Sir John and the Jihad

Two news articles got my attention this week. One was about John Howard (groan! hasnt' he disappeared yet?) and the other was about Islamic law in the UK.


First to John Howard. Apparently there are rumours going around that he's about to be knighted by the Queen. Sir John. My first reaction was "Oh God not another John Howard story!" I really am sick of hearing about this man. Now that he's lost the election I was hoping that there would be a Howard-free zone for at least a few more months. But it seems that's not to be - he's still regularly making it into the news.

I hope this rumour is false. It's far too soon to talk about giving him a knighthood. For a start, his time in office is still very recent. It's too soon for his legacy to be judged impartially, to see if he actually merits the honour. For what its worth, I think his first two terms (1996-2001) were competent to average. If he'd lost in 2001 he'd have gone down in history as unremarkable. After 2001, though, I think he and his government went from average to bad and then after 2004 to out-of-control. His legacy from this time will ensure his place in history, and not just as our second longest serving prime minister. The policies implemented during this time were controversial to say the least. In my opinion, many of them have damaged Australia - the rule of law, democracy, reputation, social cohesion, and so on. In some respects an over-reaction was natural after the September 11 attacks. But that over-reaction continued was too long and did too much damage. I think John Howards legacy will come to be seen as largely negative due to his actions since 2001.

Overall, then, I'd say he doesn't deserve a knighthood. And certainly he shouldn't get one yet, until some time has passed and we can all be a bit more impartial in judging him.

The other story was from the UK, where Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury) seems to have claimed that some elements of Islamic law should be included into the laws of England.

At first I thought this was a bit of a beat-up, with the whole thing being taken out of context. But it seems that he did actually raise the idea of recognising some aspects of Sharia law into the civil law of the UK. He said this would be in the interests of social cohesion and help with community relations in integrating the large and growing Islamic community.

Personally I think its a bad idea. I don't think any specifically religious laws should be included into the law of the state, even (or especially) if they're only designed to apply to one group of people. I think that's a dangerous path to go down.

In my opinion, the state law should be as neutral as possible when it comes to religion and religious rules. It should create an area of legal space in which everyone is judged by the same rules and has equal rights before the law. It should be a space that everyone in the country can recognise as the basis of pretty much all interactions.

After that, if people choose to live to a higher standard (Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, whatever...) that is up to them. If these people then choose to apply the standards of their religion to interactions between themselves, that's fine with me. That only applies, of course, if all the people involved choose freely to apply those standards. If there's any dispute about that, then the state law is the area to resolve these problems. It can't be used to enforce purely religious standards if a person chooses not to submit to those standards - that's a matter of conscience.

So if religious groups in the UK want to set up their own religious courts, that's fine. But they should have no legal standing in the wider civil law system. Any issue that falls under the wider civil law should still be dealt with that way. If people then choose to follow an extra religious judgement, that's their right but should not be their obligation.

So - incorporating religious law into the basic law of the land is a bad idea. I'm not surprised that the Archbishop has got a lot of criticism. At best his ideas were poorly expressed. At worst, I think they were pretty silly.