On Friday the 7th of February I, as usual, bought the ’Daily Express’. This particular day the front page featured an article on how the Archbishop of Canterbury wants to integrate some aspects of the Muslim Sharia law into the current British one. I could not have been the only one thinking to myself that how surprising it was that such an important member of the Christian society argues for the integration of Muslim, another religion’s, laws.
Naturally Archbishop William’s written piece and, given radio interview in Radio 4’s ‘The World at One' stirred major controversy, especially within the Church of England. Many members of William’s own congregation distanced themselves from the opinions of the Archbishop and even demanded that he should resign from his post. There were also many members of the Muslim community featured in different articles both print, broadcast and online, that argued against the Archbishop’s proposition. The story, as might be expected, attracted massive media attention and had some major PR implications for the Church of England. Many different media channels picked up on the enormous news value of the story, and where very quick in describing exactly what the sharia law is, with its main focus on beheadings and stoning of women. Something that added even more to the extremely bad light the archbishop was under.
However, as any sane person would understand, Williams was not suggesting that we should have beheadings and stoning of women in the streets. On the 11th of February William’s, very successfully, came out and defended his comments in front of the Anglican Synod. In his speech Williams said “I believe quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues about the perceived concerns of other religious communities.” And
Naturally Archbishop William’s written piece and, given radio interview in Radio 4’s ‘The World at One' stirred major controversy, especially within the Church of England. Many members of William’s own congregation distanced themselves from the opinions of the Archbishop and even demanded that he should resign from his post. There were also many members of the Muslim community featured in different articles both print, broadcast and online, that argued against the Archbishop’s proposition. The story, as might be expected, attracted massive media attention and had some major PR implications for the Church of England. Many different media channels picked up on the enormous news value of the story, and where very quick in describing exactly what the sharia law is, with its main focus on beheadings and stoning of women. Something that added even more to the extremely bad light the archbishop was under.
However, as any sane person would understand, Williams was not suggesting that we should have beheadings and stoning of women in the streets. On the 11th of February William’s, very successfully, came out and defended his comments in front of the Anglican Synod. In his speech Williams said “I believe quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues about the perceived concerns of other religious communities.” And
On total this whole incidents both brought very bad, but also perhaps some good publicity to the Church of England. At first I think everyone was mortified but what he suggested, and it brought about some very bad publicity to an already questioned organisation. Many of the members of the church tried to smoothen the reaction by distancing themselves, and even Gordon Brown gave a statement saying that British law should be the only one operating in the UK. But when Williams went out and defended his comments and more explicitly explained what he had meant by his comments, he almost got standing ovations from the crowd and only a few members were still hesitant about what the archbishop was saying. After this he also got the support from the prime minister, and all of the sudden the Church of England, It think, could be considered to be an organisation open to other cultures and religions, which could be very important in such an ethnically diverse country as the UK.
Media was very important, and made the PR implications for the Church of England even worse. But at the same time, especially online media, helped clarify the situation and one could listen to both the original interview, the speech to the Anglican Synod, and also watch some of the reactions to what Williams had said. After all, and I definitely do not agree with Williams in any way, everything makes a lot more sense that it first did when presented in the print media...
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar