Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan Read online

  The tone, which was already melodramatic, became sinister when Tariq Ramadan brought up the CFCM. He feared a clash with the liberal Muslims, but, above all, he was concerned by the aftereffects of his quarrel with the UOIF, and he issued a warning: "The major problems will involve our brothers." The warning continued: "Today, in the national community, they will try to sow dissension, to set us one against the other, to find hypocrites in our ranks" and "among us there is the gypsy [the devil]." Tariq Ramadan's harsh est criticisms were reserved for Muslims who did not share his plans for the future. He spoke of "people who are capable of lying, traitors who are all smiles when they are with you and insult you when speaking to others." It is to be an ordeal, but Tariq Ramadan loves playing the role of the martyr. At any rate, he explained, "the Prophet has experienced failure, he knows that men can betray and tell lies, he knows that the serpent lies hidden behind some people." The most frightening was yet to come. Tariq Ramadan informed his supporters of hard times ahead: "The coming years will be as difficult for Muslim society as our progress has been rapid, because this time they will be there waiting for us."

  The most disturbing thing about this speech is not the warlord-like tone, which reveals a Tariq Ramadan very different from the one we know from watching television; no, the most alarming thing can only be understood if one keeps in mind the Muslim Brotherhood's history. The tone, but also the words and even certain sentences, come amazingly close to the speech given by Hassan al-Banna shortly before his death, in which he announced that the progress made by the Muslim Brotherhood was to cause them problems; the speech in which he announced the transition to another stage. All very disturbing when one knows of the Geneva Islamic Center's contacts and the company it keeps.

  Denied entry into France

  On frequent occasions, the Ramadan brothers' shady reputation has caught up with them; they have even been suspected of inciting hatred or acts of terrorism. Despite his angelic looks, which have often beguiled the general public, Tariq was the first ofthe two brothers to have caused concern to the French authorities. On November 26, 1995, as he was about to cross the frontier between Switzerland and France at Verrieres-de-Joux on his way to Besancon to attend a conference, he was informed that he was being denied entry into France as "a menace to public order." Ever since the bomb explosion in the Saint-Michel metro station, the French authorities had feared that the terrorists of the Armed Islamic Groups (GIA) would renew their attempt to export violence to France. The arrival of a preacher acting as the spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood's version of dawa was not really welcome. In effect, there was good reason to believe that the Geneva Islamic Center-of which Tariq Ramadan is still an administrator-served as a European stopping-off place for militants of the FIS and even the GIA.

  In 1994, Islamists calling for support for the jihad in Algeria took part in the first congress of Tariq Ramadan s association, the Muslim Men and Women of Switzerland. The following year, on March 11, 1995, members of the FIS and the GIA co-organized a meeting with the Geneva Islamic Center in front ofthe United Nations headquarters. It was, in effect, a sort of outdoor prayer meeting: each participant had his prayer rug, while the speakers took turns at the rostrum. Two orators, microphone in hand, conducted the public preaching session: Said Lalli, a former FIS deputy, and Hani Ramadan. Tariq Ramadan also took part in the gathering. Richard Labeviere and a French-speaking Swiss TV crew tried to record the event, but the event stewards violently attacked them and prevented them from filming. The "ambassador to the outside world" was not supposed to keep the same company as the "interior ambassador," even if, in fact, he did.

  The event's logistics, in particular the supply of the sound system, was handled by Ijra, an organization run by former members of FIDA, a group with close ties to the GIA that has been responsible for the murder of Algerian intellectuals.79 On March 7, 1993, for example, FIDA claimed responsibility for the assassination of the director of the Algiers School of Fine Arts. Since the "civil concord," a government measure that provided guarantees for ex-Islamist terrorists in order to bring peace back to Algeria, Mourad Dhina (alias Sheikh Amar) and Moustapha Brahimi, two of its leaders, had been in exile in Switzerland, where they took advantage of the freedom of speech provided by the European democracies to publish a propaganda bulletin, AlQaddt (The Cause), distributed in French, Belgian, and Swiss Islamist circles. The bulletin paid a vibrant tribute to Said Ramadan on the occasion of his death. It claimed to continue in the same tradition, which implied being close ideologically to Said Ramadan's official heirs.8' For Richard Labeviere, author of an investigative piece on the "European Networks of Algerian Islamists" for Les Cahiers de l'Orient, there is no doubt that Said's two sons were in touch with the editors of The Cause: "Mourad Dhina, as well as Moustapha Brahimi, had close ties to the Ramadan family, whose two sons, Tariq and Hani were also in Switzerland. The latter were instrumental in teaching them the virtues of pragmatism in a complex political and social setting. I'M Dhina and Brahimi continue to frequent the Geneva Islamic Center. On September 18, 2004, Brahimi gave a talk on "the personality of Imam Shafii." On October 2, it was Mourad Dhina's turn. The Ramadan headquarters thus still retains official links with the GIA veterans who publish The Cause.

  The journal The Cause claimed to be the "Voice ofthe elected representatives ofthe Islamic Salvation Front." Though the body is (unfortunately) legal, this is far from reassuring. In fact, the editors-Mourad Dhina under the pen name Abou Omar and Moustapha Brahimi under the name Mustapha B.were both active members of the FIDA-GIA, and The Cause served to relay their message. But in order not to lay themselves open to arrest, the authors were careful never to refer explicitly to calls for an armed jihad, except for traditional invocations, for instance those of Ibn Taymiyya. There were exceptions when it came to obituaries, as, for example, when Mustapha B. published an article entitled "Sheikh Cherati, my brother, my friend" in tribute to the F IS theologian known for hisfatwa calling for a holy war in 19 9 z. He had just been killed by the Algerian security forces.8' But for the rest of the time, only a well-informed reader could catch the jihad references that come in the midst of internationalist, anti-globalization articles, some simulating concern with human rights. The Cause on occasion alluded favorably to the Zapatista movement in Mexico or quoted from an Amnesty International report, but of course only when it was a question of denouncing torture in Algeria. But the obsessions of this official mouthpiece of the FIS, which was in effect run by FIDA members, would rapidly resurface. The journal made a practice of targeting French intellectuals, often Jewish (Bernard-Henri Levy, Andre Glucksman, and Jean Daniel), accusing them of attacking Islamist ideals. French secularism and the French Revolution, which gave birth to "liberty, equality, fraternity," were pilloried on every page, particularly when it came to rendering the murders committed by the GIA more palatable by explaining that the French Revolution had done worse. You would think that the Alge rian Islamists had not got used to the idea that France no longer governed Algeria; The Cause regularly dispatched menacing letters to French deputies. In 1995, shortly after the presidential election, the group again threatened Jacques Chirac: "Since you want to symbolize change, allow me most humbly to advise you to stop French meddling with what is happening in Algeria. Begin by admitting that what is happening now in Algeria is part of the plan scrupulously carried out by the stooges that the French administration planted in our country before 1962.... But our people are determined to get rid of these puppets and break the hand that takes pleasure in manipulating them."83 The menace was taken seriously. All the more so as the group reaffirmed its commitment to armed jihad in a letter addressed to a French deputy: "War is declared against the junta in power and its allies until the day when an Islamic state is established in Algeria."84

  This background is necessary in order to understand the context in which the denial ofTariq Ramadan's entry permit took place. The French police sent a report to Jean-Louis Debre, then Minister of the Interior, to
remind him of the ties between Tariq Ramadan and the Brotherhood, as well as his participation in Secours Islamique. The report also specified that Tariq Ramadan had translated "newspapers published by the Hamas movement in the occupied territories." It concluded that "the intellectual influence of such a person could be particularly dangerous" in a climate of such tension.

  The refusal of an entry permit for Ramadan immediately set off a scandal. A defense committee was set up, including radical Islamists close to the Center and to the Geneva Mosque, but also leading figures from the Left, the Catholic Church, and the Human Rights League, to request that the ban be lifted. Ramadan had, in effect, brought all his talents to bear to appear as the victim of an unjust conspiracy. Ten days after learning that he had been denied entry, in the course of a lecture given in Brussels, he adopted a particularly melodramatic tone to reassert that the ordeal would not deter him from his mission: "Because the path before us is not determined by circumstance, but laid out by destiny."85 Once again, his speech curiously brings to mind Hassan al-Banna's last address, shortly before his death, in which he announced to his companions that, once their true nature was revealed, they should be prepared to face adversity. Tariq Ramadan made a point of claiming that he was heir to this mission, even if it meant confronting the same "injustice" that his father and grandfather had known: "I will continue to speak this message, for it is our inheritance and our destiny." He explained to his companions the strategy that he planned to implement: "You will not hear of revolt; you will hear an insistent call for justice." Which is far more efficacious. Putting this strategy into effect, Tariq Ramadan adopted a quite different tone for the outside world and cried out for justice. He contacted any and every association or journalist willing to listen to him. Was he accused of being an Islamist linked to the Secours Islamique? He spoke of documents riddled with errors and claimed, for example, that Hany al-Banna was no relation. In the meantime, he omitted to mention that he did indeed serve as one of the high-ups of the organization in question, which was, in fact, what he was accused of. He insisted that he was ioo percent a pacifist, a victim of a misunderstanding-and he was to have his way. All the more readily in that the French Left was, at the time, fully mobilized against the security policy of the government, convinced that it was acting in the great anti-colonial tradition by accusing the governments of the newly independent nations of exaggerating the risk of terrorism in order to step up their persecution of Islamists. Tariq Ramadan recounted to anyone who would listen that he had been banned at the request of the Egyptian government, as a way of getting back at him for having, on a French TV program, submitted the Egyptian ambassador to aggressive questioning over the lack of respect for human rights in his country (where the Muslim Brothers continued to be arrested and harassed). Many people were to believe his version of events, especially in view of the campaign waged against him in Egypt at the time ofhis father's death. As a result, Ramadan once more came through as a victim: "The damage has been done. Mistrust is in the air," he declared to the press, adding that the ban would keep him from going on with his "salutary" work in drawing young French Muslims into dialogue. The Human Rights League even wrote to the Minister ofthe Interior, requesting that the ban be lifted on Tariq Rama- dan-"whose beliefs and opinions are perfectly respectable." While some Swiss journalists wanted nothing to do with him after the Muslim Men and Women of Switzerland congress, others called it a scandal and stepped up to defend him. The French journalist Elisabeth Levy, who at the time was favorable to Ramadan, even took up the Egyptian conspiracy thesis in the Nouveau Quotidien: "We knew that, when it comes to hunting down Islamists, France does anything the Algerian regime asks. Now it seems France is also ready to pursue those whom the Egyptian regime considers enemies."86 As for La Tribune de Geneve, it recalled that Tariq Ramadan had just published a book, Islam: le face-d face des civilisations [Islam: The Confrontation of Civilizations], that proved the preacher's "open-mindedness." Above all, the press was impressed by the defense committee. Close to 17,500 people (io,ooo in France, 6,ooo in Belgium and i,5oo in Switzerland) signed the following text: "The dialogue between communities is essential for our future. Tariq Ramadan, who in his writings and teachings embodies the commitment to dialogue and tolerance, has the right to be heard, the right to free speech and movement." 87

  The offense to Tariq Ramadari s honor was a subject that could bring together historical revisionists, as well as pro-Third Worlders; the liberal minded, as well as anti-secular Christians; professors, as well as political figures-all of them siding with the Islamists.88 Nobody appeared upset by the fact that Roger Garaudy-known to be a negationist-signed; nor by the fact that the defense committee's address was "care of H. Ouardiri," that is to say the rector ofthe Geneva Mosque, known to be close to the Wahhabite Saudis. To be more precise, this "Committee for the defense ofthe right offree speech for Muslims" was orchestrated by Yahia Basalamah, Hafid Ouardiri, and Yousouf Ibram. This last is today the most active member of the European Fatwa Council, the governing religious body of the UOI F, through which he issued afatwa banning abortion. But none of this far from respectable backing disturbed Michel Rossetti, the administrative councilor for the city of Geneva for whom "Tariq Ramadan represents a link between our communities." 89 Jean Ziegler went so far as to call on the lower house to request that the Federal Council intercede with the French government so as to lift the "arbitrary" ban. In his text, the Swiss deputy really laid it on, explaining that Ramadan came from a tradition that favored a tolerant form of Islam! The Swiss Social ist Party, in the person of Bernadette Gaspoz-Brede, a municipal councilor, also gave vent to its indignation at the ban imposed on the preacher. Mobilization became more intense once the ban began to have secondary effects within Switzerland. Informed of the decision taken by the French authorities, the Department of Public Instruction and Religious Affairs chose to postpone Tariq Ramadan's talks in the secondary schools. He was refused the right to give a lecture in a Lausanne lycee gymnasium, but the Department of Public Instruction ended up rescinding this decision, clearing him of "any suspicion of fundamentalism," according to Le Journal de Geneve.9° In the meantime, the Besancon administrative court, on May 9, 1996, annulled the Ministry of the Interior's decision, which appeared to vindicate all those who had defended him. The lifting of the ban afforded him the opportunity for a triumphal return. He was more listened to than ever on the Left, which considered him a victim of racism, a defiant political opponent.

  His brother Hani was not treated with the same solicitude when something similar befell him the following year. On February 1, 1997, when he was about to cross the frontier to give a lecture in Lille, he was informed that his presence was unwelcome. The French authorities spoke of "a leading figure in the European Islamist movement" connected to the UOIF-which the ministry had no difficulty in establishing was on friendly terms with "the Palestinian Hamas movement." The authorities considered that the comings and goings of Hani Ramadan constituted a public danger, specifying, however, that "even if this intellectual cannot be suspected personally of sympathizing with the Islamic circles that advocate recourse to violence, the recent murderous attacks that have taken place on French soil oblige the authorities to increase their vigilance to include all those whose behavior can contribute, directly or indirectly, to the progress of extremist ideologies within France." On May 22, 2001, the decision was to be annulled by the administrative court of Lyon as irregular; there had also been a failure to observe the provisions of the ordinance governing the entry and residence of foreigners. But in contrast to what had happened in Tariq Ramadan s case, the accusations failed to elicit a reaction from the French Left. Hani had to be content with a statement of support issued by the UOIF denouncing the decision as "an affront to the Muslims of France." Once the ban was lifted, he was welcomed as a hero by the Union of Young Muslims of Lyon-which had had to make do with Tariq during the period that Hani was held up at the frontier. The association organized a conference to celebr
ate the return of their second-favorite lecturer. On October 4, 2001, only a few months after having been authorized to re-enter France, Hani Ramadan, speaking to a packed municipal conference hall, began by pleading for observance of the law: "We are not in a Muslim country; we must act in keeping with the existing associative and cultural structures, and keep up the contacts and dialogue with the authorities and political representatives; but we must also develop inter-religious relations." This did not prevent him from reasserting that "a secular state worthy of the name, a state that prides itself on being truly secular, should admit the wearing of the headscarf." And then, as always in the end, the mask came off. His text got out of hand when he launched into international affairs: "Wherever a Muslim is attacked, wherever a country's territory is invaded, it is our duty to mobilize, here and elsewhere. Obviously this commitment holds true for Pakistan and for the Taliban."9'