Until a couple of weeks ago, the province of Ontario was preparing to permit religious arbitration in civil matters to Muslim parties who agreed to it. Critics suggested this was the implementation of Sharia law in Canada, but the scope of it was never really that radical. Today in Ontario, Jewish courts and Catholic annulment panels can resolve disputes that, after thirty days, take legal force. All that was being considered was granting the same rights to Muslim clerics. In all cases, religious arbitration must conform to the Canadian charter of rights.
Soon after the province began to float this idea, there began protests by feminist groups as well as Canadian Muslim women, who fear the possibility of discriminatory practices regarding divorce and inheritance rights (which were very progressive 1300 years ago, but not so much today.) The response of premier Dalton McGuinty was to remove all religious arbitration – even the Jewish and Catholic forms that have been present in the province for generations.
Canada is a strange country in this regard. It works hard to allow individual cultures to flourish within the polity. It does this in a number of ways –aboriginals, for example, possess various fishing, taxation, and land rights. The provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick offer linguistic environments that permit the French language to survive. The Federal and provincial governments sponsor “multiculturalism” groups and events in order to allow minorities to retain their distinctive character past one or two generations.
On the other hand, the country is committed both to egalitarianism and equality. Many women’s’ groups shuddered at even the idea that a religious legal system with a pattern of reduced rights for women in some countries would get a foothold here. Personally, I thought it a bit alarmist. The government could have slowed things down, and brought women’s groups into the process of designing how this arbitration could work. A made in Canada solution has worked before.
As a result, I wonder if perhaps we are watching the threads of multiculturalism begin to unravel. Governments have become perhaps too convinced that multiculturalism means exotic foods, weird dances, and odd but quaint rituals. It does not mean that, and they do not understand their own country if they believed that. Multiculturalism has meant allowing people to bring some of their self-conception to our shores. In the case of Muslims, an important part of that is using the principles of Islam in government.
However, there is no question that it is Muslim women themselves who have been most vocal about the question of religious arbitration. One has to think they have reasons, as they have more experience than anyone. But it is those of us who are Catholic and Jewish who are paying the price…
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Sharia
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5 comments:
You must admit the Muslim religion is rather sexist. I've have been witness to it at my local dry cleaners.
Well the interesting thing about any religion is that they don't tend to be fixed things. Islam has five pillars - if you accept them, you are a muslim.
1. Strict belief in a oneness of God, and the acceptance of Mohammed as last messenger of that God.
2. You must say the prayers.
3. You must tithe;
4. Fast
5. Make the pilgrimmage to Mecca.
Now within that realm is vast room for interpretation. There are ultra-lefty Muslims of the Irshad Manji variety, and of course the Taliban extreme too.
But in the sense that fudamentalism has been ascendant in many Muslim communities, there can be doubt of that. And it is undisputable that few Arab-Muslim countries grant full rights to women.
However, that may be more specific to their culture, and also in the militant environment that has arisen in Pakistan. Malaysia, for instance, is a fairly egalitarian society, by third world standards.
It is interesting to note that Iraq was probably the first country in the world to fully realize equality of the sexes. There were few other rights - but womens' rights were well established. However, Iraq was a secular socialist republic, and not an Islamic country, technically.
I don't understand why it's not possible to have both... If someone from a Muslim community doesn't want to abide by the Sharia decision, why can't she go to the secular court as an alternative?
Thanks once again E. My knowlege is limited and all you tell me helps educate me so that I might better understand.
Irina: it is exactly as you say. Religious arbitration is currently only applied in those cases where both parties request it. The concern, however, is that men would pressure women into going the religious route, and question their faith if they did not.
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