorce, probate and succession, etc. He goes on to say that there has been some jurisprudence already over this issue relating to Jewish courts, and the passage you quote is about the fact that offering a religious court the power to give binding arbitration has dangers that it may disempower weaker memebrs of that community, and safeguards need to be in place to ensure that coercion is not used, but at the same time we must recognise that people may choose to opt out of the state’s law, and this in itself may be an impetus towards improvement. This essentially means that there would be a trade off, where for example the Beth Din Jewish court can offer binding judgements only becasue it is ultimately supervised by the English civil courts - to whom an appeal could be made if the Beth Din acted outwith its own rules or against natural justice (as understood by English common law)

He also makes interesting points about misconceptions of Sharia as a codified system of set rules, rather than a set of divine principles against which issues can be judged - and this is a debate within the Islamic world as well, between ultras who do regard it as a codified system, and others who see Sharia as adaptable by ijtihad as society changes.

His other point of interests is that secularism and universalism was a valid reaction to feudal tryanny when the rights of monarchy were sanctified by tradition and superstition, but we now live in a pluralistic democracy, where secularism is the establishment, and people may voluntarily adopt identities that opt out of universalism, and a liberal and pluralistic society should aim to accomodate that.

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
“Transformative accomadation” is largely how the secular state has related to religious institutions (and indeed other associations) over the last two hundred years. Thus the State has become more and more involved in the internal affairs of religious institutions and associations over the last two years, whilst in turn religous institutions and associations have tended to adopt the kinds of codes and regulations susceptible to regulation by the state. Hence the co-incidence of formal doctrines of the seperation of state and religion and the reality of secularisation of religion. Its useful at this juncture to remind ‘RF’ that the Bolsheviks adopted policies similar to those advocated by the Archbishop in central asia in the 1920’s. This is unsurprising as all secular states have done (see also the interesting discussion of constitutional arrangements in Muslim countries which produce both secular states and secularised religions, the latter taking the form either of radical Islamist ideology or constitutional moderation).

Confusions in this area amongst socialists are largely the result of taking the ideological claims of liberal capitalism at their face value: for example the nonsense notion that the last two hundred years has seen a seperation of state and society, when of course it has in reality been charecterised by the states far greater involvement in the regulation of social life. Given all the intense arguments here about the possible legal involvement of the state in our own disputes this should hardly come as a surprise to anyone. There are some people who presumably think the existence of golf clubs would be a threat to community cohesion (although to be fair they might have more of a point).

I happen to think that the dilemma that Williams outlines firstly for the theologians guarding orthodoxy (they might alienate their flock) and on the other hand the modern state (in ignoring the wishes of religious minorities they might alienate them) aptly sum up the way that secularisation of society has actually proceeded. However secularisation is not the be all and end all, and for Socialists the lived reality of religious minorities in liberal capitalist societies ought to take precedence. Here the dilemma’s facing activists are often expressed in arguments between socialists. On the one hand there is a tendency for those activists to be rightly concerned about those trapped in authoritarian communities, whilst on the other hand there are those concerned with the stigmatisation of those communities as a whole. In reality of course the two things feed each other, but even the best of activists will find themselves grappling with many contradictions. In the end people are trapped in face to face relations which are restrictive, but such restrictions end up being addressed by abstract legal rights enforced by bureacratic agencies they have every reason to distrust (often the individuals in these agencies despise them anyway). Hence the appearence of the community activist whose unrecognised function is to mediate these contradictions.

In the Guardian today there was an article about existing Sharia courts in Britain. The main applicants are women seeking divorce. They have to go through lengthy, and it seems, trying and endless proceedings before being granted a divorce, the process being much more difficult then it is for a man. The author states two reasons for them appearing in such courts seeking a divorce, one, they may be religiously devout, or two for ‘cultural reasons’ (perhaps shorthand for wishing that their divorce be regarded as official in the eyes of the community which has a real existence whatever the opinions of heroic liberals opining in the Independent).

The suggestion would be that if a woman does do this and succedes in gaining a divorce, this should be recognised in British law. This would be an example of transformative accomadation because it would also no doubt effect the nature of the proceedings in the Sharia court. For socialists however the real question would be how such changes would effect the lives of these actual women in their real lived existence (as opposed to the imaginary existence some might like to conjure up for them). I’m open minded but for a certainty I would decide on this question purely in relation to the question of ’secularism’, which does not seem to me to trump the question of justice and equity for the women concerned.

My difference with the kind of communitarian philosophy held by the archbishop does not rest on celebration of the fiction of liberal individualism, a doctrine whose main purpose in our society is to prevent discussion of the social relations responsible for the injustices of capitalist society. My objection is that the predicament of so many: being on the one hand trapped in potentially authoritarian communities and on the other hand facing bureacratic agencies whose regulations do not fit their own lived reality, is unlikely finally to be solved on the basis of “transformative accomadations” with the State, secular or otherwise.

For that we need a society based on another doctrine then one which imagines one can have political equality without social equality. The attempt to mantain this incommensarable set of values is what produces the endless oscillation between ‘communitarianism’ and ‘individualism’ both in our society, and in the increasingly incomprehensible debates of liberal philosophy, of which William’s’s is a fairly unexceptional example (the only exceptional thing being the hysteria and abuse generated just because the subject under discussion was Islam and English society).

Incidently I found hysterically funny the compaints about the Archbishop being ‘otherworldly’ (like complaining about universities being full of academics). The Islamophobes who worked themselves up into a state about the Archbishops religiosity and his ‘academicism’ (CONFINE THINKING TO UNIVERSITIES FOR GOODNESS SAKE!) reminded me of that charecter in Catch 22 who asks the padre if he doesn’t have any prayers that don’t mention God, Religion and all that sort of stuff, because it doesn’t look good in the Picture post. And yes the other problem was that there really ought to be seperate prayers for officers. It didn’t seem right that officers had to say the same prayers as ‘the men’. Like accomadating Muslims there was enough of that sort of thing about anyway.

Comment by johng — 11 February, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
“sorry i would NOT decide this question purely on the basis of secularism” in my discussion of the British women seeking a divorce in a Sharia court.

Comment by johng — 11 February, 2008 @ 4:07 pm
Johann Hari has a very reactionary column in the Independent today saying Rowan Williams has given us a reason to get rid of multicuturalism. I wonder which cultures he’ll be seeking to get rid of first.

Democracy in Britain is predicated on multi-culturalism. Without it there would be no Geordies, Scousers, Yorkshire and Lancashire, Cornwall and perhaps even no Wales or Scotland. Thomas Hobbes, the first English political scientist who was writing after the Cromwellian revolution, recognised that a nation-state is little more than a pragmatic economic arrangement and to function it requires democracy. That means people must be allowed to think and believe whatever they like and follow their preferred God if they have one. The state, which should be secular, is only to ensure fair play and that no one is being compelled to believe what they don’t want to believe. The centralising tendencies which have now all but wiped out local democracy and are slowly dragging us towards a police state were bound to be up in arms over his observations but well done to Rowan Williams for speaking up for democracy.

Of course, monopoly capitalism tends inexorably towards the crushing of democracy and the homogenisation of culture.

Nobody wants some fundamentalist version of sharia least of all the Muslim working class and women but state recognition of it will precisely help to avoid that scenario and make people more aware that they have another option in civil law if they want it.

Comment by David Ellis — 11 February, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
I think “RF” should get out more, I didn’t find the ArchBish’s piece *that* obscure - but then again I’m known for hanging out with “religious types” more and more these days…

Oh, and before the knives start being thrown, I’m sure I’d still qualify as an atheist as far as most folk are concerned…

I think johng is absolutely correct to identify the co-option of much of the left into a fairly flimsy reading of Rousseau followed up with a tad of John Adams on the question of the “correct” relationship between the state and religious communities. This, I personally think/feel, has a lot to do with the fact that marxists don’t like talking about morals or ethics. It’s the open door that the Bish wants people to walk through and find “theology” waiting to receive them.

I also agree with johng (the lad is growing on me - a fact that can only be ‘explained’ in theologic terms no doubt) where he takes the concrete case of women wanting recognition within their communities for divorce. If socialists can’t relate to these realities then so much for socialists!

But, having gained ground and established one’s necessarily atheistic socialist credentials we’re back to a committment to break folk from notions that involve them in a displacement (religion) of where the sufferings in society come from and how best to get rid of ‘em. I’m reminded here of the SWP’s support for the state making laws restricting our ability to “criticise religion”.

A capitalist state is not the best platform for critiqueing or defending religious beliefs. Where it helps prevent real suffering, or promotes a more compassionate understanding of others (a rarity indeed but still possible) then we should support those attempts. But the “bigger question” of the nature of law (secular or religious) is the one the Bish is bright enough to understand is the arena in which he hopes to mop up (ones and twos for now).

It’s an arena where, let’s face facts, socialists have a fairly dismal record of intervention (just take a look at the antisemitism thread over the weekend). I’d like to thank Andy for bringing this up and hope that it leads to more debate over the question and implications of the relationship between socialism and religions belief.

Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 11 February, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
How typical of New Labour to put the boot into the Archbishop of Canterbury for a pretty reasonable argument: if Jews can decide certain matters in religious courts, why not Muslims? Similarly wth marriage in holy places. Whether you agree with him or not is beside the point. It’s a question of fairness: either the same principle applies to all, with a purely secular for all or accommodating all religious persuasions. And here the question is about the civil, not criminal, code. Put the words “Muslim” or “Islam” before a “liberal” and watch them leap in the air, shouting “fascism”. Seventy-odd years ago the same people would have gone into fits at the words “Jew” or “Judaism”.

So why has New Labour and its automata been so quiet about that other introduction into the UK: Sharia banking? Could it be because London is, I believe, now the international centre of this nice little earner for the City? And it couldn’t have been done without New Labour accommodating the dreaded Sharia law. Only one thing worse than the principle of the bigot (OK for Jews and Christians, not for Muslims) and that’s it giving way to the smell of money.

Comment by Tawfiq Chahboune — 11 February, 2008 @ 5:42 pm
Thomas Hobbes, the first English political scientist who was writing after the Cromwellian revolution, recognised that a nation-state is little more than a pragmatic economic arrangement and to function it requires democracy. That means people must be allowed to think and believe whatever they like and follow their preferred God if they have one.

You’ve just described liberalism, not democracy. Hobbes was a liberal of sorts, but he certainly wasn’t a democrat.

Comment by Phil — 11 February, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
Yes, the liberals were interested in the best form of government after the collapse of feudalism. I think they were particularly concerned about avoiding constant civil war between the protestants and catholics, on the mainland anyway, and of course Hobbes was warning the anarchistic tendencies in the bourgeoisie to curb their enthusiasm as they would need a state to manage all the conflicts (not least the class struggle).

Comment by David Ellis — 11 February, 2008 @ 6:06 pm
Hate to spoil the atmosphere of goodwill but I don’t understand what Battersea is talking about when he describes the SWP as an organisation which supports the State intervening to prevent ‘criticism of religion’.

Tawfiq’s point about fairness is to the point (I wanted to emphasis here what I could’nt be bothered to emphasis on a site which specialises in ‘hate speech’ as opposed to ‘criticism of religion’, in other words HP) my ambivulence both about the specific proposals put foward by the archbishop, and indeed the communitarian philosophy that underlay those proposals, but the larger political issue is that his points, if they had been made in relationship to any other faith, would have been regarded as wholly unexceptional within the liberal culture we actually inhabit.

This perhaps relates to the question of Hobbes and the points raised by David. I happen to see Hobbes as something like THE enemy, in my frequent diatribes against liberalism and its discontents (his emphasis on the Leviathan being in many ways the dirty secret of Liberalism: he lived before the rise of modern nationalism, that other hidden ‘battery’ of more modern liberal thought, not to speak of David’s apposite point about the way that modern liberalism would treat of religious bigotry and class struggle as essentially the same kind of law and order problem) however, where I think David has a point is that even in terms of mainstream establishment liberal thought (which I am very hostile to) the reaction to the archbishops speech was extraordinary.

It is remarkable that what was in reality a proposal aimed at ‘integration’ (again I am not exactly a fan of this way of posing the question) should be met with such enourmous hostility. Partly this was a wave of irrational chauvinism. More importantly though, it was a demonstration of the shape of that chauvinism: Muslims are not to be intergrated because indigestable. Any suggestion that Islam might be compatible with the modern liberal capitalist state undermines that suggestion.

And will be met with the kind of furious malice once reserved for Jews. The particular pathology of Islamophobia is a belief that in some sense ‘appeasement’ of muslims is an attack on the rights of us non-muslims. They are stealing our liberties by daring to behave as if they were citizens just like us. That is the underlying message. It is obsessional and perverse and the distance between this kind of discourse and social reality, is that when anyone dares to try and bring these ‘concerns’ togeather with social reality, the result is a kind of collective vomiting of all the most filthy prejudices imaginable.

Seriously. Who could concieve of headlines about ‘inbred muslims’ (Just try and imagine this being said about almost any other community, even more imagine genuinely progressive people saying ‘well it shouldn’t be a subject thats off-limits’: and I am NOT having a cheap dig) or the truely bizarre way in which pretended concern about Muslim women goes togeather with photographs which actually demonise them, in a newspaper which preports to be a liberal one. And that this is the reaction to a suggestion that Muslim marriages might be recognised alongside the marriages of other faiths.

What we are seeing here is the generation of a kind of ideolect (sorry about the jargon) in which Islam becomes the symbol of everything wrong with our own culture, and Muslims the agents. Again, it so much resembles the kind of anti-semitism that emerged in relationship to the Dreyfuss affair that its hard to know where to begin with people who for some reason can’t see it. The great problem is the way that, as with anti-semitism, all of the genuine difficulties of society are somehow foisted onto the backs of one, socially and numerically rather insignificant part of the population.

I mean we might not agree about anything else but we all know that Muslims are medieval and simply won’t fit in. Pretty soon it can spread to other things. Opposing all this a non-Muslim like me gets accused of “converting”. Already there is talk of liberal ‘treason’ in the fact of Islam, as well as ‘alliances’. Pretty soon expect to be described as ‘as bad as a Muslim’. As with anti-semitism, Islamophobia doesn’t just target Muslims.

Of course we will be told that its terrorism that has made this possible, and in some senses, in terms of the scale of the manifestation, this is probably true. But as Arendt was to remark of another ideology, the extent to which a false view of the world is compatible with some facts, makes it more dangerous, not less dangerous.

Comment by johng — 11 February, 2008 @ 7:32 pm
If inbreds have children who then also marry another inbred, and they have inbred children, and so on, the percentage of children that have something wrong with them goes up dramatically.

Comment by Ed D — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:09 pm
It’s not just a Muslim problem. Whatever their religion, Asian culture in general believes in carrying on bloodlines. It’s very important to them.

Remember they never had the huge educational programmes against racial theories that took place in Europe ever since the second world war, making Europe the least racist and most tolerant part of the world that it is today.

Comment by Ed D — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:12 pm
The one stat in the article that I saw was that Pakistanis make up 3% of the UK population but 30% of those babies with genetic problems. Anybody able to substantiate that? Otherwise it was just crude anti-Muslim propaganda and Woolas is guilty of stirring it up.

Comment by seren — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:15 pm
Needless to say, lenin’s tomb is completely wrong to equate domestic violence with specific crimes that involve killing a member of the family in an organised way for not marrying the right person or having the wrong boyfriend. They are seperate things.

He also makes the mistake of pretending that no media coverage is given to domestic violence - which mainly occurrs at the result of drink - in the UK. This is nonsense; there is plenty of coverage about these issues all the time. He doesn’t care about it because no Muslims are involved. It is only fair that the specific crimes in other communties are also highlighted in the same way that we would speak of any other group.

Comment by Ed D — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:18 pm
Lastly, lenin’s used of the word ‘progrom’ is completely disgraceful in this context. It should never be the case that highlighting criminal behaviour is a ‘progrom’. Those who saw C4’s unreported world last Friday would know that Christian living in the middle east, even in a supposedly secular country like Egypt, suffer terrible discrimination and live in rubbish dumbs - far worse than anything Muslims suffer living in Europe. Why does he never mention this or term this a ‘progrom’?

When there was progrom going on against Muslims in the Balkans, lenin sided with white Serb fascism.

Comment by Ed D — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:22 pm
Regarding the Jewish question.

The main difference between Jewish courts and Islamist ones is that Jews are a tiny and diminishing minority in this country, therefore the social cohesion questions that are at the heart of the debate about Islamism and Muslim integration just aren’t the same. Jews are neither part of a community that has terribly extremist problems that leads a minority to commit and plot terror attacks, such as that awful plot to behind a British soldier a few weeks ago, etc.

This is why the British people are, quite understandably, very concerned about anything to do with Islam at the moment. If anything it’s suprising that there hasn’t been more of a backlash.

Comment by Ed D — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
Complete transparency is what is required in this day and age. Going back to the days of the 1990s, and the 1980s before them, when all of these issue were covered up, only led to the problems getting far worse.

Comment by Ed D — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:32 pm
But Ed that’s hardly a way to run a legal system: by arguing that “Jews are a tiny and diminishing minority in this country”. And what if they were not? Either have secular laws for all or accomodate certain aspects of religious persuasion. But to say, this is a Muslim-only law makes an ass of the law.

Social cohesion has very little to do with the theological disposition of the religious minority. Look at anti-Semitism. It has to do with discrimination and bigotry. Thankfully, there is very little anti-Semitism in this country and so Jews have fewer problems with “social cohesion” - not because Jews have changed but because the majority population is less bigoted. Unfortunately, the opposite is the case with Muslims. Except for an extreme minority (numbering a few hundreds) even those who are religious wish to “integrate”.

And let us never forget the staggering number of Muslims who informed the police and the security services about what was occurring in Finsbury Park Mosque and Brixton Mosque, to name the two most well-known. But the security services didn’t want to interfere with the psychopathic imams who were recruiting for the jihad in the Balkans. Another case of UK foreign “it seemed like a good idea at the time” policy.

Comment by Tawfiq Chahboune — 11 February, 2008 @ 9:21 pm
Ed D said:
“If inbreds have children who then also marry another inbred, and they have inbred children, and so on, the percentage of children that have something wrong with them goes up dramatically.”

Oh yeah: one of the most common genetic disorders is cystic fibrosis. It requires two carriers for the disease to manifest itself, so cousins marrying would lead to an increase in incidence, as is known. BUT, 97% of males with cystic fibrosis are sterile. Life expectancy is 37. That means a lot of people with CF will die well before 37. Doesn’t sound like a recipe for a dramatic rise in incidence resulting from a few cousins marrying.

As for your other racist posts; I assume you are part of “the community” that bombed the gay pub in Old Compton St., for example i.e. “white British”. Maybe all white Brits should all be demonised because of that heinous act?

Comment by PhilW — 11 February, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
I think for more important than the content of Williams’ speech is the wave of Islamophobia it has unleashed. On Thursday the BBC 10 o’clock news “illustrated” its coverage of Williams with footage of lashings, stonings and hands-cutting-off, with the comment “this is not what Williams is talking about”. The same day, there were apparently 17,000 blog comments on the BBC web site, overwhelmingly hostile to muslims. Some major public political demonstration of opposition to Islamophobia is needed - directed at its main sources, government and media.

Comment by PhilW — 11 February, 2008 @ 9:42 pm
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: What he wishes on us is an abomination

Sharia is nothing but a human concoction of medieval religious opinion

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/yasmin-alibhaibrown-what-he-wishes-on-us-is-an-abomination-780186.html

Comment by Ed D — 11 February, 2008 @ 10:06 pm
The most important thing to do when talking about genetics is to take no notice of what geneticists say. As Andy N. has remarked on, Steve Jones was interviewed on the Today programme and in the time allowed was able to mentin the risks pertaining to those people who go in for first cousin marriages - who seem to be a minority of a minority. However, Anne Cryer came on straight afterwards and was given airtime to talk about ‘defects’ etc, with no reference to what had just been said. How refreshing to see that some people posting here are following Anne Cryer’s splendid example. it was quite clear from what Steve Jones said that there are other religious minorities who go in for marriages of near relatives eg a minority of Hindus, some of whom marry uncles to nieces, which Jones pointed out was a nearer relationship genetically speaking. Any news of what set-ups the Hassidim of Stamford Hill go in for? I’ve heard people who talk fondly of ‘the Jewish community’ explaining to me that one of the reasons why the Hassidim are mad is because they intermarry. Step forward a Labour politician to point the finger at these crazy Jewish inbreeds????

Comment by MichaelRosen — 12 February, 2008 @ 1:35 am
Michael, the figure is double what it is in the rest of the population. People should be allowed to mention this fact and deal with this issue, just as they mention many problems that face all manner of people.

Comment by Ed D — 12 February, 2008 @ 1:48 am
What is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s base of support?

I’m pretty sure “Ed D” isn’t part of it. But it’s interesting to see him make this “intervention”.

I’m trying to get some perspective on this as it seems that all too often we focus on the “liberal” media and try to ‘read off’ profound tendencies. The list of articles in Andy’s piece is a) the unreconstructed Kinnockio/Blairite Woolas peddling racist sound-bites, b) The same thing from The Independent on ‘honour’ killings and c) the Beeb’s coverage of the Archbish.

I disagree with johng’s notion of the construction of an “ideolect” - I’d be more cynical and explain it on the basis of a slow news week, in which the usual bilge sitting on spikes has to be pumped out to ‘create a stir’ and “up” sales. The frustration for sub-editors must be the ennui reflected back at ‘em, no matter how sensational the pitch. Nor do I think the reaction to it can be compared with historic (and I’m assuming recent ones) incidences of anti-semitism in its vilest forms.

PS. Johng I perhaps mistakenly conflated the SWP with John Rees (silly me) in pointing up support for the proposed Blairite ‘religious hatred’ bills.

Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 12 February, 2008 @ 6:31 am
There are two issues involved here secular democratic rights and racism. They must not be played off against each other as recent press campaigns have tended to do.
The main point is that state repression of religious and cultural practices, particularly when the question of ethnicity is involved, is not only racist, but completely counterproductive.
Immigrant communities can’t be forced by the state to adopt practices that are in conflict with their traditional beliefs.
It has to happen via an internal process and the best way for that to occur is by exposure to modern democratic and secular ideas.
That’s why it’s important to defend secular schooling and oppose state funded segregated religious education. Which is not to argue against voluntary religious education alongside of it.

At the same time, socialists should not gloss over the issues which are brought up by people within ethnic and religious minorities on the grounds that this is pandering to racism.
When people oppose involuntary arranged marriage, lack of access to contraception and abortion rights, or are victims of domestic violence, they need support.
That can be achieved in a non-racist way by independent organisations with immigrant communities that take on these questions, particularly amongst women.

Religious law cannot be allowed to take precedence over secular civil rights where people do not voluntarily wish to be bound by it.

I won’t make any comment of the Archbishop’s statements as I haven’t read them in full.
I would say though, that as a senior cleric, he will have a vested interest in strengthening the social influence of religion as a whole. Therefore I would treat his views with caution.

‘The Jewish community has also traditionally favoured first-cousin marriages.’

That’s a bit of an overstatement. It’s a cultural practice which sometimes happened amongst immigrants from Eastern Europe 3 generations ago, but I don’t know of any examples nowadays. It may still occur amongst the ultra-orthodox, but these are a small minority of British Jews.
In fact, especially in America, first cousin marriage is strongly disapproved of on medical grounds. For example, because of the link with predisposition to diabetes and Tay-Sachs syndrome.
I know of no examples of marriages between uncles and nieces. It would be regarded as scandalous by most Western Jews. (In fact, this issue was a source of bitter criticism of the Herodian royal family by the revolutionary zealots!)
In theory, there’s no prohibition against polygamy, but it doesn’t happen!
That’s the Oral Law for you.

Comment by Yeshiya — 12 February, 2008 @ 7:22 am
Yeshiya

I will defer to you in what is common among the Jewish community now, my point here is that cousin marriages have been traditional among Jews.

Incidently,, Uncle Niece marriages between Jews are specifically sanctioned by the law of the State of Rhode island. I appreciate that when searching the Internet for questions relating to Jews there is a need for caution, but this is confirmed by the standard textbook Family Law in America By Sanford N. Katz, which is cached by google here:

Comment by Andy Newman — 12 February, 2008 @ 9:36 am
the legality of Uncle Niece marraiges for Jews in Rhode Island is also confrimed in “Health and Ethnicity” by Helen M. Macbeth, Prakash S. Shetty, 2001.

Interestingly it says that among Hindus in the 1990s in the southern Indian cities of Bangalore and Mysore, a full 21.3% of Hindu marriages were Uncle-Niece, despite this being illegal. I heard a radio phone-in on thr Asian prog on Radio Five some years ago , where there was a frank discussion about this by British Hindus, who said that it is not uncommon for arranged marriages between british Hindus to still marry an uncle or niece from the sub-continent.

So the question remains, why Phil Woolas singled out Muslims/Paksitanis, when the more acute problem of sanguinity affects Hindus and not Muslims?

Comment by Andy Newman — 12 February, 2008 @ 9:46 am
Note Ed’s statements which contain the extraordinary implication that Jews are a small and well behaved community, so obviously anti-semitism is wrong, but in the case of Muslims, well they breed like rabbits and a few of them are extremists so racism and bigotry is just the truth and its about time we faced up to it. One thing I did’nt mention was that the great thing about Islamophobia is that it is now a respectable kind of racism. That is very attractive in a world of political correctness gone mad where people can’t say what they really think about black people and Jews. This is a minority which really is BAD. Fantastic.

I don’t really understand why Battersea thinks that this should not be compared to anti-semitism.

Comment by johng — 12 February, 2008 @ 9:49 am
From Todays Yorkshire Post

“Yesterday Bradford Teaching Hospitals Trust issued a lengthy statement on the issue of genetic disorders and first cousin marriage, based on a study done by the Trust’s paediatric department and ongoing research by the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit.

It says there is an increased prevalence of recessive disorders in Bradford’s children – 140 different conditions seen in children in the area in recent years, compared to the 20 or 30 that might be seen in a typical British health district. The effects of these conditions include deafness, neurodegenerative disorders and microcephaly (small head, with learning disability).

The findings said that these “autosomal” genetic disorders are much more prevalent in children of Pakistani origin, where they are increased by a factor of 10. Marriage patterns, either within the family or some other geographical or ethnic group,
“are likely to be a factor”, say the findings.

The chances of a child being born with one of the disorders increase, say the experts, if the parents are related by birth.

However, says the report: “It should be remembered that most cousin parents have perfectly healthy children. Other risk factors, such as maternal age, illness during pregnancy, use of tobacco or alcohol can be important, and areas of social deprivation often see an increase in childhood illness and disability.”

The Trust says the Regional Genetics Service counsels individual families in different community languages, and that the current Born in Bradford project, following 10,000 children born at Bradford Royal Infirmary should provide more insight into health problems in the city. The study is looking into family patterns, including cousin marriages and marriage within clans. Increased awareness of marriage patterns coupled with greater genetic awareness should lead to better understanding of the reasons behind the high prevalence of genetic disorders in the city.

A Department of Health statement said: “While it is the case that marriages between cousins can result in an increased risk of inherited disease and disability, the key factor in understanding a family’s risk is understanding the relevance of any existing history of genetic conditions within the family.

“This is best discussed and assessed in the context of a referral to specialised genetics services. We need to ensure that ethnic minority communities know how to access these services and advice and support they can offer.”

Ishtiaq Ahmed of Bradford’s Council of Mosques says the Asian community is aware of the evidence suggesting links between cousin marriage and birth defects, illness and mortality.

“There is no denial,” he says. “More and more people are aware of the risk, and I believe parents should be made aware of the possibility of illness, with information and counselling.” He does not believe the answer to statistics showing apparent illness and disability linked to cousin marriage lies in discouraging a tradition followed by parts of the community. “There’s a matter of choice here.

“If a marriage is arranged between two cousins and they are happy with it, then they should be offered genetic counselling after the marriage. It’s their choice whether to have the counselling, and their choice how they react to what they are told. They can make decisions based on science.

“I married my first cousin in 1980, and we had five healthy children. Much more is known about all of this these days.”

Mr Ahmed says that cousin marriage, while it still happens, is decreasing. “There’s no denial that it happens, though, and it was discussed very recently when the Council of Mosques held a session about sexual health.

“I think information about risks is not as available as it should be. This is not a racial or ethnic issue. It is a British problem, not an Asian problem. It’s about the habits, customs and culture of part of the British community.”

Comment by tim — 12 February, 2008 @ 10:02 am
Yes Ed D #38 is simply lying when he says: ” Jews are neither part of a community that has terribly extremist problems that leads a minority to commit and plot terror attacks, “

There is a minority of Jews who are extreme Zionists, and who plan and coommit terrorist acts.

For example, Dr Baruch Goldman, from New York, who massacred 29 men and boys as they were praying in the Tomb of the patriarchs in Hebron.

It would of course be anti-Semitism to link all Jews with Dr Goldman, in the same way it is islamophobic to link all Muslims with the 9/11 or 7/7 bombers.

I agree with you John that Islamophobia is the twin of anti-Semitism, both in ideology and also matching the historical social function of anti-Semitism.

Today, the slight resurgence of anti-Semitism (Atzmon and his supporters, Indymedia, et al) is part of the same racialising of politics that embraces the tide of Islamophobia.

Comment by Andy Newman — 12 February, 2008 @ 10:03 am
On another note Hannah Arendt’s section on Anti-semitism in her ‘Origins of Totalitarianism’ (not perhaps historically a popular book amongst Marxists, although I spotted a Cliff joke in the introduction, so someone was reading it, some comrades may remember bicycle riders) is well worth reading today. One point she makes is the sheer lunacy of the old anti-semitic tracts of the 19th century and the very wierd way in which they perculate 20th century discussions. She makes the good point that it was conditions in the 20th century which led to the sudden erruption of what was hitherto a rather subterranian stream of kookie wierdness (she obviously also deals with the more mainstream 19th century varieties of anti-semitism). Its a feeling I’ve often had reading the blogs on Muslims were all kinds of bizarre subterranian fantasies have suddenly burst out into the open, like dying embers that have just been blasted with oxygen. Its like turning over a rock. Now suddenly it turns out, if the figures quoted in newsnight are true, that there are 10’s of ‘000s of these wriggling creatures suddenly oxygenated, and now wierd medieval fantasies are combining with more modern resentments.

Off-topic I’m currently reading Gods War: A New History of the Crusades, by Christopher Tyerman, a really good, balenced and fascinating account of this episode in western history and how crucial it was in medieval history. Its disquieting to find the ranting of the Pope Urban’s reproduced in modern discussions. This happened to me literally on a certain site once where one person saw fit to reproduce his crusade speeches as evidence of the eternal perfidy of Muslims. Where to you begin with this rubbish?

Comment by johng — 12 February, 2008 @ 10:07 am
The point about marriage between close relatives has been made before: by Ian Gibson (one fo the 2 M.Ps for Norwich). ‘NFN - Normal For Norfolk as we say in East Anglia. It was taken by the inhaitants of that county in the way which should greet this announcement: hostile.

But to return to the question of the ABC’s pontificting. I wonder if Andy Newman would care to look at Britain’s history of accommodating religious codes. I hestitate to call them laws, since all of them rest on the denial of the basic principle of modern legal systems: equality before the law. That is under the Raj, with, for example Hindi, Sikhi and Muslim personal law. Now that was a parallel ‘legal’ system. This I believe was criticised at the time by some in Congress, and the sub-continental left, as a major factor reinforcing communalism, and part of the stategy of divide-and-rule. Which led to the divisive results we all know during Independence.

It is strange enough for those who describe themselves as socialists flying to the defence of a Clerical relic of Absolute Monarchy, state-funded and undmocratically selected. Even odder to find them in support of the practices of British Imperialism.

Comment by Andrew Coates — 12 February, 2008 @ 10:15 am
The Congress in fact divided itself into two in the first decades of the century, seperating issues of social reform from issues of politics. This related to the fact that it was led by various elites that had no interest in raising social questions. The issue of seperate electorates was an entirely seperate question.

Come Independence the State adopted a position of a uniform civil code but Nehru suggested that the incorporation of Muslim’s had to await the winning of their trust in the new state. Hindu Nationalists bitterly opposed this and regarded this as an unfair privilage, their position shifting from protection of existing Hindu personal codes to demanding that Muslims be forced to fit in and adopt the uniform civil code whether they liked it or not to prove their loyalty to the nation, which was culturally Hindu. The same strange mixture of ostensibly modernising sentiment and religious chauvinism invoked here by people who combine liberalism, nationalism and repeated declarations that this is a ‘christian country’.

In Pakistan and Bangladesh the personal laws are based on those drawn up by Scottish lawyers in the early part of the 19th century, and when small groups call for the adoption of Sharia its often, ironically enough, what used to be called ‘Anglo-Mussalman law’ that is being invoked. In the case of India and debates about the uniform civil code leftists understand that how you proceed is related to the history of the implementation of the code and the actual social and political context. Whilst in principle in favour of a uniform civil code one cannot ignore a dominant ideology which wishes to depict a community as anti-national because not Hindu and uses the excuse of arguments about the uniform civil code to pursue that agenda.

The same should be true in this country. The actual history of how Britain became a secular society (as opposed to a wholly imaginary story) and the actual meaning of the discussion in politics as opposed to wholly imaginary meanings. Given that secularism in this country actually took the form of what Williams calls ‘transformative engagement’, that is the tradition of secularism we are dealing with here, and the debate is really therefore about whether being a Muslim is compatible with being British (hence the extraordinary outpouring of passions).

The wholly imaginary idea is that we are re-fighting the battles of the French Revolution and that secularism is under threat in Modern Britain. What we are dealing with is the relationship between a religious and ethnic minority and the State which also has an established Church. Oddly Andrew thinks people here are ’supporting’ the Archbishop, as if there was some huge contest going on between progress and reaction. What social and political forces are involved in this contest?

Incidently I’ve never had any problem supporting what Archbishops say when they oppose wars, Thatcherism or job cuts, although I’ve often been somewhat cynical about the effectivity of such actions. Why should the case suddenly be different if Muslims are being discussed?

Comment by johng — 12 February, 2008 @ 11:35 am
Johng, I realise that your arguments are part of a well-thought out reflection on tolerance, the liberal state, and a whole host of deep issues. If we had the forum it would be possible to dicssu secularism in such terms: based, for example on different veiws on Colleti’’s argument that Marx derived a lot from Rousseau (and not the tradition you cite). Discussing the British non-secular state, the British legal system, the British ABC and a social republican alternative, thoroughly secular, would be (the laws as they and as they might be, as Rousseau put it), is a pretty hefty task for comments-boxes.

But more directly. You admit that in South Asia, notably, personal religious law notably ‘Anglo-Mussalman’ law, was a creation of the Raj. A synthesis, an accommodation. If you don;t recognsie there’s a problem there about the nature of law, related to the *universality* of human rights, then perphaps you have bent the liberal stick too far, even further than the later Rawl’s concept of ‘overlapping consensus’.

I don’t like AOCs. Full stop. Another problem?

Comment by Andrew Coates — 12 February, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
In each country official doctrines of secularism and social and political processes of secularisation have discrete histories. One way in which I would distinguish myself from those arguments of academic liberal philosophy you mention is that they pay no attention whatsoever to the actual social and political histories of the catagories they deploy (the extent to which this is the case is really quite amazing). I think Socialists should think quite seriously, for example, about the actual situations people face in their everyday lives and how these arguments impinge on them rather then treating them as a distraction. If Socialists don’t do this its unlikely that anyone else will.

In my view this is partly the product of the same mistake I think you’re making. To confuse official ideologies with actual social processes. Its the kind of mistake Marx spent some time writing about both in his text in ‘On the Jewish Question’ and on a larger terrain, in his work on Kapital. Your correct that this is an argument which can’t be carried out in comment boxes, but one can suggest that socialists need to pay attention to the actual social and political circumstances in which debates take place, and one might expect those who are capable of rational argument to take part in it rather then settling comfortably into further ranting.

Where do you stand incidently on conscientous objection? I’ve just seen some rather rabid letters from the national secular society objecting fervently to religous people invoking ‘conscience’ in various legal situations. Should the rest of us be allowed to have consiences as well, or should we just abolish consiousness altogeather in order to allow a level playing field?

AOC’s?

Comment by johng — 12 February, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
Andy Newman claimed that Rowan Williams’ argument was clear. He even posted a link to prove the point. When I quoted from the text provided to back up the claims in the media that not one of his supporters were able to explain what he meant, on account of his lack of clarity, Andy shifted the goal posts. It was not meant to be clear to people who were not specialists in the law. Strike one.

Andy accepts that Rowan’s arguments were unacceptable to secularists, but not to him. In other words, Andy is ignorant of the fact that socialists by definition are secularists, or else he is coming out as an explicitly anti-socialist. I have long since abandoned predicting which of several competing nonsensical positions Andy will next embrace when caught out in some contradiction. We shall have to wait and see.

Members of the SWP have formed a united front with Andy on this issue. This is a very big mistake. I call on you all to change your minds. I trust the SWP central committee will get it’s act together and talk you out of this nonsense, because it is nonsense. Let us examine what is wrong with crawling into the Rowan Williams’ corner.

Firstly, we are told that the issue is one of fairness. If Jews can have access to religious courts, then why not Muslims? There is an old saying “two wrongs don’t make a right.” And shifting in too right-wing a direction does not lead inextricably back to the left. If religious courts hold sway for some Jews, then these should be abolished, they are a hangover from the days when Jews thought of themselves, and this was imposed by an anti-semitic society, as alien. Such a system is harmful to Jews as it is to everyone else. The solution to legal apartheid for a small section of society is hardly to extend it to much a far more numerous section of society, which could only set in motion a reactionary chain reaction. After all, why not allow Catholic priests to set up courts to police young (and not so young) “Catholics” who dismiss the religion of their parents as a load of old bollocks? It is difficult enough for young adults of all religions to reject their parents belief system. Especially if their parents are devout. There are immense problems doing so long as young adults have to live in the parental home. The idea that Muslims, Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, etc, etc, etc should not simply be worried about negotiating with parents (or simply engaging in white lies to keep from their parents what is none of their business), but should additionally be forced to put up with an entire legal system policed by a religious hierarchy they want to see the back of … This is absolutely abhorrent to socialists.

Supporting religious courts for Muslims on the grounds of “fairness” will lead, with absolute inevitability, to their extension to every other religion. This would constitute a massive increase in oppressive for the overwhelming majority of the working class whose identification with all religions have faded in the UK, and in many advanced capitalist countries, although not the US, unfortunately. Additionally, religious legal apartheid would institutionalise reactionary prejudice where none exists today, or precious little. It would be to long for the good old days of “the troubles” in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, Muslims should be the very last people calling for this. That is because all minorities will find that in any successful ideological war against secularism, it is the religion of the majority will rise to the top, overriding all the rest. Muslims would not only be disappointed if they were convinced by Rowan Williams, Andy Newman, Salma Yaqoob, johng and others that Sharia law can be introduced in the UK. The very fact that these anti-secularists march Muslims in a reactionary direction will increase Islamophobia. To the extent that Muslims reject a secular solution to the problems posed by Islamophobia, they simply assist the British National Party, the tabloid press, and the opportunistic New Labour and Tory politicians. Andy et al will help the reactionaries get what they really, really want: an increased role for the Christian church in society. The only way for socialists to side step this trap is by demanding the separation of church and state: in other words, secularism. Muslims have to insist upon the right to pray where they want, to eat what they want, dress as they like, to bring up their children according to the dictats of their faith, to congregate together. But they can do these things only to the extent that they do not interfere with their human rights of those who reject their belief system, including their rights of “Muslims” to consider alternative faiths as they mature into adulthood, and to consider atheism, of course. This was ABC for Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. These scientific socialists would be spinning in their graves (if atheists believed in such things) if they had an incling that SWP members were opposing secularism in the name of socialism.

Was Rowan’s statement clear? Absolutely not. Indeed, he has apologised for his lack of clarity. Let us consider the questions raised by his intervention:

If there is a legal system based on the Koran, who gets to set out the limits of this Sharia law? Rowan Williams? The leader of a church that does not accept the Koran was the handiwork of God? What if Muslims decide that the Koran cannot be restricted in a way acceptable to non-Muslims? What if they demand additional rights and responsibilities for these courts? Will it be “Islamophobic” to resist these moves as too extreme? Sharia law cannot be subsidiary to law not based on the Koran. Any attempt to set limits in the way Rowan Williams argued will lead to an Islamophobic backlash when Muslim scholars demand additional powers.

Another problem. You cannot have a legal system without law enforcement agencies. Only scholastics, academics, philosophers (in other words anti-Marxists) toy with such idealist notions. So who would be charged with imposing the judgements of the Islamic courts? Will the capitalist state have the right to arrest bank accounts, and wages, and benefits if a Muslim rejects the finding of an Islamic court? Will the capitalist state have the right to excommunicate a Muslim if he/she rejects the decision of Muslim elders? Will the capitalist state throw Muslims into jail for defaulting on fines imposed by Muslim courts? Or will it not be the capitalist state that does these things? Will Muslims be allowed to set up their own law enforcement agencies? Their “special bodies of armed men, prisons, etc?” To ask the latter question is to answer it. The state will not cede control over the monopoly of violence to religious bodies, any more than it would tolerate workers‘ militia. That would be to institutionalise civil war, which is a nonsense. And, remember, if Islamic courts were set up, these questions of law enforcement agencies would apply with equal force when the Catholic church demands equal rights to police wayward teenagers and others who snub their noses at the priesthood. There would no longer be any need for the Catholic church to lobby Holyrood or Westminster in opposition to gay marriage, gay adoption, rights of lesbians to IVF treatment. They could police their own. No need to intimidate Doctors carrying out abortions, including by killing them. No need to campaign against making divorce easier. Just deny Catholics these rights. Reactionary nonsense. However, logical when we start to move down the path set out by Rowan Williams.

Socialists need to oppose Sharia law, not because it is law imposed by Muslims, but because it is law imposed by religious hierarchies. By definition, Muslims accept that the Koran was the handiwork of God, or working through a human vessel. Also, by definition, Catholics, Protestants, Sikhs, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and everyone else reject this view. It is also rejected by those born into Muslim families who grow out of this. For all of us, the Koran was written by a man. By the standards of his time, he may have had many enlightened views. However, time has moved on. If Muslims want to live by these teachings, that is their right. But it is not their right to impose these views on non-Muslims. Certainly not by laws and the law enforcement agencies that go with such laws.

When Williams described the introduction of Sharia law in the UK as inevitable, he set in motion an Islamophobic tsunami. Socialists need to rescue the victims of this reactionary tidal wave, for which they do not bear any responsibility. However, when Andy Newman, Salma Yaqoob, johng and others try to absolve the subterranean earthquake that set this tidal wave in motion, when they present this as in any sense positive, they do nothing to help. On the contrary, they make matters infinitely worse. By insisting that the introduction of Sharia law was “inevitable“, Williams incited all those opposed to this (and that has to include socialists, by the way) to take up the cudgels to stop this. It goes without saying that secularists want to stop this in a different way to the BNP, That will, of course, do nothing to blur the distinction between secularists and Islamophobes. All reactionaries will exploit Williams’ nonsense. They will do so by demanding the institutionalisation of the rights of Christianity. Secularists of an atheist persuasion have to make common cause with Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews and all other non-Christian believers to stop this, and we can win practising Christians to this cause. All non-Christians have an incentive to stop this. And it can be stopped. But only if socialists don’t jump into bed with Williams and call for religious apartheid in the courts, as well as in our schools.

Another thing socialists have to insist upon is that Sharia law is not only wrong in principle for British Muslims. It is equally wrong for Muslims in Palestine, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and everywhere else. When “socialists” attempt to defend Sharia law on the basis of fighting Islamophobia, they need to address the specific legislation in these countries. And they would need to stop defending human rights for atheists in non-Muslim countries, if they are to be consistent. A far better way to regain consistency would of course be advocate universal support for secularism, at home and abroad.

Comment by Red Flintstone — 12 February, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
Incidently a very interesting article on Anglo-Muhammadan law (apologies I got my colonial cliches mixed up) here:

http://www.wluml.org/english/pubs/pdf/occpaper/OCP-07.pdf

One reason I bought it up is that it demonstrates how much we are all part of a shared history which we have to deal with as best we can. It does no good to have pretend histories of the kind that some favour. Just as we have to deal with the predicement of actual people togeather with their actual belief, so to we have to deal with actual histories as opposed to wholly imaginary ones.

The lawyers incidently were often figures associated with political radicalism in the Scottish enlightenment or their ideological heirs. The architects of Anglo-Muhammaden law were the same people who were often those who drew inspiration from the most radical liberal thinkers of the Enlightenment. It should give pause for thought, and remind us, as emphasised, that we share a common history and a common set of problems.

Comment by johng — 12 February, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
RedFlintstone,

I’m sorry but I stopped reading half way through when it became clear that you were simply repeating tabloid nonsense about ‘introducing Sharia law’.

I take it you will be campaigning to revoke laws recognising marriages as these are part of the hierarchy of patriarchy?

In general I prefer to win arguments to persuade people about their social practices rather then force them, but, to be sure, give it a go.

Comment by johng — 12 February, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
Tom Delargy / Red Flintstone:

“This was ABC for Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. These scientific socialists would be spinning in their graves (if atheists believed in such things) if they had an incling that SWP members were opposing secularism in the name of socialism.”

Strange then that at the Congress of the People’s of the east, baku, 1920, in Lenin and Trotsky’s own life time, Kark Radek speaking for the Bolsheviks described the very same “secularist” arguments that Tom is making here as “West-European Kulturtraeger” and a policy of Red imperialism and counter-revolution”

Comment by Andy Newman — 12 February, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
Source ref Andy? Love to read that Radek speech.

Its also just true that there is real naivity about bourgoise law and what it is being displayed here. Do you honestly think capitalist courts would allow any aspect of our personal lives NOT to be legislated about? Of course there was the development of ‘personal law’, it had to be kept seperate because those devising these laws for the blinkin’ heathens were, you know, Christians.

Comment by johng — 12 February, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
Dave Crouch in Socialist Review some time back:

http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=8689

The central problem with most of those arguing above is that they make no distinction between religous minorities and their relationship to the state and established churches representing the majority of the population. Its quite a strange thing to escape attention.

Comment by johng — 12 February, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
“established churches representing the majority of the population.”

Except that 2/3 of the population belong to no church whatsoever (if you look at data from the last census). The battle is fast becoming one between the religious and the non-religious rather than one between majority and minority communities. We are starting to see inter-faith cooperation on issues such as blasphemy, opt-outs from equalities legislation and the defence of segregated education.

Comment by alex ross — 12 February, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
What proportion of marriages take place in a religous institution?

Comment by johng — 12 February, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
John, the reference.

It is the stenographic transcript of the third session of the Congress, 4th Sept 1920. Karl Radek is being quoted by Narbutabekov, in a session chaired by Zinoviev.

page 61 of the New Park Edition, “Baku, Congress of the Peoples of the East” 1977.

Comment by Andy Newman — 12 February, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
Thanks Andy. I’m still trying to figure out why non-religous people would go to war with religous people in modern Britain and what would be progressive about that…

Comment by johng — 12 February, 2008 @ 3:07 pm
# 48, 49

It’s not a forbidden relationship but by the late medieval period, however, at least some Jewish legal authorities wished to end or limit the practice.
For example, Sefer Hasidim declares that a marriage between an uncle and niece “will not be successful,” an apparent effort to discourage the practice.

From what I gather, it’s still practised by some Jews of Morrocan origin.
But there’s definitely evidence of a link to congenital health disorders.
Besides which, it’s a potential highly abusive situation for the girl.
So Rabbis should not officiate at such marriages, which is the situation with the Reform Movement. Nor do I have any problems with Civil marriages of this type being illegal.

As an aside, I know an Iraqi Mandean girl who left home to avoid an arranged marriage with a first cousin.
Which is ironic, since the Mandeans revere John the Baptist, who reportedly got topped because of his attacks on the cosanguinous marriages in the Herodian dynasty

see here:
http://virtualreligion.net/iho/salome_2.html

Comment by Yeshiya — 12 February, 2008 @ 6:37 pm
Why have you removed my post? What was factually inaccurate about it?

Comment by Ed D — 12 February, 2008 @ 10:12 pm
I removed a post by you Ed becasue it made a racist claim that there are no go areas for white people in britain today.

Comment by Andy Newman — 12 February, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
If you don’t have an argument against any of these points then maybe the problem is with you, not me.

Comment by Ed D — 12 February, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
I also said there was no go area for Muslims.

This is nothing new.

Read this report from 2001.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1296007.stm

Comment by Ed D — 12 February, 2008 @ 10:16 pm
johng noted, “I don’t really understand why Battersea thinks that this should not be compared to anti-semitism.”

To clarify, I’m not ‘thinking’ that. I wanted to make a minor point about how tolerant British society *has* become, given the constant attempts by the establishment to drive sharp wedges in, whenever the opportunity allows. Personally, I think Islamophobia is the nationalists’ new super-glue. But, despite every sinew being stretched in that direction *they* cannot mobilise mass forces behind their agenda.

Which is why I wrote; “Nor do I think the reaction to it [the ArchBish] can be compared with historic (and I’m assuming recent ones) incidences of anti-semitism in its vilest forms.”

And before I’m accused of ’softness’, let me add: *yet*.

Personally, I think the ArchBish’s move is part of an attempt to ‘win’ sections of the British religious establishment to a position that promotes a theological grounding of *all* law - he cites “sterile positivism” as the only ultimate alternative on offer.

William’s ain’t daft enough to say, and nor do I believe he believes, that there’s a thin red line connecting the Enlightenment to the gulag. But his raising of the call for faith-based schooling and the “difficulties” surrounding Catholic adoption agencies being forced to drop their bigotry toward gays do ring some old bells.

This is a terrain where “Bending the stick” ain’t gonna cut it (thanks Alex for the reminder). For socialists to work effectively and positively in this climate it’s gonna be back to first principles with a re-write of the propaganda positions - all without falling into “accidental” opportunism!

Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 12 February, 2008 @ 11:32 pm
I quite like the idea of Islamophobia as the new superglue of nationalism Battersea, but this does raise some historic parrallels (in other words we’re not dealing here with a kind of contingent bigotry). I’m sure that the Archbishop would like to see religion playing a more important role in society (he is an archbishop after all) but I think this is the least important thing about both the reaction to what he said, and actually, what he actually said (one expects this kind of thing from beardy bishops after all).

On Newsnight an attempt was made to suggest that the reaction represented precisely an outpouring of hostility towards all challenges to secularism. I think this is to mistake form for content and I don’t think this is what it was about at all (its the spin being put on this by those who are beginning to retreat from the ugliest bigotry expressed during this affair, apparently some disquiet amongst the chattering classes and the government about the extent of this, who nevertheless want to mantain the line: Aronovich’s recent piece in the Times expresses this perfectly).

Again, I sincerely think that some familiarity with Arendt’s tome on anti-semitism is useful here. One of the things is this line she has about how false views backed up by facts are not therefore true, just more dangerous (some of the discussion of anti-semitism on this blog recalled this). One of the bizarre spectacles in the debate was witnessing someone like Paxman trying to ‘balence’ the discussion, this old liberal format falling apart in the face of the disintergration of the kind of rational public sphere it pre-supposes. Irrationality is not today the sole property of god botherers.

Comment by johng — 13 February, 2008 @ 9:04 am
Interesting JOhn, about liberals reacting to the bigotry.

Relevent here I think is the argument that Hobsbawm makes about the growth of popular nationalism in the first part of the twentieth century. The British ruling classes were themselves horrified by the scale of the anti-German hysteria in 1914 - which created a political complication for them, and was also not how they saw the war at all. BUt they had partially created a Frankenstein’s monster.

Comment by Andy Newman — 13 February, 2008 @ 9:22 am
In relationship to this question of a rational public sphere (something which I think only exists as a parody of itself in modern capitalist societies) I can remember a discussion with a prominant Indian liberal theorist who recalled visiting Gujarat in the aftermath of the anti-Muslim pogroms (those who carried out those pogroms have just been re-elected incidently) and stated that it was not the terrible atrocities he heard about that terrified him the most but the extreme irrationality and debasement of the public sphere in relationship to these atrocities that he found in Gujarat when compared to Dehli where he lives. He stated that the only parrallel he has yet to find with this is when he went to Holland. However, good liberal that he is, he did not find this so frightening as he believed that in western liberal societies the barriers to the translation of this irrationality into mass violence were considerably higher then in a place like Gujarat.

I responded by stating that I certainly hoped so, but that if this was true, it was only true because of the existence of a left that could respond properly to the situation. And obviously there are problems here in terms of splits that exist on the left in relationship to this question. Certainly over the last five years, anyone who has witnessed the strange co-incidence of liberal rhetoric and communal malice which has come to charecterise European Islamophobia and who was familiar with developments in Indian politics in the previous decade would find the situation very ominous.

One unremarked feature of the current controversy was the way that the Evangelical right mobilised against the ‘liberal Bishop’, and more importantly, some ‘liberals’ rhetoric actually echoed their claims. This is very reminicent of the development of new forms of communal virulance in India over the last few decades were communalism adopted a new ‘progressivist’ garb: something which prompted some to return to earlier varieties of romantic anti-capitalism, and some to see this, rather then the Hindu Nationalist project itself, as the main problem. I think we need to be very careful about simply rehearsing our ‘principles’ in what is actually a fundementally new situation.

We have to think about how our principles fit with this situation, and not expect a simple repetition of older patterns of political cleavage. The biggest difficulty is with a section of the left which believes that this is simply a repetition of arguments in the 18th century, one consequence of which is, precisely because, as you put it, Islamophobia has become the new glue of nationalism (I think, in many ways the new glue of reaction more generally), is dressing up reaction in the clothes of defence of secularism and the enlightenment. So it is that you find some socialists suddenly talking about the need to defend ‘western civilization’.

This is ominously similar to the trajectory of a certain current of liberal opinion in India, which never quite embraced the communalism of the BJP but spent most of its time finding reasons to find it ‘understandable’ those reasons having much to do with ‘facts’ about those who were the victims of this communalism. There is within such discussions always a longing to ’speak out’, to ‘face facts’ and indeed ‘uncomfortable realities’, and regards such activities as ‘courageous’. This new garralousness is a feature of such situations, and perhaps would repay analyses.

Comment by johng — 13 February, 2008 @ 9:26 am
johng is quite right to point to the existence of a principled, anti-racist left being a *necessary* part of preventing the spread and escalation of bigotry. Jeremy Paxman and the Archbishop of Canterbury (although playing a part) won’t be in the vanguard here.

I *think* johng is interpreting my comments in a way that suggests I’m somewhat old-fartish about the Englightenment (much as I do, from time to time, think I was born too late…). But let’s face facts, the ruling class - and we can probably cast back to any bourgeouis revolution we fancy - has always had a problem with the “mobilisation” of forces around its agenda. The gasping “omg, what have I done?” as exclusive and exclusionary components of their ideologies - be they ‘religious’ or ‘national’ - give rise to the “mob” carving itself up on the streets.

Nor do I think there are any “characteristics” of the western “public sphere” that guarantee against repetition of its most terrifying past (and present).

Take a look at the threads on anti-semitism to see how he time-honoured saying, “ultra-leftism and opportunism go hand in hand,” if you want to see how defense of the Enlightenment or secularism can be so badly employed you end up on the other side.

This is a blog, so I’m always suspicious of writing things like “our principles” (even though I did) because I’m sure we don’t all share and agree on what they are. For me, nationalism’s boost is the war, Islamophobia is a convenient carrier for a vast agenda and is beginning to take a form that the capitalist class can hope to use even if the bombs stop raining down tomorrow.

If I’m in a meeting with Muslims I’ll argue about Islam, if I’m discussing Islam at work I’ll argue about racism and the war. If I’m with socialists, er…
I’ll test the water.

Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 13 February, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
From Lenin’s Tomb, whose original article was commended by Andy Newman: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/02/secularism-is-chimera-my-posish-on.html

Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Secularism is a chimera: my posish on the Archbish. posted by lenin

I’ve written a piece about this Sharia bullshit for Socialist Worker. It goes without saying that I oppose the Islamophobic tirades, but I hint at a problem with the Archbishop’s position. For although Muslims should absolutely have the same rights as everyone else, the Archbishop’s call is for a kind of ‘integration’ that I think enhances the power of the state to interfere in religious life. To expand a bit, I note that New Labour have been rather happy to try and co-opt a version of Islam that is acceptable to them. To give the state any more authority to determine in matters of religion, by separating an Islam that is compatible with “British values” from one that isn’t, is to give it the ability to play ‘good Muslim’ versus ‘bad Muslim’.

The liberal response to this is not only based on a misconception of what Williams said, but actually a misunderstanding of what secularism is. Many think that the reformation was fundamentally about separating religion from politics. It is true that Lutheran morality separates secular from sacred power, but the first legal achievement of the Reformation was the Peace of Augsburg, which formalised the non-separation of religion and politics by giving dictatorial power on confessional matters to local rulers. Really, secularism began with the policies of ‘tolerance’ pursued by early modern ‘Enlightened’ despots and liberal states, and it hasn’t advanced much beyond that. I think the truth is that a complete separation of church and state is a chimera as long as the two exist as potentially competing sources of authority in the same territory. The state will inevitably seek to control religion, and religion will inevitably seek to gain a niche of authority for itself. The question is to what extent and in what way.

And here it becomes problematic. The capitalist state has no basis for choosing between conceptions of the good. It is like asking the phone company to tell you what’s right and wrong. Its processes and hierarchies are completely insulated from the spaces in which conceptions of the good might be elaborated and contested, and it will inevitably subordinate such questions to its own drives. The only way that the state will be enacting a conception of the good that isn’t entirely arbitrary or subordinate to its own priorities is if it is responding to popular pressure. In the long run, these dilemmas point to the need to move beyond the state, toward a maximally democratised public life. That is what direct democracy means.

Comment by Red Flintstone — 13 February, 2008 @ 1:10 pm
Battersea ‘when with Muslims I argue about Islam’…really?

Comment by johng — 13 February, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=14164

The above article is a far better one than what appears on Lenin’s Tomb.

Living under an alien law

The scare stories about sharia can’t hide the fact that “British justice” has always been about preserving the rule of the rich, writes Richard Seymour

The newspapers are terrified. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, has raised the suggestion that some forms of sharia law be introduced as a means of “constructive accommodation” with British Muslims.

The Sun raised the prospect of “medieval punishments” being inflicted on Britons, and complained that Williams was “giving heart to Muslim terrorists plotting our destruction”.

The Telegraph explained to its readers that sharia is associated with “amputation of limbs, death by stoning or lashes” for such crimes as theft. Perhaps the Telegraph is concerned about its former proprietor, the convicted fraudster Lord Conrad Black. On their account, if he had been tried under sharia law he wouldn’t have a limb left on his body.

However, even liberal opinion is expressing concern, arguing that Muslim women will experience reduced freedom if religious courts are allowed to adjudicate in matters of family life.

There is a further implication that what is proposed is somehow “alien”. This is “a Christian country with Christian laws”, according to the national director of the right wing pressure group Christian Voice. And Gordon Brown has conceded to this nationalist sentiment, arguing that “British law should be based on British values”.

The scare stories have little to do with what is actually proposed. The archbishop called for allowances to be made for the practice of sharia law within the confines of English law, on a limited basis and with the mutual consent of everyone affected.

He argued, quite correctly, that there is a diversity of interpretation among Muslim jurists about what sharia entails, and endorsed the liberal variants. He pointed out that Britain already has separate arrangements for other religious communities. Orthodox Jews are entitled to work out some of their arrangements in a rabbinical court. Muslims can already choose to have disputes settled privately under sharia law. And there are already sharia-compliant products and services operating in Britain, for instance in banking.

So the hysteria is not really about anything Rowan Williams actually said. It is an expression of the Islamophobia that has been cultivated in the West as an obnoxious cultural counterpart to the “war on terror”.

Meanwhile, the tabloids are several centuries behind on this scoop – Britain already has a system of alien laws. It is maintained in large part by right wing bigots in outlandish medieval costumes, such as the “law lords” or the “privy council”.

Drawn from a ruling class with an alien culture – and values that most of us don’t share – our overseers in wigs and cloaks have always been rather fond of telling us how to live.

They tell us who we can have sex with, and have even been given to legislating on what kind of sex we can have; under what conditions we may be married and to whom, and when we may divorce; what we can protest about, when and for how long; when we can strike, and for what we may strike; what we can consume, and where we can consume it.

Whether outlawing homosexuality, restricting abortion, or regulating the ingestion of recreational substances, these laws have never had anything to do with the values of ordinary people.

For example, at the moment, the state is considering restrictions on a woman’s right to abortion. This campaign is being driven by right wing anti-abortionists such as Ann Widdecombe MP.

The fact that state control of the female body has resulted in the deaths of women in backstreet abortions doesn’t stop these people calling themselves “pro-life” – but they represent a minority of the British people, and certainly a minority of women.

As usual, the trouble with the archbishop of Canterbury is not that he “went too far”, but that he didn’t go far enough. He rightly challenges the state’s monopoly on public identity, but does so primarily in order to carve out a larger space for religious power.

One of Rowan Williams’s political interventions in 2007 was to co-author a letter to the prime minister asking that Catholic adoption agencies be exempted from regulation that would compel them to consider gay people as adoptees. To put it another way – he asked the state to guarantee the Catholic church’s right to operate homophobic policies.

In the case of sharia law, on one level Williams isn’t asking the state to withdraw, but to get more involved in the regulation of religious and personal life. He suggests that certain forms of Islam are more acceptable than others – and that those variants ought to be encouraged and recognised by the state.

It is quite right that Muslims should have the same rights that any other religious group has – but the best way to ensure that is for the state to keep out of our moral lives. And a good first move in that direction would be to divest the Church of England of its peculiar privileges and authority.

The following should be read alongside this article:
» Sharia row triggers wider racist backlash

Richard Seymour’s book The Liberal Defence of Murder will be published by Verso later this year. He runs the Lenin’s Tomb website at » leninology.blogspot.com

Comment by Red Flintstone — 13 February, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
79. johng - careful! Don’t make me get all multicultural on your arse. Believe it or not there are Muslims at my workplace, running our local version of meals on wheels, at the Unitarian church which my wife’s a member of and at a refugee centre that also supports asylum seekers that I’m part of… should I provide any further “credentials”.

Sorry, I’m not in the SWP. Used to be, and we even recruited Muslims back then too.

Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 13 February, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
Oh I was’nt questioning your credentials! I was just reflecting on the fact that I don’t really spend an awful lot of time talking about Islam in such situations. Now and again, but its not particularly something I’d prioritise.

Comment by johng — 13 February, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
johng @82. Sorry, thought you were having a dig (which is perfectly acceptable, btw).

I think I may need to “contextualise”. I find discussions on religion come up at almost every point these days where there is a discussion around politics. Due to my work I’ve had the priviledge of travelling to Pakistan and India on a regular basis - so you can see that I may have more “opportunities” than most to raise the socialist banner.

I’m not trying to make left cover for those who want one. The example of Richard Seymour’s article in SW is what we need more of.

Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 13 February, 2008 @ 4:05 pm

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11 February, 2008

MUSLIMS UNDER ATTACK

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