The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams gave an exclusive interview to BBC World Christopher Landau. Here is the transcript of the interview:

BBC: Is adoption of Sharia law really necessary for community cohesion?
Archbishop of Canterbury: It seems unavoidable and indeed as a matter of fact certain provisions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law. We already have in this country a number of situations in which the law--the internal law of religious communities--is recognised by the law of the land as justifying conscientious objections in certain circumstances. So I think we need to look at this with a clear eye and not imagine either that we know exactly what we mean by Sharia and just associate it with what we read about Saudi Arabia, or whatever.

One of the examples you give where Sharia might be applied in relation to marriage; what would that look like; what would that mean for example when a British Muslim woman suddenly chooses to settle a dispute via a Sharia route as opposed to the existing British legal system?
It’s very important that you mention here the word ’choice’; I think it would be quite wrong to say that we could ever licence, so to speak, a system of law for some community which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens in general, so that a woman in such circumstances would have to know that she was not signing away anything for good and all.
I’m simply saying that there are ways of looking at marital dispute, for example, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them. In some cultural and religious settings they would seem more appropriate.

Is part of the challenge that Sharia is regarded as it is? For example the European Court of Human Rights says quite simply its view is that Sharia is incompatible with democracy and therefore it would be very difficult to see it incorporated in any meaningful way?
I think there is a real question about how the discourse of human rights relates to traditional idioms of Islamic law; a real discussion, and there’s a lot of literature about that, but I don’t think we should instantly spring to the conclusion that the whole of that world of jurisprudence and practice is somehow monstrously incompatible with human rights simply because it doesn’t immediately fit with how we understand it, and as I said earlier, it’s not something that’s absolutely peculiar to Islam.
We have orthodox Jewish courts operating in this country; not to mention the issues as I mentioned earlier--not to mention the questions about how the consciences of Catholics, Anglicans and others who have difficulty about issues like abortion are accommodated within the law; so the whole idea that there are perfectly proper ways in which the law of the land pays respect to custom and community; that’s already there.
And your concern is that that is in some ways under threat; the ability of religious people to be true to their faith as well as true to their role as a citizen in the secular state?
I think at the moment there’s a great deal of confusion about this; a lot of what’s been written whether it was about the Catholic church adoption agencies last year, sometimes what’s written about Jewish or Muslim communities; a lot of what’s written suggests that the ideal situation is one in which there is one law and only one law for everybody; now that principle that there’s one law for everybody is an important pillar of our social identity as a Western liberal democracy, but I think it’s a misunderstanding to suppose that means people don’t have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society and that the law needs to take some account of that.
An approach to law which simply said, ’There is one law for everybody and that is all there is to be said’. I think that’s a bit of a danger.

And that is why Sharia should have its place?
That is why there is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law as we already do with aspects of other kinds of religious law.

This comes in the context of very fraught debates about community cohesion. How is it achieved that Britain might move forward in that respect? How concerned are you about the state of that debate at the moment and how much do you agree with the statements by Bishop Nazir Ali in relation to ’no go areas’?
We have got a fragmented society at the moment. Now I think there would be a way of talking about the law being more positive about religious communities that might be seen as deepening or worsening that fragmentation.
I don’t want to see that. I do want us to have a proper way of talking about shared citizenship, whatever we say about religious allegiance we have to have that common ground and we have to know what belongs there. When people have talked about mutual isolation of communities, sadly there are some communities where that looks as if it’s true.
I think it is not at all the case that we have absolute mutual exclusion. But we have a lot of social suspicion, a lot of distance, and we just need to go on looking at how that shared citizenship comes through.

In the end, do you think that some people might be surprised to hear that a Christian Archbishop is calling for greater consideration of the role of Islamic law?
People may be surprised but I hope that that surprise will be modified when they think about the general question of how the law and religious community, religious principle, are best, most fruitfully, accommodated. What we don’t want I think is either a stand-off where the law, if you like, squares up to religious consciences over something like abortion or indeed by forcing a vote on some aspects of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the Commons--as it were a secular discourse saying ’we have no room for conscientious objections’; we don’t want that, we don’t either, I think, want a situation where because there’s no way of legally monitoring what communities do, making them part of public process, people do what they like in private in such a way that becomes another way of intensifying oppression within a community and that happens; that happens.
So how does the law engage critically and intelligently--the law of the land--with the custom, the imperatives, the principles of distinctive religious communities? It’s a large question, much larger than the question about Islam and I think it’s a question which the Church can quite reasonably be involved in thinking about.
BBC.CO.UK

Turkish Islamist women hold placards reading, "Do not touch my headscarf" and "Headscarf is God's order" during a demonstration in support of a government plan to lift a ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities in Istanbul.

Hijab, the head cover Muslim women wear in keeping with their religious traditions, has become in modern times a politically charged issue in several Muslim countries, and more recently in Europe. In the early eighties, Iran imposed hijab on its female citizens, while Syria banned it from schools during the same period.
Syria gradually came to term with the hijab, as the number of Syrian women who chose to wear it increased drastically during the nineties. Hijab is enforced today in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and banned in Turkey. France banned the hijab in 2004, and far right politicians and pundits are calling for similar ban in other European countries, and have already succeeded in doing so in the Belgium city of Antwerp.
The Turkish parliament passed last week a constitutional amendment that practically repealed early constitutional provisions that allowed the Turkish government to ban the hijab from government buildings, universities, and schools in the late nineties.
Although the lifting of ban is not in force yet, the confrontation over this issue with secularists who control the military and the courts has already started. Secularist Turks are up in arms, protesting the new amendment, and preparing to challenge it in court.
The debate over the hijab is emotionally charged, with secular Turks presenting the move as the first step toward ending democracy in Turkey and forcing all Turkish women to wear headscarf. This alarmist language has clouded the debate and created a sense of panic, as the choices presented are based on the logic of either/or, as if the only choices society can make is that between banning or enforcement the hijab.
These are of course false choices, as society can choose neither to ban nor enforce. The third choice is the one available to women in most Muslim countries. In most societies, the decision to wear headscarf, or to take it off, is a personal choice.
Yet, the real problem is not in the decision a woman makes, but in the politicization of that decision. The problem lies in the moral inconsistency and the use of double standards in addressing an issue concerning individual choice and freedom of expression.
The only morally defendable position is in denying the state the right to either force or prohibit people to follow practices they genuinely believe to be required by their religious traditions, particularly when these practices do not violate the rights of others.
The argument to ban hijab often rests on a paternalistic attitude derived from the dominant position enjoyed by the group to which the person who advocate the hijab ban belongs. For decades now, anti hijab writers refused to consider it as a personal choice and an individual right, protected under international humanitarian law.
The argument is both flawed and sexist. It is flawed because it can be equally used to undermine the right of women who chose not to wear hijab by those who could argue that the latter style of dressing is not a personal choice, but is rather influenced by the dominant culture. The argument is, more importantly, sexist as it assumes that women cannot have a mind of their own, and are always vulnerable to manipulation by male members of their society.
Even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that the above assertion is correct, then the remedy cannot by banning the hijab and denying women the right of personal choices, in violation of equal protection of the law. The remedy must rely on persuasion, education, and enactment of laws that would empower women to act on their on volition, instead of being forced by the state to wear the headscarf or take it off.
What is provocative is not that Muslim women are choosing to wear the hijab, but that there are still individuals that lay claim to intellectualism who, in keeping with orietalist strategies, continue to deal with the follower of the Islamic faith as silent objects of research that can be described and analyzed, but never allowed to define themselves in their own voices.
Politicians and pundits who question the right of Muslim women to practice their faith do not only ignore the leadership role they play, but also fail to recognize their capacity to be inspired by their faith.
The claim that hijab is worn today by the oppressed women is seriously flawed, and is remnant of the 19th century orientalism. Many women who chose hijab today are highly educated and actively involved in public life. They include lawyers, journalists, politicians, directors of non-profit organizations, human rights advocates, professors, and leaders of religious groups and grassroot organizations.
It is about time that Muslim women’s personal choices are respected and their voices are heard.
MIDDLE-EAST-ONLINE.COM

A corruption scandal related to a 2006 energy deal has led to the resignation of three ministers, including the PM in Tanzania. This is being portrayed as the government getting tough on graft, but could equally well reflect a weakening of the president’s position within the ruling party.
The prime minister and two senior government ministers resigned on February 7th in the second high-profile anti-corruption scandal to hit Tanzania in two months.
The resignation of Edward Lowassa (the premier), Nazir Karamagi (energy) and Idrissa Msabaha (minister for East African Cooperation but previously responsible for the energy portfolio) followed the submission of a parliamentary report criticising their role in the so-called Richmond affair.
In 2006, facing a drought that reduced the capacity for hydroelectric power generation and led to the introduction of power rationing, the government awarded US-based Richmond Development Company a contract to supply 100 megawatts of emergency power.
The deal, worth a reported US$172m, proved controversial, however, with concerns soon arising about apparent contraventions of official tendering procedures and the failure to insist on a performance bond.
A parliamentary committee set up in November 2007 to investigate the contract has also criticised the arrangement. Richmond, which failed to deliver the 100 mw of power (and subsequently sold the tender to United Arab Emirates based Dowans Holdings), “lacked experience, expertise and was financially incapacitated“, according to the committee head, Harrison Mwakyembe.
The committee’s report criticises the lack of transparency in the contract process, as well as the role of senior government officials, including Mr Lowassa, in the process. For their part all three officials deny any wrongdoing, and claim that the committee has misled parliament.
The report comes at a time when Tanzania’s president, Jakaya Kikwete, is looking to strengthen the government’s reputation as regards corruption: the central bank governor, Daudi Ballali, was sacked in December after an audit exposed fraudulent transactions involving the repayment of external debts. The resignations will bolster Mr Kikwete’s argument that he is committed to tackling graft. It is less certain, however, that they will enable the government to emerge from the scandal quickly, allowing it to focus clearly on its goals of boosting economic growth and cutting poverty.
The loss of the three ministers could equally well reflect a weakening of the president’s position in the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, since Lowassa was a close political acquaintance. Factions in the ruling party became apparent in a recent battle for positions in the CCM Secretariat, during which some of Kikwete’s key allies were replaced.
This underscored the fact that, whatever the president’s intentions, the scope for rapid reform of the CCM is limited, especially as influential figures within the party have large support bases. The enforced cabinet reshuffle--due to be completed within days--will provide further evidence of the shifts in the CCM’s internal power struggle.
Donors are paying close attention to the repercussions of the Richmond contract; Tanzania has been one of the principal beneficiaries of the rise in aid flows to Africa, and donor funds account for an average of 40% of the government’s budget.
Donors have become more critical in the past year, and have sought political accountability following allegations of high-level corruption. The resignations and the sacking of Mr Ballali in December should have provided this.
It is much more likely, however, that they will welcome the government’s action on graft, and continue providing generous amounts of assistance.
ECONOMIST.COM