ISLAM - AUSTRALIA: Law and the wives of others

HOW does a modern, plural democratic society deal with the desire of some minority groups to observe cultural norms at odds with the law of the land?It is a question that has been asked with increasing force in recent years. The debate in Australia about polygamous marriages for Muslims is simply the latest in a series of conflicts over how to manage diversity in a modern democracy.

Traditionally, anti-racist campaigners have insisted that the law should be blind to a citizen's skin colour, culture or faith. Racism worked precisely by treating different groups differently, most grotesquely through apartheid or the Jim Crow laws in the US. Anti-racism was therefore about challenging such differential treatment.

Increasingly, though, this idea of equal treatment has itself come to be seen as racist. Rather than demanding that people be treated the same despite their differences, multiculturalists demand that people be treated differently because of them, hence different laws for different groups, writes Kenan Malik.

Aust 28 Jun 2008