Sharia law's mirrored flaws
Jalil is bringing Libya under sharia law, and the West is not comfortable with it.
Ryan Mallough
Silhouette Staff
Hands were shaken, high-fives were exchanged, backs were patted. It was finally over. Libya was free. The West saw through a regime change in the Middle East and did not mess it up. We watched Muammar Gaddafi’s 43-year reign be reduced to a grainy image of a battered man. We watched the National Transitional Council leader, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, declare Libya liberated.
We did it.
And then we watched Jalil declare the new Libya, “as a Muslim nation have taken Islamic sharia as the source of legislation.”
The Western reaction was palpable. Libya went from being the global standard for intervention practice success and newfound regional ally to pariah and potential enemy, all in a word: sharia.
It begs the question, what exactly did everyone think was going to happen?
There is perception amongst the Western media that is decidedly American, but can trace its routes to European colonialism, that a freed country will – and should – conform to Western standards upon its liberation. It’s the perception that Libyans should have been sporting red and white pants and star-spangled hats, launching fireworks in the streets, belting out the Monday Night Football Theme and quoting Thomas Jefferson. It’s the perception that a nation with the chance to choose a new constitution and a new system of governance would automatically choose the Western way.
These perceptions speak to the great ignorance of the West. The reality is that much of the world outside of the West, particularly the growing economic areas in Asia, South America and Africa, as well as the Middle East, view the Western world as a dying civilization. The West is clearly losing its grip on the seat of military or political power, and the recent financial crisis has highlighted the perils of western capitalism. When looking at it from that perspective, who would want to emulate the West?
There are some legitimate concerns with a nation building its constitution around sharia law. Sharia property and family laws are decidedly discriminatory against women, it condemns homosexuality and, if taken too literally, supports archaic forms of punishment such as flogging. When sharia law is discussed in the West, the focus is on these negative aspects.
However, a society based around sharia law can still function in the 21st century. Egypt’s constitution cites sharia law as the main source of legislation and maintains a high degree of secularism in both its laws and its societies. It is far more likely that Libya will take after Egypt’s approach to sharia law than Saudi Arabia’s.
It is too soon forgotten that Western laws are largely based on the Catholic Church and Christianity’s Ten Commandments. In fact, the commandments are depicted on the U.S. Supreme Court building, the house of Western law. Furthermore, we come from a region that took hundreds of years to legally recognize the equalization of women’s, religious, and race rights, and we continue to struggle to uphold equality on a daily basis.
And we have the gall to oppose a system laws of a newly liberated country that is based on the religion of 97 per cent of their population on the basis that it might be too conservative for our liking? Shame on us.
