The church should have the guts to sack the Archbishop…and pick a man who TRULY treasures British values
22:36pm 10th February 2008 
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is fighting for his professional life after saying that the application of Islamic Sharia law in this country was “unavoidable” and that it was not an “alien and rival system” to English law.The unprecedented outpouring of fury at his observations has caused people to question his fitness for office, with at least two members of the Synod already calling upon him to resign.
In his defence, his supporters claim the entire row has been got up by the “tabloid press”.
This old chestnut ignores the fact that people went ballistic straight after they heard Dr Williams say on the radio that the principle of one law for everybody was “a bit of a danger” – well before any newspapers even wrote their stories.
Welcoming Sharia law: Dr Rowan Williams
And now this lame self-justification has been blown out of the water by devastating criticism from his predecessor Lord Carey, who said Dr Williams had “overstated the case for accommodating Islamic legal codes” within British law, a move which would be “disastrous”.
This followed equally lethal criticism by the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who said sharia was “in tension” with fundamental principles of English law.
So much for the ludicrous claim that Sharia was not a “rival and alien system”.
What such critics understand only too well is the threat posed to this country by a brand of radicalised Islam, or Islamism, that wants to take it over.
As Lord Carey said, Dr Williams’s comments will embolden those Muslims in their attempt to turn Britain into a country ruled by Islamic law which contravenes human rights.
The only proper response to this threat is to say that not one inch of leeway will be given to it.
But, instead, the Archbishop has gone down on his knees to welcome it.
Astoundingly, he does not seem to understand that this country is being targeted by a pincer movement of terrorism and cultural takeover.
He does not seem to understand Sharia. And he does not seem to understand the role of his own religion in underpinning British laws, culture and society.
Certainly, the state should accommodate minority religious practices as long as they don’t contravene the law of the land – as this country does.
But that is entirely different from changing the law of the land to accommodate those practices or afford them equal status.
The former is the essence of a tolerant, pluralist society. The latter leads inexorably to the “multicultural” destruction of a society.
What’s more, it abandons those anti-Islamist British Muslims who, far from wanting-Sharia to be recognised, rely on English law to protect them from it – especially Muslim women whose second-class status under Islamic law subjects them to systematic injustice, violence and “honour killings”.
The reason why there has been such overwhelming outrage is that, despite the Prime Minister’s abrupt dismissal of the Archbishop’s views, British society is already being steadily Islamised with the Government’s tacit or even explicit approval.
Even though bigamy is a crime, the state is effectively endorsing polygamy by paying welfare benefits to the multiple wives of British Muslim men.
Gordon Brown has said he wants Britain to become the centre of global Islamic banking; Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states are buying up more and more British and Western companies, and we now have “Sharia-compliant” mortgages.
The imam of an Oxford mosque wants to broadcast an amplified call to prayer three times a day on the grounds that this is merely “the same as hearing church bells”.
In fact, the call to prayer is widely seen as a statement of the creed of Islam and as such is an attempt to Islamise Britain’s public space.
Sharia courts are dealing with Muslim criminals outside the criminal law; one reported case involved a gang of Somali youths who were allowed to go free after paying compensation to a teenager they had stabbed – with the police and courts apparently looking the other way.
And to cap it all, the Home Office is trying to censor the language by telling officials they must not use any derogatory words associated with Islam but refer instead merely to “violent extremism”.
Across the country, people are beside themselves about all this.
So when the Archbishop appeared to be endorsing sharia and calling for more, their anger not surprisingly erupted.
But Dr Williams doesn’t even seem to have the courage of his lack of convictions.
A statement on his website attempting to defend himself is disingenuous to the point of being downright misleading in trying to pretend he didn’t say what he actually had said.
It insists, for example, that he did not call for the introduction of Sharia as a parallel jurisdiction to the civil law.
But in his lecture, he said in terms that the state should recognise sharia as a “supplementary jurisdiction”, and that individuals should be able to choose which system they wanted.
That means two parallel systems with equal status.
Worse still, he actually advocated that English and Islamic law would thus “be forced to compete for the loyalty” of British Muslims – who were faced with the “stark alternatives” of allegiance to their culture or their country.
Alas, it is indeed the case that, according to Lord Carey, up to fully 60 per cent of British Muslims want to live under Sharia.
But is it not astonishing that the head of the Anglican church should effectively suggest as a remedy that, if such Muslims refuse to live under Britain’s own laws, Britain will have to become partly Muslim?
Furthermore, there are many British Muslims who are entirely loyal to Britain and who most certainly do not want the state to recognise Sharia.
Just where does the Archbishop’s suggestion leave them?
Puzzlingly, the Archbishop’s “clarification” on his website statement also compounds a significant error by him.
To bolster his claim that there was nothing novel about his proposals, Dr Williams said the state already delegated aspects of law to Jewish religious courts.
The statement repeated that there were “overlapping jurisdictions” between English and Jewish law and that British Jews could choose between two systems of justice.
But this is totally untrue. Jewish law has no legal authority in Britain, and British Jews have never asked for it.
Jewish religious courts can arbitrate in disputes only on a voluntary basis, and Jews must be married and divorced according to the same law of the land as everyone else.
The distinction is crucial. Does Dr Williams not understand this?
His supporters now say all he wanted to do was defend religion against the assault from secularism.
But why then has he chosen not to bolster his own church to fight off secularism but instead resorts to Islam – which will consume both of them?
Instead of defending his embattled Bishop of Rochester, who has received death threats for telling the truth about Islamic “no-go areas”, the Archbishop of Canterbury has run up the cultural and religious white flag.
Dr Williams is said to be profoundly shocked by the reaction to his remarks. Well, we are all profoundly shocked by him.
He should stand down and Dr Nazir-Ali, who is trying to defend the religion and culture of this country, should take his place.
If Britain really wants to defend itself and Western civilisation, what a powerful statement that would be.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=513503&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=256
