From Matthew Parris’ comments on Rowan Williams’ suggestion that Sharia law be allowed in Britain:

The State, not family, faith or community, is the guarantor of personal liberty and intellectual freedom, and it will always be to the State, not the Church, synagogue or mosque, that the oppressed individual needs look.

There is no imminent danger, I don’t think, of Sharia law being allowed in Singapore, but there are similar problems that stem from the State’s lack of protection of liberties and its frequent exhortation that we leave the determination of these to be decided by the ‘moral majority’. But just because it’s a majority doesn’t mean it isn’t tyrannical or unreasonable.

It is, in my opinion, highly underrated how tyrannical cultures and families can be. Here our discourse is shaped by deference to cultures, in the name of harmony. Our cultures condone nothing as bad as suttee, but plenty of lesser evils.