The Wardman Wire

John Richardson commented on my previous post, asking for more detail about what was actually broadcast on World at One:

I did not hear the original BBC broadcast, and so I don’t know how it was ‘headlined’ at the time, but your quote, “The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the adoption of Sharia Law in some parts of Britain is inevitable,” could be taken at first hearing simply to mean “inevitable, like death and taxes are inevitable.” It wouldn’t necessarily have ‘prejudiced’ me to hostility to what the Archbishop was about to say.

Similarly, when I read the headline to the page you referenced, “Sharia law in UK is ‘unavoidable’”, I didn’t initially take it to mean that the Archbishop would be in favour of a degree of accommodation to Shari’ah law (what the Archbishop would call in his speech, ‘‘supplementary jurisdictions’.) I just assumed it meant something like, “something we can’t stop”.

Was there more to the headline introduction than you quoted?

For reference (both are referred to below), this is the full programme (just in case anyone is wondering, I think it is permitted to reproduce it under “fair dealing” for review, comment or critique).

And this is the first sentence from the “News Summary” section of the programme:

“The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the adoption of Sharia Law in some parts of Britain is inevitable”

The Running Order of World at One (WATO)

WATO is in 4 sections as I understand it. The timings are my estimates based on this bulletin, and may vary slightly - but the emphasis is about right:

1 - Opening headlines. 1 minute roughly.
2 - News Summary. Rundown of stories. 4 minutes roughly.
3 - Features. The meat of the bulletin. 24 minutes roughly.
4 - Closing headlines.

1 - Opening headlines

I do not have 1, because the Listen Again recording started at about 1:00:30 or so. The last bit of the headlines is a segment from the interview.

2 - News Summary

My first audio segment is the first 10 seconds of 2. The exact words (quoted above) are these. This is the first complete sentence:

“The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the adoption of Sharia Law in some parts of Britain is inevitable.”

The whole item within the summary is this (transcribed by me):

“The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the adoption of Sharia Law in some parts of Britain is inevitable. In an interview with this programme Rowan Williams said that if Britain was to maintain social cohesion, Muslim communities should be able to choose whether issues like maritial or financial disputes should be dealt with in Sharia proceedings.

Here is our Religious Affairs Correspondent Robert Pigott.”

(Robert Pigott) “Sharia Law is drawn from the Koran and other Scared Texts. Its principles are already used in Muslim Communities in Britain, with Muslim couples having maritial, financial and inheritance issues heard by Sharia courts.

Although Dr Williams stopped short of calling for the findings of these courts to be made legally binding, he does suggest that they should be incorporated formally into the British legal system - introducing what he calls a marketplace, in which Muslims could choose where to have cases heard, rather as British Jews do in some cases.

Dr Williams warns that without this formal recognition, there are dangers of Muslims who feel a split loyalty between the secular law, and the dictates of their faith, being alienated from society, and even stepping outside the law.”

3 - Features

This is where the interview ran as the first feature.

4 - Closing Headlines

(My comment) Considerably changed in emphasis from the headline in the News Summary - particularly a much more nuanced first sentence (”under some circumstances”) and a conditional (”seems”) rather than a bold assertion.

“The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has said that the adoption of Sharia Law - under some circumstances - seems unavoidable if Britain is to maintain social cohesion. In an exclusive interview with this programme, Dr Williams said “People shouldn’t feel they had to choose between the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty.”

Tags: archbishop of canterbury, rowan williams, barbecued bishop, sharia and english law, world at one, wato[tags]archbishop of canterbury, rowan williams, barbecued bishop, sharia and english law, world at one, wato[/tags]