Apartness again

The government seem to have reluctantly concluded that multiculturalism is not producing unity, with his eminence on "Britishness". This is good.

Now they have found a new source of division and seem to have espoused it. I refer to the recent announcement that they have accepted the right of Islamic courts to rule on family disputes and divorce. This would include decisions on money, property and access to children.

In essence, of course, under the Arbitration Act, citizens may freely air their disputes to any arbiter whom they both accept.

The objections here are firstly that at time when the Muslim community is to some extent "estranged" from the rest of society, it seems perverse to permit and encourage a religious or ethnic based legal service to apply to a narrow section of society. It sends out an unfortunate signal and encourages division. There should be no place for parallel legal systems at a time when we are trying to heal the divisions in society.

Secondly, while it is still theoretically possible for Muslim women to refuse to use these Sharia courts, they will come under great pressure to submit to a tradition which has accorded males greater rights than females, indeed still regards the testimony of men as worthy of greater consideration than that of women.