The Last Post on the Bugle

The donkeys of conservative European punditry are mad at the Archbishop of Canterbury, because of his recent comments on sharia courts in English mosques. His colleagues are calling for his replacement, after all, he is the principle leader of the church of England, and thus wields considerable power. What worries me is not the position taken by said archbishop, it is the power intrinsic in the position he holds within church, and, as a result, State.

Why should his comments come as such a surprise? After all, despite doctrinal differences, most Abrahamic faiths agree on more than they disagree on. I would argue that most pious Christians of good conscience, have more regard for a practicing muslim than for a theoretical atheist.

One of the main differences between Christians and Muslims these days, seems to be that Muslim leaders seem to have more control of their flock. Next to natural demographic shifts, it is also this aura of certainty and heavy-handed leadership that has lead to the swelling of Islamic ranks within Europe through conversion. Despite what Americans might believe about Europe, a lot of Europeans are still, very much, men and women of god. Religiosity requires a certain submissiveness, and submissive characters oftentimes fiend for less carrot and more stick; for such people, Islam, and especially it’s popular image, have much to offer. Arguably more than Christianity, a faith blurring with capitalism, and seemingly drowning in paedophilia and doubt.

Hence, reports of Islam rivalling Christianity as the predominant religion of Europe aren’t solely the products of Xenophobia, they are also the results of sober calculation. Moreover, the xenophobia lies in the fear of this development. Personally, I am not so worried. As far as I’m concerned, religious people can plaster the streets, bleeding from crosses or kneeling on rugs, as long as I am allowed to whore about and indulge while they fast and abstain.

Yes, I’m very much a live and let live guy, and sharia law, as it is practiced already in many mosques in England, doesn’t threaten this glorious lifestyle. Like the Beth Din courts upheld by European Jews since the Middle Ages, these ‘courts’ (where Allah, peace be upon him, is both judge and jury) merely resolve petty civil and financial disputes, and don’t affect the lives of infidels. They don’t involve themselves in prosecution of any sort. The archbishop merely argued that these already existent courts be acknowledged, and integrated into the system so they stay under state control. This, of course, doesn’t calm the, usually so tranquil, European conservative mob. They argue in their newspaper columns and coffeklatsches, that once you loosen up the law for minor insertions of sharia, the consitution becomes fertile ground for the same Sharia’s feared “penal code”. According, to their “logic”, demographic shifts could allow such a “Machtergreifung” to happen within fully democratic terms.

Such conservatives also tend to characterize immigrants as perepetually coming in “floods”, “waves” or “invasions”; basically, whatever image they can conjure up to suggest both conspiracy and uniformity. These same xenophobes might find it hard to consider that these invaders are a tad more differentiated; in fact, many of them might be quite unenthusiastic about life under the Sharia penal code. After all, their personal experience of such laws, might make them altogether appreciative of their limbs and sinfully uncircumcised spouses. I would argue (for no particular reason except that I am extremely opinionated) that the extremists we really have to worry about are the converts. Converts, generally, have too much to prove. They try too hard to make up for their lack of natural fieriness. (case in point: Assam the American)

The beforementioned conservatives, have pamphlets for both the poor (the sun, Bild) and the rich (Spiegel, Times). In these publications they are rarely concerned with religion as a whole, they focus solely on the evils of Islam. At the same time, they often decry the moral depravity of contemporary society with the same peasant seriousness as any Mullah or Omar. Their habitual “we are capitulating”-bullshit is as disturbing as it is intellectually lazy. Note their obsessive use of the habitual, ill-defined “we.” “We” I often take to mean us “Christians” and, herein lies the great hypocrisy. Many European societies from Denmark to England have tighter bonds between church and state then, the oh-so-conservative United States. In England the Queen is both the head of church and of State, she can veto whoever the people choose as their prime minister. Now, she generally doesn’t decline the peoples choice, and so, this power is often considered purely theoretical, but, as long as its on the books this bond exists. In countries like Denmark and Germany, part of a citizen’s taxes unwillingly end up as tithe to the church.

As long as European conservatives aren’t dedicated to the complete secularization of their own states, they have little right to whine and worry about islamization and the inevitable capitulation to it. Unless you work to completely severe the bond between god and country, and create lasting institutions to protect this secularism, you can’t complain if your state is islamacised, once a significant portion of the population is Muslim.