Saturday 6 September 2014

temperance league

Authorities in Wuppertal are charging a gang of eleven who style themselves the Sharia Police with impersonating an officer of the law—with uniforms that consist of orange warning-vests—and the potential for intimidation, which, as the commissioner curiously puts forward in an interview with The Local, is the exclusive domain of the state. The group operates to discourage young people from drinking and gambling and other behaviours against the tenants of Islam—and the local government pledges to stop their intrusion before it becomes a menace to society. What do you think of this? The cloak of religious purity is unsettling and the police, I think, are right to stop this encroachment before it spreads. No formal complaints have been levied against the gang though intimidation cannot be ruled out, but that the State enjoys a monopoly on social engineering and have backed much more vicious thugs for the sake of the public good has an equally unsettling ring.