Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2009

This is depressing: a sad milestone for women in Canada — going backwards into the dark ages

December 20, 2004 at 11:21 pm | In yulelogStories | 5 Comments

The Toronto Star reports that Marion Boyd, a former Ontario attorney general, concluded an official report endorsing a form of Sharia law in Ontario. See today’s TO Star article here. Boyd is being criticised by a number of progressive Muslims, who accuse her of “naivete” and of caving in to pressure from right-wing Muslim groups. Boyd does a lot of talking around Sharia, saying that the Ontario recommendation is not exactly Sharia law, but simply a recognition of “Muslim religious principles within Canadian law.” I can’t see this as anything but a defeat for women and for progressive men, however. As Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress puts it in the TOStar article:

“What exactly are these Muslim principles?” asked Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

“For her (Boyd) to come here and lecture Muslims as to what Muslim family law is, and Sharia is, is despicable and racist.”

Fatah said most Muslims in Ontario want to be treated as equal citizens. Proponents of Sharia in Canada are not concerned about settling family law disputes, he added.

“They are concerned at bringing justification for introducing Sharia, and legitimizing it in Pakistan, in Iran (and) in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“She has been listening . . .to the Muslim fundamentalists . . .that this was not about Sharia.” [More...]

The report supposedly calls for “safeguards” to prevent women from being bullied into religious-based arbitration vs. real legal counsel and representation, but Boyd’s critics attack her on this front, too:

Her critics say Boyd undermined those protections by also allowing people to waive their right to legal advice before they agree to arbitration instead of going to court to settle a dispute.

“I need to sound the alarm on a recommendation that poor women should be allowed to waive their fundamental right to an independent legal opinion,” said Marilou McPhedran, legal counsel to the Canadian Council of Muslim Women.

“Marion Boyd today has given legitimacy and credibility to the right-wing racists who fundamentally are against equal rights for men and women.” [More...]

I hope that progressive Muslims in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada, along with voices from the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, can convince the Ontario government to ditch Boyd’s recommendations. Fatah noted that this will immediately enter the rightwing Islamist propaganda mill: “Tomorrow in Tehran, in Jeddah, in Pakistan, in Kabul, in Sudan, every newspaper will say that Sharia has been approved by Canada,” predicted Fatah. I find it frightening that equal rights and representation before the law could, in a modern democracy, be undermined in favour of medieval, misogynist “religious” exemptions. What happened? Women really are the niggers of the world, aren’t they… Some men make her “paint her face and dance”, but some others make her put bags over her head and body. Same f*ng difference.