It’s hard to understand why elements in the secular Western world have started looking for religious-law courts parallel to existing legal systems.
On the one hand, most Western countries long ago battled with their own Christian heritage and separated church and state. But now, on the other hand, some seem to be inviting other religions to poke into state affairs.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, recently offered short-sighted advice to British society when he said the United Kingdom had to “face up to the fact” that some citizens do not relate to its legal system. Williams attracted worldwide criticism after seeming to support the introduction of Islamic Shariah law in the Great Britain.
Even if some citizens do not relate to existing Western legal systems -- whether in Britain or in Canada -- should a country adopt a different system for them -- especially one that is religion-based?
In Canada, we are facing similar issues in the name of multiculturalism and political correctness. That’s why we hear the mantra of Islamic Shariah, for example, in proposals for Islamic family courts and in organizational research into Islamic banking.
It’s a pity human rights commissions in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta accepted complaints from Islamists against Maclean’s magazine for publishing Mark Steyn’s article, The Future Belongs to Islam, and against publisher Ezra Levant for reprinting Danish newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. (The complaint against Levant was recently withdrawn.)
Levant made a historic comment to the Alberta Human Rights Commission on Jan. 11: "... It is not I who am on trial: it is the freedom of all Canadians.”
I am glad to find that PEN Canada -- this country’s chapter of an international writers’ rights organization -- calls for changes to human rights commission legislation.
PEN Canada issued a statement recently that it “believes this is not the role of human rights commissions and that governments across the country need to make that clear both to their commissions and to Canadians.”
PEN Canada stated further, “neither Mr. Levant nor Maclean’s magazine and Mr. Steyn published anything that incited violence against the Muslim community although both have been subject of complaints to commissions. Nor did their comments violate anyone’s human rights.”
In an environment of political correctness, we need such a clear point of view.
Instead of kneeling to Islamists in Canada, we writers, journalists, artists, publishers and organizations working for free expression need to come up with a strong collective voice against any religious doctrine in our secular state laws.
Why don’t Canada’s Islamic communities understand that freedom of expression leads to new openings in old mythologies? That’s what the Prophet Muhammad himself did when he apparently hurt the people of his time by calling their beliefs mere lies. But actually Prophet Muhammad exercised his rights of freedom of expression in his full capacity.
But we must remember that the same rights are reserved for anyone who views any ideology as questionable.
Tahir Aslam Gora is a Pakistani-Canadian writer living in Burlington.