The (not very carefully) hidden agenda of the Liberals and SJWs who are trying to push Motion M-103 through the Canadian parliament is to make Sharia Law "acceptable". "We're not trying to make it the law of the land," they say, "only to allow it to be used in Sharia courts to govern the lives of Muslims." Got it? Who could argue with that? "Islamophobes", that's who. If you think there's something wrong with that idea -- shame on you! -- you'd better not say so or write so, publicly, because we'll sic the PC police on ya!
On the other hand, if you agree with the premise, and are willing to allow your Muslim neighbours to submit themselves to Sharia Law, if that's what they want, as long as it doesn't apply to you, consider the following true story, told by Rex Murphy in one of his newspaper columns, nearly ten years ago. (I'm paraphrasing and editing a bit here, for the sake of brevity.)
"Saudi king pardons gang-rape victim" has to be one of the oddest sentences ever written. It simply does not compute. We do not know a world in which gang-rape victims are the ones seeking or receiving pardons, from Saudi kings or other potentates. We know instead a world where those who have endured the near-unendurable torments and dehumanizing outrages of gang rape inspire the most profound sympathy and concern.
the headline springs from the story of a most unfortunate 19-year-old who was charged with the "crime" of being in a car with a man who was not a relative, when both were set upon by seven men, both raped -- she most violently, for two hours -- by all seven, and more than once. She was reduced to numbness, shock and near-suicide and suffered horrific psychological and physical trauma.
But in the world of Saudi Arabia's sharia jurisprudence, the gang-raped 19-year-old had to appear before her Islamic judges and be tried for the crime of sitting in a car with a man. At first, her sentence was considered lenient -- a mere ninety lashes and some months in jail.
She had both the dignity and simple force of character to protest this monstrous verdict, with the help of a lawyer of some courage and resource. For the temerity of appealing a mindless and barbaric sentence, she had her sentence increased to two hundred lashes. And six months in jail, presumably necessary to give the stripes from the whip time to turn into scars.
The world at large found this excessive and, to be truthful, both odd and cruel too, beyond even the odd and cruel bounds of the ancient codes that, sadly, are still imposed on so many of the women of so many countries. The king of Saudi Arabia must have felt the wave of revulsion and contempt that followed on the world's press coverage of this outrage, and thus is came to pass that a 19-year-old who had been raped, shamed and tormented by seven men was relieved of the further shame and torment of two hundred lashes and incarceration for half a year of her young life. But "King pardons gang-rape victim" remains an atrocious declaration, a simultaneously absurd and mean statement.
The apologists for the extreme forms of Islam [Is there any other form? Ed.] should read and rererad this cautionary tale and ask themselves if they would really, really be comfortable having Sharia law -- notice I didn't say "justice" -- meted out by the mullahs to their neighbours, even if they are Muslims and feel bound to submit to it. Is this consistent with the Western (add "Christian" if you like) values for which those people came to Europe and North America? Is there any reason, any reason at all why we should change our values, our culture, our society to accommodate the barbaric rules and practices of Islam? Well? Is there?!
If words aren't enough to convince you there's something wrong with the idea of making Sharia law the law of the land, here's a video that might persuade you. It's not Saudi Arabia, but the province of Aceh, Indonesia, where Sharia is the law of the land. It was posted just over a year ago.
Further reading: I found the column by Rex Murphy, adapted and quoted above, in a compilation of his writings called Canada and Other Matters of Opinion (Doubleday Canada 2009). Highly recommended.
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