Chutzpah Sharia

What a great piece of chutzpah we observed recently.

If I were British to my bootstraps I would have spluttered through my whiskers in umbrage, uttered “Well, I never!” in icy cold dignity, and then loudly harrumphed at the news of an attempt to introduce sharia laws into Australia on the sly. 

Since I am not British, I decided not to harrumph or splutter. Instead, I applaud the Australian Council of Islamic Councils (AFIC) for their promotion of the legendary and timeless Jewish tradition of chutzpah by offering to introduce some elements of Sharia laws into Australian life.

How does one translate the word chutzpah? The closest I could think of is “gall”, but it is more than just an impertinent and somewhat crude expression of one’s desires and intentions, often inconvenient and insulting to others, regardless of the looming consequences to the “chutzpee”.

Chutzpah also has a quality of sometimes irrational recklessness combined with the clear personal understanding that one could be involved in a doubtful enterprise, could be laughed at, and still doing it all the same. (Now I think I understand it myself.)

As I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, I applaud AFIC. What sterling chutzpah! To demand the inclusion of Sharia laws in Australian jurisprudence! Bravo! Of course these guys knew that it is likely to happen the day after hell freezes over, but still they went ahead and immortalised themselves.

The only thing which I am not happy about is the narrow definition of the proposed law changes, limited only to divorce and inheritance or some such. Why not the whole caboodle? Why the insistence that these laws would be applicable exclusively to one group of people only? That is not nice towards the rest of us mugs. It is downright discriminatory. I personally feel jealous. Think of the beauty of such a concept – all the guy has to do to get a divorce is to say some magic word three times and you are free as a bird! And you don’t have to share anything with your ex if you don’t want to!

Imagine how peaceful family life will become if all those feisty and talk-back ready Aussie wives knew that if they did not toe the line they will get three little words and their marching orders! I think a lot of Aussie men would welcome such an addition to Australia’s laws. Well, women might be a bit upset but they always grumble about something anyway, don’t they?

But that is not all! Since we have the proposed Sharia addition to our laws, we could go all the way and introduce other bits and pieces from other religions and nationalities, residing in Australia. Naturally, we will have to make some minor life style adjustments. For example, we will have to ban insecticides to protect mozzies and the re-incarnation plans of flys. We’ll have to stop eating beef, drinking beer and gambling on the races – all of it is immoral or sacred anyway.

We will become pure and good. We might be able to learn to talk to trees, stone adulterers and gays, chop off thieves’ hands and other advantages. Life in Australia will become so screwed up that boat people will stop coming here – there’s another advantage for you! As anyone could see it is all worth it. That is why we all owe a debt of gratitude to AFIC for having the chutzpah to start a long process of change in Australia.

These guys rock!