Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan Read online

  This last sentence sums up the communitarian concept of culture that, in spite of his denials, Ramadan defends. If selection is not an individual matter, but a collective obligation, then that means the community must orga nize the censorship of books, films, and music considered to be in conflict with Islamic morality-which comes down to having the clan superintend the cultural tastes and choices of youngsters born into Muslim families. Furthermore, rather than select, Ramadan would prefer to have an alternative culture, designed in such a way that children would not seek distractions elsewhere. A sort of cultural police disguised as an alternative culture. "We must find a solution for handling this free time, this need for distraction, by providing a noble Islamic culture ... so that we can progress together towards a European Islamic culture."" For "noble," read "moral." But what does a culture designed to be moral look like? Ramadan does not really go into detail. He presses the community to develop "cartoons and games for Islamic children," but he himself cites only countermodels, disapproving, for instance, of a young child playing with a Power Ranger as a sign of "creeping colonialism." But what exactly does an Islamic toy look like? Tariq Ramadan is never clear on that. Except when he gives examples coming from countries that offer, in his eyes, a model to be imitated in terms of "Islamic culture." Then everything becomes clear. For women, he looks to Iran. For culture, he looks to the Sudan of Hassan al-Tourabi, a leader whose "imaginative cultural management" he admires.20

  From cultural xenophobia to censorship

  The worst aspect of this is not that Tariq Ramadan is a fundamentalist, but that he seeks to force his fundamentalist vision of culture on the Muslim community and even on society as a whole. His association, Presence Musulmane, advocates banning films, music and photography that conflict with Islamic morals: "The contents of artistic works, as well as their form (be it music, song, photography, cinema or drawing), must be in keeping with Islamic ethics and not give rise to attitudes that run counter to them. '21 For this reason, the association invites its members to pick and choose when it comes to European artistic production, and, above all, to avoid "sub-cultures" defined as follows: "Negative artistic productions that are immoral and indecent, mass evening gatherings, and dehumanizing concerts." Advice that applies "to oneself, one's family and one's entourage."

  Once again, we come across the first three points of al-Banna's program: the individual, the family, and then society. Like al-Banna, Tariq Ramadan encourages Muslims to call for censorship in the name of respect for Muslim culture:

  As members and citizens of Western societies, Muslim men and women must have their say on art and culture. Muslims must question meanings, debate values, challenge institutions, and participate in the vast debate on human dignity and ethics. You are not the only ones to be put off by the weird innovations of "post-modern' artistic expression. With people of like faith and conscience, you must dare to say no, to express your determined resistance, so that the freedom of speech, which is our claim to dignity, does not become a pretext for the partisans of an "all-permissiveness" sunk in absurdities and tumult.22

  To night clubs you shall not go

  Anti-discrimination associations have been organizing campaigns against night-club bouncers harassing would-be customers because they look North African. Tariq Ramadan has a better way of avoiding the ordeal of discrimination. He prohibits young Muslims from going to night clubs! The preacher paints a particularly somber picture of Western societies, interested only in free time and leisure activities-something he is never far from equating with idleness and even decadence. The cult of the night symbolizes for him the worst aspect of this "sub-culture": "You are living in a society in which night-time provides a very special sort of entertainment .... The lights go dim, there's more racket and you lose your head."" The phenomenon is of concern to him. He reprimands the Muslims who go to discotheques: "I know it's true: even some of you, forgetting who you are, do go there and join in." In a tone ofvoice more paternal than ever, he warns them: it is out of the question to go to every non-Muslim evening party just to be more integrated. "We're not going to act like them, just to have them think we're part of the same culture."2"

  Ramadan not only warns against "the dark and shadowy distractions" of smoke-filled night clubs. His strict standards also ban listening to music late at night, even Islamic music performed at the close of Muslim meetings! He rejects anything and everything that could possibly make one "lose one's head" before turning in. "Before going to bed," he expounded to young Muslims, "one doesn't lose one's head in Islam; one opens one's heart." And then he went on to explain what he proposed instead. A schedule in which daily prayer replaced night-time music. "Celebrations are not occasions to lose track, but to achieve equanimity."

  To rap you shall not listen

  Tariq Ramadan makes no secret of his dislike of rap. "The philosophy of rap is not the philosophy of the heart."25 There is, no doubt, much to be said on the subject of the sexism of certain male rappers, but that is not what Ramadan has in mind. The fact that rap is often sexually explicit music, raw and candid, undoubtedly shocks the sensitivity of a preacher who is such a bigot and moralist. But that is not the only thing that bothers him. Just what is it that he disapproves of in the music? First of all, the idolatry. True to a monotheistic religion built on its opposition to polytheism, he is disturbed to see that Muslim men and women can so adore an idol that they ask for his autograph. "For it is a serious matter, it is not the sort of culture we should have." But that is not all: the youngsters from the poor districts who find in rap a form of expiation and expression are usually not those whom the Islamists succeed in indoctrinating.

  In his book Qu'Allah benisse la France [Let God Bless France], the rapper Abd al-Malik recounts that he was, for many years, active in the Tabligh and the UOIF, where he never missed any of Tariq Ramadaris lectures-but that he then drifted away so as to enjoy greater liberty of faith and to create." In the beginning a fervent follower, this independently minded artist began to feel hemmed in by a conception of religion that was so closed to cultural mixing. His discontent only intensified when he asked Tariq Ramadan how to reconcile his faith with his love of rap. One winter's night in 1998, he took advantage of the preacher's visit to Strasbourg to arrange a meeting. The conversation was cordial but disappointing. The artist did not understand when Tariq Ramadan urged him to restrict his creativity to Islamic influences: `All the trends, genres, and styles in vogue today had their separate roots, but they fed into one another, all the more so in the multicultural West. The recommendations of our mentor might have been applicable in literature, in the choice of subject, even in vocal interpretation; but from a strictly musical point of view it made no sense." The artist was taken aback when Tariq Ramadan ended by suggesting that his malaise stemmed from the fact that his musical compositions were not in harmony with Islam: "These words made my blood run cold. Was it possible that he was right? And if so, was he insinuating that I should be attuned to his interpretation of Islam? Even when I was on the bottom of the heap, I had always jealously defended my freedom. I was asking for advice, not for an ideological tutor." Abd al-Malik has continued to be a musician, but he has come closer to a more spiritual Islam less given to lecturing-the Islam of the Sufis.

  Rap communicates the rage of those faced with discrimination and forced to live in ghettoes, but the music transforms this rage into a form of culture. Ramadan wants to transform this rage into morality. He has nothing against music if it serves to transmit his message. On this score, Ramadan admits that "music is a language that can't be overlooked." The only singers that find favor in his eyes are those who devote their music to the service of religion and propagation of the faith, like Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam. But even in this case, it is not sufficient to make music and "add a touch of Islam." He wants songs that are entirely Islamic.

  Certain films thou shalt not see

  Fundamentalists never admit that they detest the liberty of thought inherent in arti
stic creation. They simply say that they want art to respect religion. Which means either reducing it to a tool of propaganda or adopting censorship. That is exactly what the American fundamentalists do when they campaign with cries of "blasphemy" against any film that they cannot suppress, such as Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ-the better to approve films that serve their propaganda objectives, such as Mel Gibsoris The Passion ofthe Christ. Hani Ramadan adopts the same approach. He condemns, as symptomatic of "the decline of the West," films which "under the guise of eroti cism and art" display sexual acts on the big screen, but stipulates: "That does not mean that Islam rejects the seventh art. On the contrary, cinema and theater have considerable cultural qualities, so long as these genres serve an ideal that protects moral values and human dignity."27 We have seen how this statement is interpreted by Tariq Ramadan. He would, no doubt, approve of a play glorifying the Prophet that had been produced with Qaradawi's "seal of approval," but quite evidently not Voltaire's version.

  As far as cinema is concerned, his favorite target-one that embodies the very acme of cinematographic decadence-is Titanic. A film that Muslims have not seen," he said ironically, and even with a certain touch of humor. As good a way as any of getting across the idea that "true Muslims" should not have gone to see this typically Hollywood melodrama. He warns against any film that threatens to violate Islamic moral standards: "Make sure that, because you're fond of the movies, you don't go to see something disgraceful, something immoral. "21 And what does he propose? Not forbidding, but selecting: "Go to see things, but learn where the limits are .... Develop a culture of dignity and a sense of limits."29 This is another piece of advice that comes strikingly close to al-Banna's program, with a dash of realism added. In an Islamic country, such a conception of art would clearly result in the banning of any film or song that did not conform to Islamic morality-a policy that would be indefensible in the West, where banning would serve only to alienate non-Muslims, as well as young Muslims. Ramadan is aware of the fact: "In a society where everything is permitted, if you forbid everything, you are going to lose your children," he explained to parents. He then went on to propose that the community organize itself in order to supervise and manage its youngsters' free-time activities.3° He remembers the day his father authorized him to go and see Twelve Angry Men: "He said to me: that one you have to see! ... I'll remember it all my life."31 Which only goes to show how exceptional such authorizations were.

  The four pillars of Muslim identity according to Ramadan

  Apparently the five pillars of Islam that are to do with matters of faith are not enough for Ramadan, who added a further four pillars (all of them political) as non-negotiable constituents of Muslim identity:32

  i. Faith: "living our spirituality and practicing our religion in full"

  2. Comprehension: "learning our religion'

  3. Education: "being able to inform and educate our children in the message"

  4. Action: "being able to act in the name of our faith."

  In appearance, this proposition seems harmless. It shocked none of those readers who saw him as a modern, secular Muslim. No doubt they would have been more intrigued had they also heard the cassette version of this presentation on Muslim identity, in which Tariq Ramadan stated: "If a society denies me one of these four features, I will resist it, I will fight it."33 Enough to make one want to reread more closely these famous four pillars that are supposed to determine Muslim identity, and which are to be respected if a war against the Muslim community as a whole is to be avoided.

  The first problem concerning this definition is that it eliminates any possibility of a Muslim living his faith in a private and individual fashion, for a good Muslim must commit himself in the name of Islam. This conception of Islam, which is, of necessity, collective, and thus communitarian, is not in itself shocking. It only becomes so in the hands of radical Muslims. All Islamists advocate a communitarian form of faith, which has the advantage of providing them with low-level recruits. In Algeria, the Islamic Salvation Front began by urging Muslims to pray collectively and not in their homes, even on days other than Friday; it subsequently began using these outside prayer meetings to deliver a far more political message. In Ramadan s case as well, "being able to act in the name of our faith" quickly becomes a political issue: "You cannot tell me that, in order to be a good Frenchman, I must remain a spiritual being who does not act in society."34 Acting in society means acting politically. Harmless enough, except that it implies resisting a state that does not allow proselytizing-especially in school and in some public places, above all when the third pillar of Muslim identity stipulates that one must be able to "inform and educate our children in the message."

  "Educating our children in the message"

  Such a statement, coming from a preacher from the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement that has prospered by using Islamic education as a means of propaganda, has far-reaching consequences. It is about the idea that there are Muslim children and not simply children of Muslims, so that any interference in the education given to these children is taken as an infringement of their Muslim identity. This concern with educating one's children without any intrusion on the part of the Republic is not only the result of exile, it is also an obsession common to all fundamentalists. All of them dream of raising their children safe from the influence of the modern world; all of them, starting with the fundamentalists of the American religious Right, are determined to maintain segregation and the teaching of creationism in their private fundamentalist universities. Tariq Ramadan himself is not an advocate of a separate educational system for Muslims. Not that he looks down on the idea, but he fears that providing a uniquely Muslim education would not produce militants adept at Islamizing their milieu. As he explained on one of his cassettes: An Islamic education cannot do without instruction in the Koran and the tradition of the Prophet (peace and blessings on his name), but neither can it do without instruction concerning the immediate environment in which we live and in which we must be active."35 It is important to remember that Ramadan is an Islamist charged with dawa in Europe. If you lose sight of his objective, namely to train as many Muslims as possible-wherever they might be-as agents of Islam, it becomes impossible to understand why there is always such a huge difference between the extreme rigour of his Islam and the very open-minded way in which he goes about spreading it. He encourages Muslims to enter the state schools, where they will learn to know their milieu and to influence their comrades, rather than having them educated apart from society in private schools. That is why he has no trouble replying to reporters who ask him if he urges the faithful to boycott certain classes: "The situation is clear; they must attend because it's the law. It's not open to discussion, we're not going to begin tampering with school schedules," he declared in Le Monde des Debats.36

  That does not mean that he will not do his utmost to limit the school's influence as far as possible. Nor will he allow the school program to take precedence over Muslim principles, in particular with regard to sports and biology. Muslim children are not to boycott biology classes; they are to assert their disagreement by questioning, criticizing and finally refusing to accept the theory of evolution on the basis of their "complementary" Islamic education-in this case thanks to the "complementary" courses, at which they learn that men are not descended from apes but were created by God. This is spelled out in a footnote to Muslims in a Secular Society: "School biology courses can include teachings that run counter to Islamic principles. Moreover, the same is true of history and philosophy courses. This does not mean that students should be excused from attending classes. It is preferable by far to provide these youngsters with supplementary instruction that teaches them Islarns replies to the problems that arise. That will be a true source of enrichment."37 As far as enrichment is concerned, this recommendation is an outright invitation to propaganda and to the refusal of dialogue, all the more disturbing in that it is applicable not only to biology, but also to history, philosophy an
d physical education. It is made even more explicit in the published proceedings of the symposium "Muslims in French-speaking countries," edited under the direction of Tariq Ramadan in 2001. Among the strategies recommended by the steering committee that he headed, it is said that "education is a domain in which the tactics employed must be extremely rigorous." The French-speaking Muslims were urged to "keep watch over scholastic programs and prevent the transmission of values not in accord with our principles"; to "set up a framework in which the official program would be combined with Islamic education (whether admitted as such or not)"; and finally, to "gain a footing within the state schools by profiting from the students' free time to give complementary religious instruction."38 Ramadari s supporters could, for instance, find material for their "complementary instruction" in the work published by Tawhid, L'homme descent-il du singe? Un point de vue musulman sur la theorie de l'evolution [Is Man Descended from the Apes? A Muslim View of the Theory of Evolution], which argues for creationism and denies evolution.

  For his followers understand perfectly well what is meant by this directive, even if it is discreetly given in a footnote. It sometimes happens that, despite the precautions he takes, Tariq Ramadari's instructions come to the attention of the public at large. It is this passage in particular that alerted the teachers of the college where he taught, in particular his biology colleagues. But he sidestepped the issue by arguing that the suspicion was misplaced (see Chapter 2). On occasion, he also avoids this (for him) awkward subject by simply lying outright. In December 2003, in the midst of a heated debate with Jean-Francois Kahn on the TV program Cultures et dependences, he could find no way out when Kahn asked him point blank whether he belonged to the group of Muslim theologians who accepted evolution theory. That day, as was often the case when on TV, Ramadan preferred to agree, rather than express his true convictions in front of the general public.