Sharia in Australia

The Archbishop of Canterbury recently said that it was unavoidable for Muslims to adopt some aspects of Sharia law in the UK and he has caused an outrage in Europe (check Joana’s post, ‘The Bishop and the Sharia’, 13 February 2008). I came across a couple of articles written by some Australian Muslims in response to the Archbishop’s comments.

In the first article called ‘Grim Picture of Sharia Hides its Useful Aspects’, Ghena Krayem and Haisam Farache say that the term sharia brings to mind ‘the images of a brutal, harsh and inhumane legal system, characterised by amputations, beheadings, and stoning to death’ which has nothing to do with sharia . Because of this grim picture of sharia, it is no wonder that the Archbishop’s comments have not been well received. They say actually the sharia in terms of family law is already used by Muslim communities in Britain, in the US, Canada and Australia. In Australia people can agree to a legally binding contract using the laws of Christianity, Islam (sharia law) , Budhism, Juadism or any kind of ideology ‘as long as the contract does not abrogate the law or have an illegal purpose’. When sharia is used, it does not become a part of the Australian legal system, but it is recognised as an alternative dispute recognition process. There are similarities between the sharia law and Australian legal system. For example, sharia law has the same plaintiff and defendant system as the Australian courts; or in case of divorce ‘if a husband files for divorce he is obliged to pay his ex-wife’s rent and basic necessities and it is the husband who is forced to leave the matrimonial home’; and in terms of the custody of children, ‘the best interests of the child’ is considered and usually the mother gets the custody. Krayem and Farache says ‘while it needs to be acknowledged that atrocities have been committed against women overseas in the name of Islam, it also needs to be acknowledged that such practices have no basis in the religion itself’, and they underline the fact that recognition of alternative dispute resolution processes in other cultures show the strength of Australian democracy. The link to this article: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/02/17/1203190646668.html   

The other article is called ‘Law of Our Land Can Never Be Sharia’ written by Irfan Yusuf. He says ‘Many readers will wonder what 360,000-odd Australians who tick the “Muslim” box on their census forms think of sharia. Do we want to establish the Islamic Republic of Australia? Will men be forced to grow beards as majestic as that of Dr Williams? Will the Parliament be moved from Canberra to Lakemba [a suburb in Sydney where many Muslims live]?’. He points out that ‘Muslims are not the only religious group with an ancient sacred law which they occasionally would like secular law to take account of. On a number of occasions, joint submissions have been made by Jews and Muslims in areas such as ritual animal slaughter, burial and the treatment of bodies in autopsies.’ According to Yusuf, in 1989 the Australian Law Reform Commission started an inquiry in terms of multiculturalism and the law; and received many submissions from different ethnic and religious communities regarding their cultural demands. ‘The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, a peak Muslim body representing the congregations of about half of Australia’s mosques’ raised some issues in terms of family law. For example, under the Family Law Act 1975, in order to file a divorce Muslim women had to wait for at least twelve months from the date of separation; and in sharia the waiting period is much shorter. Yusuf asks ‘how many Australian Muslims follow sharia when family disputes arise?’ and says ‘my experience in legal practice has been that the parties will go for whichever system gives them the most favourable outcome’. Australian Muslims response to sharia vary according to the country they are from since in different Muslim societies different aspects of sharia is used in different ways. The link to this article: http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/law-of-our-land-can-never-be-sharia/2008/02/12/1202760299357.html  

 This is not mentioned in any of the articles, but I know that for example in Turkey, where the secular state and religion is ‘strictly’ separated and where the state is jealously& anxiously guarded against religion, many secular- Muslim-Turks freak out even when they hear the word ‘Sharia’. 

Also a small note on ‘cultural differences’: The other day I saw the movie ‘The Kite Runner’. The film is briefly about an Afghan boy who flees Afghanistan with his father when it is invaded by the communist Russia, and immigrates to the US. He grows up in the US and eventually becomes a writer. At some stage in the film, the father dies and he is ‘buried in a coffin’ in the US. But as far as I know, at Muslim funerals the dead is not buried in a coffin, but the body is wrapped with white clean cloth and laid in the grave like this. In the film the father is buried in a coffin either because this Muslim Practice is not allowed in the US, or as a result of lack of attention to cultural differences; or just because of practical reasons.

Lakota Indian activists secede from the US

Numerous Native American activists, including former American Indian Movement leader, Russell Means, presented a kind of declaration of independence for the Lakota Sioux on 19 December, 2007, to the United States State Department. Here’s the account of developments from Lakota Freedom, the website which seems to be an official newsource from the delegation:

Lakota Sioux Indian representatives declared sovereign nation status today in Washington D.C. following Monday’s withdrawal from all previously signed treaties with the United States Government. The withdrawal, hand delivered to Daniel Turner, Deputy Director of Public Liaison at the State Department, immediately and irrevocably ends all agreements between the Lakota Sioux Nation of Indians and the United States Government outlined in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties at Fort Laramie Wyoming.

“This is an historic day for our Lakota people,” declared Russell Means, Itacan of Lakota. “United States colonial rule is at its end!”

“Today is a historic day and our forefathers speak through us. Our Forefathers made the treaties in good faith with the sacred Canupa and with the knowledge of the Great Spirit,” shared Garry Rowland from Wounded Knee. “They never honored the treaties, that’s the reason we are here today.”

The four member Lakota delegation traveled to Washington D.C. culminating years of internal discussion among treaty representatives of the various Lakota communities. Delegation members included well known activist and actor Russell Means, Women of All Red Nations (WARN) founder Phyllis Young, Oglala Lakota Strong Heart Society leader Duane Martin Sr., and Garry Rowland, Leader Chief Big Foot Riders. Means, Rowland, Martin Sr. were all members of the 1973 Wounded Knee takeover.

NT Intervention on the ABC

On Thursday the ABC program Difference of Opinion addressed the topic of the Northern Territory intervention.  Entitled A New Deal for Indigenous Australians?, the program featured a panel of Indigenous leaders debated the merits of the Intervention in front of an audience.

The panel was made up of Sue Gordon, Chair of the NT Task Force; Tom Calma, Acting Race Discrimination Commissioner; Olga Havnene, CEO of the Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the NT (and Women for Wik organiser); and Lowitja O’Donaghue, Inaugural Chairperson of ATSIC.

The context of the debate was both the NT Intervention and the recent surprise announcement by John Howard that he had suddenly become interested in reconciliation after 11 years of doing everything in his power to undermine any form progressive policies in relationship to Indigenous Australia.

While announcing his change of heart on reconciliation and his willingness to hold a referendum on putting a mention of Indigenous Australians into the preamble of the Constitution (but not into the body mind you). Howard claimed that he had recently discovered the value of “symbolic” gestures, as if a decade of refusing to apologise to the Stolen Generation isn’t a symbolic gesture. 

Actually, I think the move was a symbolic gesture, but more towards the Australian electorate than towards Indigenous Australia. A week before he announced the election it was pretty clear he was trying to demonstrate to the electorate that although he was an old dog he still has some new tricks to play.

Back to Difference, the opinions expressed by the panel were varied, which helped to illustrate that there is certainly no consensus even within Indigenous Australia about the merits, or lack thereof of the Intervention.  As would be expected, Sue Gordon was a lot more upbeat about the Intervention and claimed that people in many remote communities were very happy to have part of their income quarantined.  This was hotly disputed by the other panelists, who emphasised the confusion and lack of information in these communities which has bred a lot of uncertainty and fear about what the government would be doing.  I was particularly impressed by Olga Havnene, who made the point that although the Intervention is ostensibly addressed at protecting children from abuse, there is no mention of children in the new legislation and it is very hard to see how many of the policies are supposed to contribute to child protection. 

A couple of the panelists also pointed out that the real tragedy of this process is that there has been virtually no consultation with Indigenous Australians at large, and specifically with the remote communities being targeted.  Thus even if some of the policies might have some objective benefits for some members of the communities, they don’t contribute to any sense of empowerment or control within the communities themselves.

In any case, there is a strong contrast between Howard’s proposal for “reconciliation” as an essentially abstract notion and the concrete reality of the policies that are impacting on actual Aboriginal communities.  Good ethnographic studies done in these communities would, I think, help to illuminate discrepancies of this kind.

The show’s website is worth a visit.  It includes video from the program, the transcript, online forum and a poll about the Intervention. 

Council to protect Rastafarian intellectual property established

The Jamaica Gleaner reports that the “global Rastafarian community” — as part of a global trend towards the institutionalisation and legal protection of indigenous “cultural property” announced the establishment of a council to protect Rasta intellectual property from unauthorized appropriation by non-Rastas (notably gangstas). See the article here.

AAS Statement on recent policy trends in Indigenous affairs

The Australian Anthropological Association has just issued a statement about recent developments in government policy towards Indigenous Australia. The statement came with a request to disseminate as widely as possible, so I am reproducing it here. The statement expresses “deep concerns” about current developments, which include the government reaction to the “Little Children are Sacred” report mentioned in some earlier posts on this blog. Personally I am very happy that the AAS has taken this step as the Association has generally not got involved in public debates in recent years. I hope that it signals a move to a generally more engaged professional association which can demonstrate the contribution anthropologists can make to public debate.

Click on the link below to read the full statement. The original statement can be found here.

Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People approved

The United Nations approved the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on 13 September, 2007. After decades of work, this Declaration is the fulfilment of political efforts that can be traced back to visits by the Iroquois Confederacy and the Maori to the League of Nations in the 1920s.

General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa said, “the importance of this document for indigenous peoples and, more broadly, for the human rights agenda, cannot be underestimated. By adopting the Declaration, we are also taking another major step forward towards the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.” Sheikha Haya warned, however, that “even with this progress, indigenous peoples still face marginalization, extreme poverty and other human rights violations. They are often dragged into conflicts and land disputes that threaten their way of life and very survival; and, suffer from a lack of access to health care and education.”

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma stated that, ‘Today’s decision is a milestone for the world’s indigenous peoples and for the United Nations.’ Calma explained that, ‘The Declaration reaffirms that indigenous individuals are entitled to all human rights recognised in international law without discrimination. But it also acknowledges that without recognising the collective rights of Indigenous peoples and ensuring protection of our cultures, indigenous people can never truly be free and equal.’

(Readers can find more information from the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission on the UN Declaration here.)

Although the Declaration achieved very strong support (143 for, 4 against, with 11 abstentions), sadly, some of the countries with the largest indigenous populations. opposed the declaration: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. Russia, which had been expected to oppose the Declaration, abstained from the vote in the end (especially important for Indigenous peoples in the Arctic). As Commissioner Calma comments, ‘it is a matter of great regret that Australia and three other nations have opposed the Declaration, particularly given that Australia had indicated its support for the vast majority of the Declaration’s provisions during the negotiations of the text.’

Indigenous policy reform in the Northern Territory

Below is an announcement about an extraordinary seminar dealing with the events following the release of the Little Children are Sacred report.  I’m sure that a lot of people who can’t make it to Darwin would be very interested in hearing what the speakers have to say.  I will check if there are plans to share the papers/speeches in some form.

You are invited to attend a public forum on

Indigenous policy reform in the Northern Territory

An extraordinary debate for extraordinary times

Hear local and International experts discuss the federal government’s recently announced reforms, which are reshaping Indigenous policy in the Northern Territory, and debate the outcomes and possible solutions.

When: Friday, 20 July
12:45pm - 3:30pm
Where: Charles Darwin University
Casuarina Campus
Mal Nairn Lecture Theatre
Admission is free and light refreshments will follow

Speakers will include:

Professor Elizabeth Povinelli
Anthropology and Gender Studies Co-Director,
Centre for the Study of Law & Culture, Columbia University

Olga Havnen
Deputy CEO,
Northern Land Council

Professor Allan Patience
Professor of Political Science,
Charles Darwin University

Professor Gary Robinson
Director, School for Social and Policy Research,
Charles Darwin University

Ken Parish
Law Lecturer,
Charles Darwin University

New ban on female circumcision in Egypt

Jovan brought to my attention a Yahoo! news item reporting that Egypt has just banned all female circumcision (aka female genital mutilation or FGM). There is a decade’s history of the practice being banned in Egypt, yet it has persisted. In 1996, the Ministry of Health banned any state-affiliated medical personnel from involvement in female circumcision, according to the BMJ. Then, according to ReligiousTolerance.org, the ruling was challenged by a Muslim cleric, Sheikh Youssef Badri, who claimed it was permitted by Islam and that the state was overstepping its bounds in banning it. In 1997 a court overturned the ban, but then the government took the case to the Egyptian Supreme Administrative Court which ruled that it was not an Islamic procedure and that citizens therefore did not have a right to practice it. The state banned the procedure, but allowed gynecologists to perform the surgery if they deemed it necessary for health reasons.

The extent to which this health exception is invoked is revealed by recent surveys that have shown that upwards of 90% of Egyptian women continue to be circumcised. Circumcision crosses religious boundaries, with both Egyptian Muslims and Christians circumcising their daughters at or before puberty. The minority of women who aren’t circumcised are typically members of the urban upper class.

The new ban removes the earlier ban’s exception and prohibits all members of the medical profession, both in public clinics and private practice, from performing circumcisions. It also criminalizes physicians who circumcise. The government ban was supported by the highest ranking clerics in the country, both Muslim and Christian: the Grand Mufti, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, and the Coptic Pope Shenouda.

There is substantial debate over the topic — even the name used to speak of the practice is hotly disputed (”female circumcision” vs. “female genital mutilation” or FGM). Some argue that the government’s provision allowing circumcision to be performed by physicians for ‘health reasons’ was an attempt to ensure that it be done by medical professionals under hygienic circumstances, avoiding the high rates of infection often associated with circumcision by traditional medical practitioners. Others say that it only gave the veneer of a ban for the benefit of a critical international community but allowed the practice to continue. The procedure was taught in some of Egypt’s most prestigious teaching universities such as Qasr el-Aini medical school in Cairo.

The latest ban comes in the wake of the widely publicized death of a young girl (sources peg her age at 11 or 12) who died during the procedure (the news wire source all say she died from an incorrect dose of anasthesia). Some reports claim that the doctor who performed the procedure as well as the girl’s mother were arrested. This points to the complicated costs and benefits of bans. On the one hand, bans delegitimize the procedure in a way that allowing ‘health exceptions’ does not. On the other hand, families who are determined to have their daughters circumcised but cannot have it done by a clinician may turn to more dangerous sources (in Egypt, typically barbers and midwives). They may also be less likely to seek medical care in the wake of a botched circumcision or infection if they fear that family members will be arrested.

For more anthropological reading on female circumcision, see Ellen Gruenbaum (who points out that Western opposition to the procedure typically leads to local backlash) and Janice Boddy, whose Wombs and Alien Spirits is a classic symbolic anthropology reading of circumcision in Sudan and how it linked up with cultural aesthetics (of not only the body but also things like home decor — if you ever wanted to know why Sudanese villagers blow out ostrich eggs and hang them in their houses, read on!) Boddy also covered debate over the practice in a 1991 article in Medical Anthropology Quarterly.

On a personal note, I spent 3-1/2 years living in Egypt, studying Arabic and doing fieldwork, and I knew Cairene women from all different classes, and the only one who ever brought up the topic of circumcision with me was an upper-class young woman who was taking a sociology course at the American University in Cairo and who commented to me that in a class discussion on the subject, students were mortified to have to discuss it in a mixed (male and female) group, and most could not even bring themselves to say the word out loud in class. At least amongst my little cohort of female informants, it was a non-issue.

L.L. Wynn

Compulsory English for Aboriginal Children in Australia

Sometime ago Greg Downey mentioned ‘the archival function’ of ethnography, and that there are many dying cultural practices and languages, which need to be studied by anthropologists since these are very precious parts of human culture as a whole. For example, a language is created and maintained over thousands of years, and when it dies out, it is a big loss for humanity. Greg thinks some anthropologists might find him ‘old fashioned’. I don’t think he is old-fashioned, on the contrary his approach is a good example of engaged anthropology. And it’s nice of him to remind us of ‘the archival function’ of ethnography, which deserves more attention by anthropologists.

Recently, Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough announced his plan to make English compulsory for Aboriginal children since he thinks they should learn English to get a job in the future. The other day I asked Greg’s opinion on this matter. He says the conservative government is using more sticks than carrots, and that the government should not make English compulsory, but provide the indigenous children with the best quality schools, teachers and English classes and invite them to learn English with a welcoming approach; and considering the fact that there were 250 indigenous languages in Australia in 1788, but now only 60 of them alive, the government should also provide all the resources to help indigenous kids to speak and maintain their own languages.

I agree with Greg. I think making English compulsory is similar to the assimilationist policies of the past, which didn’t allow indigenous people to speak their own languages but forced them to speak English-‘the bread and butter’ language.       

The Cultural Defense

I am reading Alison Dundes Renteln’s book The Cultural Defense. The author is described as an anthropologist but writes decidedly like a lawyer: it always strikes me how “critical lawyers” are more radical relativists than any anthropologists. Renteln’s summaries of anthropologists and political philosophers are rather simplistic and, I think, often mistaken (she writes, for instance, that Kymlicka believes migrants have “no culture” and roundly dismisses “postmodern” anthropologists like Abu-Lughod for “writing against culture,” in which I think she is only partly right). Anyway, the book makes fascinating reading because of its numerous examples. I never thought that cultural arguments have successfully been used in courts since the 1970s, and resulted in the acquittal of killers in some cases that I think are unbelievable! The argument was invariably about tradition, treating the contemporary state of affairs — such as law — in the countries the migrants came from (Japan, China, Turkey) as immaterial to the argument. One particularly interesting point is that American courts have, in the past, ruled insanity in cases where they really meant, obviously, that the defendant had been in a state of mind where she sort of relapsed into a cultural tradition and ceased being a modern person.