| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"nkdatta8839" |
| Date: |
04 Aug 2004 10:20:55 AM |
| Object: |
When The Koran Speaks, Will Canadian Law Bend? |
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/international/americas/04lett.html?pagewanted=1
When the Koran Speaks, Will Canadian Law Bend?
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
The NY Times
August 4, 2004
TORONTO, Aug. 3 - If the kimono or chicken curry eventually join the
maple leaf, the hockey stick and the beaver as Canadian icons, then so
be it. Thus goes the thinking of multiculturalism, the official
doctrine of the government for nearly 50 years, and by now a value
ingrained on the broader society.
The minaret has been welcome, too, in this otherwise secular society
where fewer and fewer people go to church but more than a hundred
mosques have cropped up in recent years.
But even here, tolerance has its limits, and the question of where to
draw the line can be a tricky one, especially when an increasing
number of immigrants come from societies with vastly different values.
A group called the Canadian Society of Muslims is testing those
boundaries by establishing the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice to
apply the legal code called Shariah, based on the Koran, to settle
disputes over property, inheritance, marriage and divorce.
The prospect of Shariah's operating openly here has already stirred a
powerful controversy centering on an uncomfortable issue for any
liberal society with an expanding Muslim population that now numbers
600,000: Can a predominately Judeo-Christian society trust Islamic
religious rules to protect the rights of all individuals?
The Muslim group is acting under an Ontario provincial law passed in
1991 that gave religious authorities the power to arbitrate civil
matters as long as the people seeking arbitration do so voluntarily
and are free to appeal those decisions in Canadian courts.
Under the law, Jews and Christians have settled a relatively narrow
number of issues without going through the courts. Rabbis have granted
religious divorces, decided on matters relating to kosher dietary laws
and arbitrated business disputes. Catholic couples have gone to
priests to annul marriages, while churches of various dominations have
settled disputes related to inappropriate behavior of ministers and
monetary disagreements within and between parishes.
But the Islamic Institute wants imams and other arbitrators to decide
a broader range of issues. For Syed Mumtaz Ali, 77, an India-born
Islamic lawyer and scholar who is the driving intellectual force
behind the institute, a Muslim cannot be a Muslim without following
Shariah.
"Basically, Muslims live a different kind of life from the Western
life, which is secular," he noted in an interview. "Everything we do
is governed by religious law." For Mr. Ali, it is perfectly acceptable
that a son receive twice the inheritance of a daughter and that a man
have the automatic right to divorce while a woman does not.
Muslim arbitrators have not made a single public decision yet, but
Canada would presumably never allow the stoning of adulterous women or
cutting off the hand of a thief, both allowable forms of punishment in
some Muslim societies under an extreme variation of Shariah.
Critics say that Shariah contradicts the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, Canada's bill of rights, which guarantees the equality of
men and women. Under Canadian family law, for instance, men and women
have equal rights to inheritance and property acquired during a
marriage.
Canadians voluntarily waive their legal rights all the time, but it is
the obligation of the courts to ensure that they have independent
legal advice before doing so. Critics of Shariah say Muslim women
would be deprived of their rights because, even after emigrating, they
frequently live in isolation from the broader society and are beholden
to men who routinely tell them what to do and say.
"I don't see how it can be voluntary," said Shahira Hafez, 53, an
Egyptian-born anesthesiologist and treasurer of the Toronto chapter of
the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, "when all these women from
Pakistan, India and Afghanistan are kept isolated in their own
communities, do not learn English and only deal with the outer society
through their husband and their husband's family."
As Mr. Mumtaz Ali sees it, there is no contradiction between being a
good Muslim and being a good Canadian. "Shariah has the elasticity to
adjust itself," he said, adding: "I draw the line where the Canadian
law asks me to do certain things. I have to obey Canadian law."
The late Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau dreamed of a Canada in
which distinctive customs and identities could live side by side in
harmony. Turning nationalism on its head, there would be no dominant
Canadian identity, no melting pot, no official culture.
H. Donald Forbes, a political science professor at the University of
Toronto, said he cannot be sure how Mr. Trudeau would have responded
to the idea of Shariah tribunals, "but I think he would go along." He
added that as long as the arbitration is voluntary, Mr. Trudeau would
probably have concluded that "this kind of meaningful accommodation
was in the spirit of multiculturalism."
Nevertheless, Shariah is not generally accepted in other Western
democracies, and some Canadian Muslim women - who say Muslim law is
already applied behind closed doors - say efforts to apply it openly
in Canada's most populous province would represent a dangerous
precedent.
"Here in Canada, girls are segregated from boys at private Islamic
elementary schools, then forced into arranged marriages through
Shariah at the age of 13, 14 or 15 to men over twice their age," said
Homa Arjomand, 52, an Iranian-born counselor for battered women. "How
much choice do these women have?"
In response to such concerns, the Ontario government has appointed
Marion Boyd, a feminist activist and former provincial cabinet member
to review the 1991 arbitration law.
It would not be the first time laws have changed to balance religion
and secular rights. A group of Canadian Jewish women pressed the
federal government in 1990 to enact a law to help Jewish women seeking
a religious divorce against recalcitrant husbands who under Orthodox
rules have the upper hand in such cases.
In the end the arbitration law may be revised to assure that
arbitrators are screened and trained, and that women entering
arbitration have sufficient counseling to understand their Canadian
rights. It may be narrowed to limit the powers of religious
arbitrators, excluding such sensitive issues as child support, alimony
and access to children in cases of divorce.
"How do we honor two commitments, to multiculturalism and equity to
the rule of law, that often seem to come into conflict?" asked Ms.
Boyd in an interview. "We have been struggling a bit. There really are
conflicting values.''
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| User: "Sir Circumference" |
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| Title: Re: When The Koran Speaks, Will Canadian Law Bend? |
04 Sep 2004 06:33:21 PM |
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nkdatta8839 wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/international/americas/04lett.html?pagewanted=1
When the Koran Speaks, Will Canadian Law Bend?
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
<snip>
Like I have stated, Islam and the rest of the world are not compatable.
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| User: "Casper" |
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| Title: Re: When The Koran Speaks, Will Canadian Law Bend? |
05 Sep 2004 10:16:06 AM |
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Your statement is not accurate. You should have stated: Religions and the
world are not compatible.
"Sir Circumference" <radiodaze@this.not> wrote in message
news:SvOdnYXC2tL7y6fcRVn-ow@gbronline.com...
nkdatta8839 wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/international/americas/04lett.html?pagewanted=1
When the Koran Speaks, Will Canadian Law Bend?
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
<snip>
Like I have stated, Islam and the rest of the world are not compatable.
.
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