For months, critics have observed that the rebels in Libya contains worrisome elements of religious extremists and that the rebel forces have been accused of war crimes (as have the government forces). The concern is that, like our work in Afghanistan (ultimately helping Al Qaeda and the Taliban), we have little understanding of who we are bringing to power in Libya in our intervention into that civil war. That concern is magnified this week by the release of the draft constitution, which (unless changed) would make Sharia law the governing law of Libya.
Of course, much appears in flux in Tripoli and this is just a draft. Yet, we have reason to be concerned. We have a long line of cases exploring the abuses and atrocities committed in various governments in the name of Sharia law.
Here is Part 1, Article 1: “Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).”
If this clause remains in any final version, Libya will join countries like Iran in imposing religious law on a population. Not only is it a rejection of the separation of church and state, it would make a mockery of other guarantees of due process.
It is interesting that this issue was raised by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which seems supportive of faith-based programs and legislation in the United States. Heritage (before which I have spoken in past years) is not viewed by civil libertarians as particularly strong on separation issues. Some of us disagree with faith-based politics and legislation regardless of whether it is Judeo-Christian or Muslim.
There is of course great disagreement over the proper enforcement or even meaning of Sharia precepts. However, the treatment of women, religious freedom, free speech, and the methods of punishment have been a constant source of abuses in Sharia-based systems.
It is not clear how much support this draft has within the transitional government, but the story highlights how little we know of the intentions of leaders or factions in this new government.
Two jokes for five year olds.
What is brown and sticky? A stick.
Did you hear about the two television antennas that got married?
The ceremony was a little bizarre, but the reception was fantastic.
Mike – re “it is not our business…”
I feel disappointed to need to make a distinction between “the business of the American people”, and “the business of the American government”, but unfortunately the two are not the same in my mind. Maybe this is what you are saying as well.
Our government’s foreign policies have been filled with self-serving and foul choices that oppress the weak in other countries, and are counter-democratic.
But I also am dismayed by our lack of action in Rwanda, and when the Serbs were cutting out the Croats eyeballs and stuffing them in their mouths [or was that another made-up story, like the stolen baby incubators in Kuwait.] Do you think that action could be taken by NGO’s to address situations like Rwanda or Haiti, and I am aware that Blackwater can, in a sick way, be thought of as NGO, may Eric Prince go to hell for Nissour Square.
Fred regarding B
“B. No law that contradicts the principles of democracy may be established.”
We could use that in our constitution.
Sharon – I am very sympathetic to your posts: you hunger and thirst for righteousness, it sounds like. Changing things for the better is tricky. Have any plans?
On a reflective note, are there healthy fantasies in addition to sick fantasies? Or alternately, what accepted practice in America do you think is the most destructive to women? Or, what do you think about the industrial level commercialization of sexuality? Or, what experiences have you had with organized religion…
Any fantasy that breaks the golden rule, ‘do unto others that which you would have them do unto you”. is a sick fantasy, it is sick because it is one sided. Women have the ability to have very productive roles in life, besides being mothers, but patriarchal religions give men an excuse to thwart anything that strays into common male dominated areas of productivity. They made the only feminist in the Christian bible- an herbalist, prophet and healer, into a whore.
What Mike S. said! We don’t get to tell other countries how to run their governments. Even if we did bomb them into existence!
The Iraqi constitution, which the Heritage Foundation praised (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/09/the-new-iraqi-constitution), says:
First: Islam is the official religion of the State [of Iraq] and it is a fundamental source of legislation:
A. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.
B. No law that contradicts the principles of democracy may be established.
C. No law that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms stipulated in this constitution may be established.
Second: This Constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights of all individuals to freedom of religious belief and practice such as Christians, Yazedis, and Mandi Sabeans.
If it is ok for Iraq, then why not Libya?
By 1949, the royalists were back in power. Well, I see you say it yourself: “But because the royalists were so strong”.
The point was that revolutions are temporary collections of divergent interests. The question was, I thought, what is to protect the interests of the weak, in the writing of a constitution. (the spectre haunting Lybia was Sharia Law.) My answer is that the revolution is rarely coherent, and that that fact may serve to protect the weak. In reality of course, the weak have no protection, except possibly appeals to morality, possibly backed by religion, and that has been a slim reed, even in America. Think of the slaves as an example.
Certainly the importance of the guilds varied greatly in the sundry branches of trade and occupational groups in the mid-1840s, but your dismissal of them is mistaken. http://bit.ly/oIC61n
That is understandable since both guilds and serfs were abolished during the Stein-Hardenberg reformations after Prussia lost the 4th Coalition War against a guy named Napoleon. Nearly 40 years before the 1848 revolution.
That is only true to a degree. They came to a compromise, the constitution of 1849.
But because the royalists were so strong the compromise was too forgiving to the monarchs (i.e. something barely worth calling a constitutional monarchy), who in the meantime found their spine back and crushed the revolution in May to July 1849.
Because they were allowed to keep command of their armies.
Since there seem to be no fractions in the Libyan transitional council which want to keep Gaddafi as the chief-in-command, I fail to see the parallel.
Berliner – my comments on the Frankfurt Assembly and on the failure of the revolution were based on Thomas Childers presentation on the revolutions in Central Europe (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=820) Wikipedia does not talk about the guilds or the serfs, but they do restate the more general point that the revolution failed because the divergent groups were not able to compromise.
Thanks for your comments, and I will probably look for more on the matter now that you have raised the issue.
Sharon you say “I disagree with any law that puts a religion before justice or human rights.” Is your focus on religion?
Is it only religious “sick fantasies” that you object to when it conflicts with your idea of human rights? Or do you also oppose the continued incarceration of innocent muslims? By innocent, I mean those that government people have deemed to be innocent.
How does one identify a sick fantasy, especially in a multi-cultural way? And what is justice, and what are human rights? Does being “disappeared” violate one’s human rights? The US government does not think so, apparently.
Is, say, land ownership a “sick fantasy”?
I despise many of the overt principles of Sharia Law, but I assert that it is not our business what laws a country wishes to enact if it only effects our citizens. This is a difficult position for me to take personally as a Jew, because followed logically if Hitler had not had extra-territorial designs, it could lead me to the point of saying no-one should have interfered with an internal persecution/extermination of Jews. So let me clarify it somewhat by saying until this Earth has something akin to a world government and world constitution, then the idea of nations invading others because of their political/religious practices internally, seems wrong to me. In recent history where almost all invasions into other countries have been related to their natural resources, despite cover stories, this is problematic. Especially so, because the countries doing the invading do not have spotless human rights records either.
The serfs were emancipated before 1848.
In Prussia in 1807 with the famous October Edict, the last German state was I think the Kingdom of Hanover in 1833.
AND the constitution of 1849 actually banned any compensation for that in Article 167.
Germany 1848 wasn’t America 1787, serfs weren’t slaves, and the Article 167 wasn’t the three-fifths compromise.
Serfs weren’t a big deal in the assembly 1848, because it was a done deal already.
Gyges – I agree with you that Russia violated our 1st Amendment by suppressing religion. I was talking about the related phrase “separation of church and state” which Turley used in his post, and which I understand to be a desire to minimize the influence of religion in the state. I took Turley’s post as an expression of fear of the influence of Sharia law in Lybia. My point was even if you suppress religion, you may get a bad result.
Probably he was concerned with only parts of Sharia law, and he basically just doesn’t like the laws, wherever they came from. He mentions the treatment of women, religious freedom, free speech, and the methods of punishment. When the muslims ruled Spain, there was greater religious freedom than there was in the rest of Europe. Free speech in a country dominated by secrecy is a joke. How can you connect the dots if there are no dots? I mean in the USA. He doesn’t like the methods of punishment. I don’t like secret prisons, people being held without charges, and incommunicado, and even people know to be innocent being held, and gag deals. Remember John Walker Lyndh? Why the gag? It smells.
Berliner, I put Gemany in quotes not to scare you, but because German unification is generally dated from 1871, and I was talking about the revolutions of 1848.
The revolution of 1848 did fail in Germany and the loss of support of the guilds and the peasants was a major reason. The desire to convert the peasant relation ships to a commercial relationship was not what the peasants wanted. They wanted freedom, but the Assembly wanted the old masters to be compensated for the loss of their workers. My point was that compromise among the various revolutionary factions is at least occasionally needed for success, and here was an example that showed that: the Assembly was too in love withs its ideas, and would not compromise with the realities, and so the revolution failed.
Mespo – The phrase “separation of church and state” goes beyond what the First Amendment says. The First Amendment limits the government.
You say “It also insures that one group will not use government’s coercive power aganst another’s belief system.” The Mormon’s can not have polygamy, so the word “insures” is too strong, and can we say that the government will use its power against any and all perceived threats to its power?
For a laugh, look at the many short sighted and illegal arrests in front of the White House, and count how many people were arrested during the demonstration when bin Laden was killed. None. The arrests are all for demonstrations against mountain top removal, climate change, Guantanamo, path to citizenship, don’t ask don’t tell, March 19th.
berliner, you say
“Sharia law is of course not compatible with modern notions of human rights.”
Is everybody now an expert on Sharia law? Or do you mean (by the phrase “of course”) that no law is compatible with modern notions of human rights, notions like the invasion of Kuwait or Iraq is a crime, or shooting deer or people from helicopters.
As a mom of seven daughters, women with degrees, heavy equipment licenses, lobster fishermen( women) and opinions;I disagree with any law that puts a religion before justice of human rights. Not only Sharia but Christian also. The world will be a better place when people are people not sexes, classes and religions. It is like the Amazon women’s religion who stopped letting men live except for a few for breeding. Someone’s sick fantasies, backed by religions are still sick, selfish and thoughtless. We don’t need anymore of it.
Martin,
The Soviet Union’s actions would have been in violation of the 1st Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Also, without a state sanction, the most egregious forms of persecution by a church would be illegal. Murder, assault, kidnapping, etc.
Also, if I had wanted to say that limiting church power increases freedom, I would have said so. The first amendment, by it’s very text, precludes the possibility of it limiting church power. It’s a limit on government power, and one that increases freedom.
pete,
it seems to never be good for us!