For centuries, the principle of equality before the law for all citizens has been at the heart of our society. It has been one of the cornerstones of our liberty, stretching back to the time of Magna Carta.
Now, thanks to the pernicious doctrine of multi-culturalism, it is under attack as never before. In a political climate of craven appeasement towards Muslim extremism, the Islamification of our country is steadily accelerating.Across large swathes of urban Britain, Muslim practices, customs, schooling and dress-codes now prevail. But perhaps the most dramatic indicator of this process comes from the West Yorkshire town of Dewsbury, where Muslim elders have decided to set up their own Islamic court to impose Sharia law in civil disputes within their communities. Crucial issues such as divorce and child custody are settled by a panel of four senior Muslim clerics and scholars.The age-old British attachment to trial by jury or by magistrates is at risk from an utterly alien Islamic code imported from regions far less civilised and democratic than our own. Effectively, the integrity of British law has been eclipsed in parts of Dewsbury by quasi-judicial religious zealotry.In this once proud Yorkshire mill town, there are now two legal systems in operation for civil matters, one for Muslims and one for the rest of the population.This is a recipe for more division in a place already notorious for its links to fanatical Islam. Dewsbury was, after all, the home town of Mohammed Siddique Khan, the leader of the July 7 suicide bombers.The establishment of Sharia law will only increase the trend towards Muslim separatism.The Government is partly to blame as its enthusiastic promotion of the dogma of cultural diversity has encouraged ethnic minority groups to cling to their own traditions rather than embrace Britain’s.But the self-styled community leaders of Dewsbury are also displaying a repellent arrogance towards British law, which they seem to believe is inferior to their own code. Well, if they really think Sharia law is better than our own, why don’t they go and live in some brutal theocracy such as Saudi Arabia rather than trying to destroy the judicial fabric of Britain?It is sickening that they want to have it both ways:enjoying the fruits of our prosperous society while demanding that their superstitious, barbaric, misogynistic ideology be given official legal status. Indeed, it is this misogyny that is perhaps the most sinister aspect of the arrival of Sharia law in Britain.For the Islamic code enshrines the institutional oppression of women, treating them as second-class citizens.A wife mistreated or beaten by her spouse is hardly likely to receive much justice from the bearded patriarchs of an Islamic court, for whom anti-female discrimination is part of their theology.It is telling that when there was a proposal to introduce Sharia law for Muslims in Ontario, Canada, the most vociferous opposition came from female Muslim immigrants who had fled from states such as Iran."I came here to escape Sharia law," said one Iranian exile. "Under it, a woman is worth half a man.She has no rights."Thankfully, even in politically correct Canada, the proposition was quashed.But Britain under Blair is less robust.For the Sharia court in Dewsbury will not be an isolated case. With our Government too enfeebled to challenge it, the idea will spread.Other Muslim neighbourhoods will start to impose Islamic rules.And the scope of the Sharia judges will be expanded far beyond mere matrimonial and child custody disputes. This could be just the first step towards the creation of localised Taliban regimes in Muslim areas of British cities, enforcing their own distorted moral codes, clamping down on alcohol, imposing new forms of censorship, promoting anti-western attitudes and peddling yet more grievances against the British state.Lurking in the background is the threat of terrorism if demands for special treatment are not met.MJ Akbar, a Muslim scholar, recently made this menacing comment on any attempt to resist Sharia law: "A Muslim does not have to live in a Muslim state but he must have the right to live by his divine law.If that is denied then he is in Dar al Harb or the House of War and jihad becomes obligatory upon him."Muslims continually bleat about so-called "Islamophobia" but the isolation they experience from mainstream society is of their own making.British society has bent over backwards to accommodate Islam. We now have state-funded Muslim schools and Muslim-friendly mortgages. Mosques have been erected across Britain while, unlike in France, the hijab headscarf is allowed in schools.Only last week, the Government announced that it is planning to introduce Islamic-compliant security bonds in the City.But none of this is ever good enough.The more we fall to our knees, the more emboldened radical Muslims become. That is because we have made the grievous error of thinking that Islam is another religion, like Christianity or Buddhism, based on the individual relationship between the believer and God.In reality Islam, certainly in its modern manifestation, is as much an aggressive political ideology as a faith.The religious and the political realms are merged under Islam, which prescribes a mode of governance for society.That is why Muslim states are so authoritarian.And it is also why the advent of Sharia law in Britain is so terrifying.It will bring about the end of liberal democracy unless it is stopped.The misguided creed of anti-racist tolerance could herald a dark new era of judicial intolerance.
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