Bishoprick

by Jura Watchmaker, 7 February 2008

In a very real sense, some sharia law may be unavoidable in the UK, says the Most Reverend Dr Rowan Williams, Archbeard of All England. The Prime Minister says “Noooo”.

Comments

  1. graeme

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 19:20

    What a bunch of guff over nothing. The comments on the BBC Have Your Say site are a lot of filth. Take this one, from Stephen Stone in Caerphilly:

    “if these foreigners dont want to live under our laws and rules tell them go live somewhere else. I would rather live under the nazis than under any islamic law. I am surprised that a man of the church of england is even considering this after all under islamic law he would be stoned to death for even considering any other religion or way of live and thought that he would be duty bound to prevent these barbarians from taking over our country in this way.”

    From his talk of “barbarians”, I suspect that he’d rather live under the Nazis because he’s one himself. Lots of other pish on there about whites being minorities in their own country. It’s of course all a lot of hysteria over nothing as the idea is a complete political non-starter–it isn’t just Gordo who thinks that Rowan Williams is talking out of his beardy arse.

  2. hakmao

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 19:23

    I’ve just heard the fuckwit (Williams) on BBC News 24 saying ‘the law of the Church of England is the law of the land’–and that is to this country’s eternal shame.

    It’s not a matter, as some muppets will surely assert, of rejecting religious law for minorities, but rejecting all religious law.

    Human laws for human beings! May the last king be strangled with the guts of the last priest–and soon.

  3. Will

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 19:26

    The Arch Bish stuff on Sharia will create a frenzy at HP sauce.

    They will be swarming like fuck.

    Like summer flies around a huge dog turd.

    Bashing the bishop in group formation. All the racists will come out to play. Just like that.

  4. Will

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 19:29

    PS. Gordon Brown’s spokesman can kiss my sweet arse with his ‘law based on British values’ shit.

  5. hakmao

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 19:34

    They will be swarming like fuck

    [checks] … yep, they are. It’s not the CofE, but [guess who] who are the problem.

  6. Jura Watchmaker

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 19:37

    I agree with Graeme that this is a bunch of guff about nothing. What gets me is Williams’ ineptitude.

    On Radio 4 earlier there were commentators being overly charitable toward the bishop, and claiming that he was attempting to stimulate a much needed debate. Well, it’s a funny old way of going about it, as we’ve seen from the reaction from politicians, the BBC Have Your Say crowd and - joy of joys - Harry’s Place.

    The Great British Angst - don’t you just love it?

  7. george s

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 20:48

    I think it might be taking ecumenicism a little too far.

  8. Scoop Shachtman

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 21:41

    The Archbishop has had the opposite effect to what he probably intended. He could be accused of stoking the fires of bigotry, in much the same way as a Mark Steyn article about Eurabia does.

  9. Gadgie

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 22:16

    Man in skirt talks bollocks.

    Gobshites spread more bollocks all over the place.

    “DRINK!”

  10. Jura Watchmaker

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 22:21

    “DRINK!”

    Unfortunately not until tomorrow, oh plump one. But thanks all the same.

  11. Jura Watchmaker

    Thursday 7 February 2008 at 22:48

    Sometimes the dirt is best left undisturbed.

  12. Will

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 0:55

    Lazy teacher who gets loads of holidays in the summer also speaks on the matter at hand.

  13. Jura Watchmaker

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 1:10

    IN PRAISE OF ROWAN: ECUMENICAL

  14. Will

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 1:28

    Jimbo speaks!

  15. Brendan O'Bollocks

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 1:55

    Next on Spiked…

    Frank Furedi on why Rowan Williams is right

  16. Will

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 2:01

    Next on Spiked — how knitting the eyebroos of Rowan Williams negates the environmentalist nazis.

  17. Will

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 3:02

    HP Sauce fuckers are really, really racist cunts.

    Any chance they get — it’s Muslim this and Muslim that.

    Dirt. Trample upon. Push the dirt down.

  18. Will

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 3:10

    Alec Macpherson — I especially hate that cunt.

    I hate him. Hate him. Hate.

    Not more than the rest of them. I just hate the fucker.

    alec macpherson

  19. Will

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 3:15

    On an internet scale of hate — i hate the fucker real bad.

    The fucker makes me hate really bad.

    Not just him, but all of the scum who congregate around that filthy, stupid bloggox piece of manure online bullshit they convene around.

    Hate. Hate Hate.

    alec macpherson

  20. dirigible

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 10:31

    graeme: It’s of course all a lot of hysteria over nothing as the idea is a complete political non-starter

    It doesn’t look like a non-starter. Canada is a (brief) precedent and private Sharia courts are already in operation in the UK. Making it appear a starter isn’t going to exactly discourage the few nutters who want to force it to start.

    And it isn’t enough simply to say the opposite of what idiots say.

    scoop: The Archbishop has had the opposite effect to what he probably intended.

    The satanic-looking serial prevaricator and wannabe theocrat has had precisely the effect he wanted. Now watch him ride the backlash to precisely where he wants to be.

  21. Jura Watchmaker

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 10:36

    What the fuck’s going on here? I turn my back for five minutes, and a playground fight breaks out.

    [no it hasn’t as the offending vermin has been deleted]

    I’ll not comment on Mssrs Rubbish vs [TWAT] as I haven’t a clue what’s going on there. Yes, I know I set a dangerous precedent in the blogosphere in taking this line, but that’s that.

    [do not offer anything by way of encouragement to the rats]

    I do, however, object to you using the comments box of my posts - and this one has led to some excellent one-liners - to pick fights like this. And although our Will has his quirks [ooo err missius don’t we all], he is my friend.

  22. Jura Watchmaker

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 10:48

    dirigible - are you as capable of rational influence as your name would imply?

    In the longer post I put up on my own site (link above), I expressed the view that Williams was actually making some good points. It’s just the way he does it that leaves a lot to be desired.

    Law is a contract between the individual and the group, and the group can be the state or another, less formal body to which the individual gives allegiance. I see no problem in any community establishing courts of arbitration to settle matters of concern to its members. We do this all the time in liberal democratic societies, and it generally (but not always) works well.

    The key is individual consent as well as community assent, and that is the problem with sharia. Women in Islam - unless they have independent means, and possibly aluminium-reinforced baseball bats or something even more robust - are going to have a difficult time in any sharia system unless it is so tightly regulated by the state that it no longer has any credibility as a community arbitration system, and the state becomes compromised by association with sectarian interests.

    Williams satanic-looking? Give us a break! The man is a brilliant moral philosopher and a bungling leader. I do not know the man personally, but we have had mutual friends and associates. The consensus view is that the archbishop is incapable of such Machiavellian scheming as you describe. He has the quality of mind necessary for this, but it’s just not his thing.

  23. Will

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 13:54

    From here
    “Then again, to treat individuals solely on the basis of their presumed religious identity is reductive - and patronising - in the extreme. Is the identity of ‘Muslim’ - whether adopted voluntarily or attributed by others - to be privileged above other identities - including that of British citizen? And what about those who are identified as Muslims but wish to have nothing to do with a legal code which, for all its trumpeted benefits, is undoubtedly patriarchal and illiberal?

    As I argued here, many of Williams’ recent statements reflect the same kind of envy/fascination with Islam to be found in the writings of other erstwhile liberal christians such as Madeleine Bunting, Karen Armstrong and William Dalrymple, in which a bend-over-backwards spirit of ‘understanding’ towards other religionists (however illiberal) overrides any lingering commitment to universal liberal principles. The Archbishop’s statement today - like his argument last week for a new, improved law of blasphemy - is yet more evidence of his dangerous political naivety and further ammunition for those who wish to see religion’s privileged role in the public square reduced.”

  24. dirigible

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 14:17

    I agree entirely with your clear and concise appraisal of the social contract of law, the status of non-state arbitration, and how it is the question of voluntary submission of the individual that is the problem for Sharia.

    If Dr. Williams is genuinely incapable of being machiavellian I’m sorry for making a false allegation.

    I don’t think he makes good points, rather that he tends to start with something no reasonable person could disagree with. I defer to Butterflies and Wheels regarding his brilliance or otherwise as a moral philosopher.

    As for not looking satanic:

  25. dirigible

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 14:18

    As for not looking satanic:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/graphics/2006/10/07/edchurch07.jpg

  26. Will

    Friday 8 February 2008 at 15:00

    A wonder has Mr Williams never herd of scissors and that like.

    ‘e could tow a fucking ship with them eyebroos. (If he wanted to like).

  27. Will

    Saturday 9 February 2008 at 0:44

    Tee hee
    http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/what-a-burkha/

  28. Barbara Meinhoff

    Saturday 9 February 2008 at 20:53

    Bish said that (in advocating some role for Sharia), Britain must seek to overcome ‘the European notion (added sneering at western imperial presumptiousness) of Universal Human Rights’.

    Except it wasn’t a European notion.

    One of its earliest incarnations was set down by Emporer Ashoka a good 500 years before Jesus was even born (so its isn’t judeo-christian), and - as the recent documentary on India with Michael Wood claimed - the first secular constitution - where all faiths were respected but all were ruled under the authority of a (essentially secular) king and laws.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edicts_of_Ashoka

    So when he claims Universal human rights are a European notion, he’s actually ignoring a whole history of struggles against religion throughout the east and across the world.

    RACIALIST!