THE Australian Federation of Islamic Councils has called for Muslims to be granted “legal pluralism” in Australia – but the Government will have none of that crap.
In its submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the Government’s new multiculturalism policy, the AFIC argued that a mild brand of sharia should be allowed in regard to family law and divorces, promising it would fit in with Australian values.
But Attorney-General Robert McClelland stomped on the request this week, arguing there was:
No place for sharia law in Australian society. As our citizenship pledge makes clear, coming to Australia means obeying Australian laws and upholding Australian values.
He also argued Australia’s brand of multiculturalism promotes integration.
If there is any inconsistency between cultural values and the rule of law then Australian law wins out.
McClelland is keen to assert Australia’s position as a “stable democracy” where “rule of law” underpins society.
People who migrate to Australia do so because of the fact that we have a free, open and tolerant society where men and woman are equal before the law irrespective of race, religious or cultural background.
But the AFIC argues that Muslims should enjoy “legal pluralism”.
The organisation’s President, Ikebal Adam Patel, who wrote the submission, nominated family law and specifically divorce as an area where moderate interpretations of sharia could co-exist within the Australian legal system.
Ikebal Adam Patel wants a touch of sharia to be applied in Australia
The submission says some Muslims believe Islamic law is immutable, regardless of history, time, culture and location. The AFIC argues this is not the case and sharia can be applied in a way that fits in to Australia and is not extreme.
This means most of the regulations in Islamic law may be amended, changed, altered, and adapted to social change … Islamic law is changeable according to the requirements of different places and times, and therefore suits the values shared by Australian people.
Patel added:
It is important for someone who is Muslim or a practising Jew that aspects of our religion which can be incorporated within the greater legal system are introduced. This is about personal issues about family, and won’t affect any other Australians.
There is a hint of blackmail in the submission. Patel said:
I’m saying that instead of letting the extremists within Islam take over the agenda, we are saying there is a path whereby it will work for all the communities in a moderate way.
The submission cites regulations governing Islamic finance and halal certification in Australia as examples of how legal pluralism can work.
It’s not only shariah-lite that the AFIC is demanding. According to this report:
The Government should invest in expanding services like halal and kosher meat and food outlets as well as faith-based schools … If the Government and politicians cannot recognise this as essential, it should no longer accuse the Australian Muslim community of intentionally living in enclaves.
Whilst on the subject of Islam, we should draw attention to a new Draw Mohamed Day event.
The organiser says:
It should be a collective badge of shame for our species that in this day and age, an age of space travel and genome sequencing, that you can still be sentenced to death merely for saying what you think about a religion. This year in Pakistan, that’s exactly what happened: this is clearly a problem that needs to be addressed … About one in six on this planet are adherents to Islam, and Islam is the only religion that I know of that will:
• sentence people to death for blasphemy.
• have riots of thousands that will burn down embassies over cartoons.
• threaten the lives of cartoonists to the point where the threats are so credible that people have to go into hiding.
• that will have their leadership pull the plug on entire aspects of the internet because they fear the irrational response of their Islamic practitioners.
• that will have leaders of large Islamic countries suggest that merely burning the Koran would constitute a ‘threat to global peace’.History shows us that the incremental actions of thousands CAN change the views of great civilizations. It is time for us to realize that there is a problem, and our collective actions can apply a social pressure to significantly diminish the above detrimental attributes of Islam.
This is why Draw Mohammad Day is returning.No more shall free men and women be intimidated into silence by the irrational and violent behavior of religious practitioners.
Hat tip: Bill Murray (sharia report) and Great Satan
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
May 18th, 2011 at 10:11 am
Well done Australia!
If the muslims don’t wish to intergrate, then the answer is simple, piss off back to the middle east.
If only the spineless, pathetic, cowering politicians in Europe could look and learn from this. I can only hope.
May 18th, 2011 at 10:33 am
“Islamic law is changeable according to the requirements of different places and times”
Indeed, just as arbitrary as the wider fairy tale.
“The Government should invest in expanding services like halal and kosher meat and food outlets as well as faith-based schools”
Make allowances, provide special services and indoctrination centres to propagate the rot.
“If the Government and politicians cannot recognise this as essential, it should no longer accuse the Australian Muslim community of intentionally living in enclaves”
Living in enclaves and not integrating by choice does not qualify you for special treatment. If Sharia is essential to your life it might be better to emigrate to Saudi Arabia.
May 18th, 2011 at 10:51 am
I’m just curious how Australian law is inadequate for Muslims. I’m sure Australian law is based on the basic principles of equality and justice.
So is it that the equality is problem for them. Do they want rights of some subgroups within their group to be set aside? Of course, that’s a rhetorical question. I already know the answer.
It’s time for these Muslims to grow up, and put aside their caveman bullshit.
May 18th, 2011 at 10:54 am
At this moment, only the populists in Europe are warning for creeping sharia. In Holland this means Geert Wilders, of course, and even though I don’t agree on too many issues with him, he does have a point. I for one wouldn’t like to live in a country like Iran, Saudi Arabie or Afghanistan.
For anyone interested: http://www.nu.nl/column/251768.....haria.html
May 18th, 2011 at 11:28 am
Not sure about the ‘piss off back to Middle East’ argument. On that basis, shouldn’t all Oz Catholics go back to Rome rather than use their quaint beliefs to block assisted dying, abortion and almost everything else? And the Aborigines could just ask everyone else to go back to an English jail.
That said, odd that on the one hand Muslims say there’s no law but Allah and true Muslims should obey that over the law of the land they’re in, on the other they’re happy to use the law of the land to bag a few privileges for anyone who can swallow their brand of hocus-pocus.
May 18th, 2011 at 11:51 am
WTF? Are they saying that the government should build well-appointed enclaves and lock them Muslims in them? Or will they sort of drift into them by accident, rather than intent? And share them with Jews?!!!?
As for Sharia-lite, I think
can be understood as meaning “will be interpreted, applied and enforced as widely and vigorously as we can get away with at a particular place and time”.
May 18th, 2011 at 11:53 am
@Tony e: Well said, I can’t top that.
May 18th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
“I’m saying that instead of letting the extremists within Islam take over the agenda, we are saying there is a path whereby it will work for all the communities in a moderate way.”
Communities do not (or should not) have rights. Individuals have rights. By imposing extra-legal cultural requirements on individuals, the AFIC is trying to take away the rights of those individuals.
May 18th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
This is the same “seperate but equal” bullshit American racists tried to pull a generation ago.
May 18th, 2011 at 7:41 pm
You have to admire the Australians for this kind of stance – come here because you like what our society has to offer, or feel free to choose to live somewhere that fits your needs/beliefs/politics/aspirations/way of life more closely.
I genuinely don’t believe it’s a racist or discriminatory stance (otherwise I’d be decrying it rather than supporting it). It’s just honest. It’s called common sense.
May 18th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
“It is important for someone who is Muslim or a practising Jew that aspects of our religion which can be incorporated within the greater legal system are introduced. This is about personal issues about family, and won’t affect any other Australians.”
Ah but it will affect the general populace as even the slightest application of religious law of any kind will mean that one group in society will be treated differently than the whole of society.
But that is the aim….very slow but gradual granting of rights and in time ….there will be full Sharia.
Reason is the only footing that should be considered as a base for law.
Laws cannot be based on mumbo jumbo from holy books.
May 18th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
After today’s fiasco with Ken Clark’s uncertainty on the severity of rape the idea of having legal pluralism sounds negatively disastrous. It would basically open a can of worms. A muslim women could become a criminal for “not submitting to her husband” religious backward thinking strikes again.
May 18th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Separate but equal. Hmmm, now where did I hear that before? Apartheid anyone?
May 19th, 2011 at 4:42 am
Would Muslims, anywhere in the world, accept me having my own legal system, apart from the one of the country that I am a citizen of?
The thing is that one can never get these guys to admit that they want special privileges that they will not allow others to have.
May 19th, 2011 at 4:50 am
Tony e. said:
“If the muslims don’t wish to intergrate, then the answer is simple, piss off back to the middle east.”
Newspaniard said:
“@Tony e: Well said, I can’t top that.”
Well I can’t disagree with either of you, directly, except that you are both hypocrits. You base on muslims because they believe in things unproven by science. You believe the universe is an accident, where is YOUR proof? You think that agnostics and humanists are somehow beneath you, but, you are wrong, intellectually they have left you behind, while you argue irrelevent points. The real issue is uniting freethinkers, and my experience is that atheists are arrogant opinionated assholes, who, when they lose a debate, resort to personal insults.
I just found a group of humanists in my city, and the founder is an atheist. He told me he chose the “humanist” banner because it is accepting of all freethinkers. I think I found my peer group.
With my best wishes for my critics to go fuck themselves.
NeoWolfe
May 19th, 2011 at 5:49 am
Muzzie countries seem to have issues with christians, women, gays etc living in their societies. Like the christians in Oz who are perhaps the most prodigious liars in the nation, these muzzie types are fibbing too, saying one thing but really meaning another with their fingers crossed behinf their backs and hoping that no one notices.
May 19th, 2011 at 7:41 am
@NeoWolfe:
This has little to do with hypocrisy, although I grant the word ‘back’ was misplaced.
Imagine a world divided into regions of ideology. If I, as an emancipated female atheist wish to live in a capitalistic, free4all, I can find one in Australia. If flat earthers wish to live in communes in forests, for them too there would be a place, and those wishing to live within religious conclaves may do so.
However, it is a prerequisite for this utopia that everyone and anyone is free to move from one to the other on the understanding that doing so shows a willingness to live according to the lights of that area.
If I move to Saudi Arabia, I must be willing to give up my drivers licence, hand my brain over to my guardian and remain covered from head to foot.
If I choose instead to lie on an Australian beach in a bikini, that too is my right, in Australia.
It is only by agreeing that we are all different, and accepting that there are places where norms and cultures are different that we can live fairly.
So yes, anyone wishing to live under the shari’ah should go to a sharia’ah area, and leave those of us who prefer freedom to submission our areas of what we term enlightenment.
One last thing – if the islamic/Arab countries lack facilities, food and medicine, do not blame their climate or geographical location look to Israel – that is what can be achieved when the people are willing to work together.
May 19th, 2011 at 11:24 am
Is it troll feeding day? Anyone?
May 19th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
“…my experience is that atheists are arrogant opinionated assholes, who, when they lose a debate, resort to personal insults…”
Priceless.
Hypocrit!
May 19th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Nice to see our government scraping this sharia shit into the toilet. Australian multi-culturalism is mostly a more benign kettle of fish than the British variety, which seems to be slowly but surely destroying your country.
May 19th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
@Bubblecar Those of us that voted in this current govenment are not a little disappointed. They seem more dhimmini than the last lot. State funding and encouragement for madrassas and other fundie schools. Unlimited immigration from fundie countries. Acceptance of sharia “under certain circumstances” instead of one law for all. No deportation of convicted criminals. Huge amounts of aid to countries, like Pakistan who stick the finger up to us while we cut aid to domestic charities. Need I go on?
May 19th, 2011 at 11:54 pm
If Western governments didn’t have ‘multiculturalism policies’,Islamists wouldn’t find it so easy to push their agendas.