Sharia Law in the UK?

There is an interesting article on Sharia courts in the United Kingdom, in today's New York Times. The article demonstrates the contemporary nature of the courts.

These courts are not a hark back to tradition:

Islamic courts, for example, promote therapy culture: 'Critics also point to cases of domestic violence in which Islamic scholars have tried to keep marriages together by ordering husbands to take classes in anger management, leaving the wives so intimidated that they have withdrawn their complaints from the police'.

The courts allow women an alternative route to divorce: 'Almost all of the cases involve women asking for divorce, and through word of mouth and an ambitious use of the Internet, courts... have become magnets for Muslim women seeking to escape loveless marriages — not only from Britain but sometimes also from Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and Germany.'

There is little evidence of a feared British 'Taliban' justice system: 'The tribunals stay away from criminal cases that might call for the imposition of punishments like lashing or stoning.'

The informal nature of the courts, the link to therapy culture and other features makes them look like they have more in common with the, often lauded, moves to community restorative justice programmes and other forms of judicial practice which are at the experimental end of the British criminal justice system.

US elections

I am surprised at the number of people I know, and who I think of as political, who are getting excited at the prospect of the election of the first black Presidet of the USA. I can't help thinking that the idea that this would be an historic victory involves a very shallow idea of history. I keep thinking 'what did Margaret Thatcher's premiership do for women?', 'what did Nelson Mandela's do for most black South Africans?'. The excitement seems to me to be part of a shift in understanding of representation from representation of interests to representation as presentation. The 'triumph' of appearance over substance (or perhaps more correctly the eclipsing of substance by appearance). What I find difficult to understand is why appearance excites people in a way that substance doesn't? I can understand that appearance has more appeal when substance (or substantial differences between candidates) is lacking. But when people talk about high turnouts, reengagement in politics, excitement about politics, why is this? Is there actually more excitement about this election than the election of JFK or Nixon? If so, what does this excitement consist of?