Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan Read online

  Ramadan does not defend the same Islam as the Taliban, but he never has really harsh words for these fundamentalists that he defines, at worst, as adherents to a particularly traditionalist, even reactionary, interpretation of Islam, especially as regards women; yet he asks European Muslims to respect the sincerity of their ways.66 After this he drops his skepticism, granting them a form of absolution in his haste to condemn foreign influences: "We are well aware that the great powers know how to exploit sincerity for their own ends. Today, behind the Taliban, there is the Pakistani secret service, there is Saudi Arabia, and, behind them all, there is the United States, which considers this ultra-closed society an obstacle to its geostrategic plans for the region. ,17 He is far more severe with regard to Saudi Wahhabism, which he finds catastrophic; but here again, his criticism serves essentially as a means of attacking American influence. In fact, Ramadan is never as hard on the fundamentalists as he is on their enemies. In general, the ban on speaking ill of other Muslims means only not speaking ill of the Muslim Brotherhood, and in particular of him, who must be protected against the critics. On the other hand, as we have seen, he reserves the right to "eat the flesh" of certain Muslims, such as the modernist Muslims that he makes a habit of referring to as false Muslims (when it is not "Islamophobes"). The call for fraternity is designed to stymie all criticism of fundamentalists. And the expected result is the radicalization of all Muslims who fall under his influence.

  The merest doubt about 9/11

  Tariq Ramadan has often claimed to be an outstanding agent of peace: "On several occasions I have had the opportunity of speaking with government authorities, and they were well informed in regard to the Islam that I advocate-an open-minded Islam that participates in society in a positive way," he declared to Agence France-Presse at the time he was banned from entering France. He does advocate "an open-minded Islarri'-but only for the benefit of the outside world. And even then ...

  Whenever he is asked-in particular by the press-he is, of course, quick to condemn terrorism. As almost all Islamists do-when asked. They will tell you they condemn terrorism, but approve of "resistance." If one listens closely, these are exactly the terms used by Tariq Ramadan. On October 3, 2oor, he published an opinion piece in Le Monde which began with these words: "The condemnation of the attacks on the United States must be unanimous." 68 A nice start. Unfortunately, this severity did not last long. In the following sentences, Tariq Ramadan insinuated that there was no proof that bin Laden or any Muslims had been behind 9/II: "Is it possible, in the midst of this outpouring of unquestioned affirmations, to express the slightest doubt? For, after all, there's reason to be upset if one compares the incredible sophistication of the methods used to prepare and pull off such an act-and the series of blunders committed afterwards that pointed to the bin Laden connection." And he added: "The real question still needs to be asked: who stands to profit by these attacks? No `Arab' or `Islamic' cause will derive any advantage." The rest of the article is designed to show that the American government undoubtedly profited from these attacks, seizing the opportunity to curtail public liberties and launch a crusade against the Muslim world. Which led him to call on Muslims and non-Muslims to "resist" such an eventuality "together."

  It is about the only time that Tariq Ramadan has taken pen in hand to condemn terrorism. His declaration would be moving-and even the sec and part of his analysis would be acceptable-if it did not serve to imply that the American government stood to gain from the 9/II attacks! That leaves a sour aftertaste, coming as it does from an Islamist leader who claims to be an agent of peace.

  His lack of enthusiasm in condemning Muslim extremism also emerged in another interview he gave to the French news weekly Le Point the month after the attacks of March II, 2004 in Madrid. This time it was as an expert on Islam and the West that Tariq Ramadan was interviewed, and he declared in professorial tones: "You will find no support worth mentioning, whether in the French suburbs or in Muslim countries, for the interventions in New York, Bali or Madrid. One must not confuse the resistance in Iraq or Palestine with pro-bin Laden operations."69 Tariq Ramadan is really a past master in the art of euphemisms. Thus, the attacks by Hamas, or those launched by Saddam Husseiri s partisans, including those that have killed civilians (Israelis and Iraqis!), are elevated to the rank of "resistance," not to be confused with "pro-bin Laden operations." Even more serious, the pro-bin Laden operations are no longer referred to as "attacks" but as mere "interventions." The term came as a shock to more than one attentive reader. It was all the more revealing since Tariq Ramadan always chooses his words with great care. A member of his thesis jury was shocked at his way of phrasing things. In Aux sources du renouveau musulman [On the Origins ofthe Muslim Renaissance], the preacher spoke ofthe murder ofAnwar Sadat by a Muslim Brother as an "exe- cutiorf and not an "assassination." One of the distinguished professors on the jury picked up on it, but the word remained unchanged.

  The mildness with which Tariq Ramadan condemns terrorism when he is speaking outside the Muslim community affords us a glimpse of what he says within it. In his lectures, the objective is not to warn against this plague, but rather to reprimand those who oppose the extremists-in particular the media, which he accuses of caricaturing Islamism, insinuating at the same time that these campaigns are related to the influence of intellectuals bent on defending Israeli interests. Only a few days after 9/II, the preacher gave a lecture in Venissieux organized by the Union of Young Muslims. Was he going to take advantage of the occasion to make the young of this particu larly radical association aware of their responsibilities? A Lyon Mag journalist who attended the conference reported the following: "Whereas the young Muslims spoke of nothing else but the attacks, Tariq never said a word about them throughout his lecture. He waited until the very last minute to mention the tragedy, insisting that there was no evidence implicating bin Laden. And he added, in front of several hundred young Muslims, that if any state had an interest in launching the attack, it was Israel."70

  Pro-Hamas

  Manifestly, the idea of a Zionist conspiracy is a most handy way of cleansing the blood that stains the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood in Algeria and elsewhere. At other times, the attitude of Israel serves to justify recourse to murder, including the murder of children and civilians. In an interview given to the magazine Panorama of Milan, cited in the Courrier International edition of September 16 to 22, 2004, regarding an eight-year-old child, killed because she would be a soldier when she grew up, Tariq Ramadan declared: "In itself it's morally condemnable, but understandable given the context," since "the international community has delivered the Palestinians into the hands of their oppressors." In general, he stands by the positions taken by Hamas, whose fatwa authorizing suicide attacks comes from Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He makes a point of presenting the Islamist terrorist movement as a model of legitimate resistance. In Questioning Islam, flanked by Alain Gresh, he vigorously defended the military branch representing the Muslim Brothers in Palestine: All those who have been there can testify to the fact that the labels `obtuse fundamentalists' and `extremists' that they have foisted on Hamas in no way correspond to reality; the majority of the leaders are in favor of dialogue and have never spoken of `driving the Jews into the sea. "'71 Despite which, they have taken to blowing them up from time to time ... Tariq Ramadan added a few lines afterwards: "I have spoken of the illegitimacy of attacking civilians, but have the hypocrisy and the cynicism of the American government-and the Arab government as well-left the Palestinians any choice?"

  Tariq Ramadan was a latecomer as a pro-Palestinian supporter. In Geneva, where there was a very active pro-Palestinian network, no one remembered having seen him. "It was never his cause," one of the activists of the movement confided to me, preferring to remain anonymous. In fact, his position on Palestine only emerged when Hamas began to play a role in the conflict. Like the Hamas that he defends, he was critical both of Yasser Arafat and of the peace process. As for the rest, most of what we kno
w of his position on Palestine comes from the snatches of conversation that figure in his book of interviews with Alain Gresh. There he explains that, since advocating the destruction of Israel was not tenable, he had come round to the solution of a single state governed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims:

  In the end, a single state will have to be established .... This state should grant everyone-Jew and Christian, Muslim and humanist-an equal status as citizen and the right for his religion to be respected both in daily life and in the holy places. It is difficult to define the exact nature of this state. We have to proceed by stages, beginning by analyzing the existing structures, both Israeli and Palestinian, and studying in detail the reality of the discriminations written into the law. In the end, with the increase in the Israeli, Arab, and non-Jewish population we will have to question, in Claude Kleiri s phrase, "the Jewish character of the state of Israel." 72

  Appearances notwithstanding, this proposal for a single state, in which everyone would be accepted, bears no resemblance whatsoever to the secular, but at the same time utopian, proposal made by the PLO in the 1970s. Ramadan proposes not destroying the state of Israel, but replacing it with a single state, whose Jewish nature would soon be ... "questioned." That is to say, called into question. And how? By stages? But of course-by stages, as always. The first stage: proclamation of a state in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims are declared equal. A splendid idea, which would, in effect, provide a way of ending the discrimination from which Palestinians and Arab Israelis suffer. The problem is that, with Ramadan, this egalitarian state is only a first step. He has already admitted as much. With the increase in the population that is `Arab and non-Jewish"-meaning Muslim-it will be necessary to take stock of the situation and redefine the nature of this state. "Difficult to define the exact nature of this state," he tells us. Difficult, at any rate, to express it pub licly before reaching that stage. The Muslim Brotherhood is already dreaming of restoring the caliphate, in which Jews and Christians would be classed as dhimmis.73 There is no reason to believe that Ramadan does not share this dream.

  Anti-Semitic?

  Does that mean he is anti-Semitic? Not in the European sense. Ramadan is faithful to the Koran. The Jews, who can be allies of the Muslims, are "protected" and fully accepted. "They are in right guidance," says the Koran.74 Ramadan agrees. He has nothing against Jews-if they lend him their support. The others, however, immediately become his worst enemies. In the Koran, the Jews who refuse to support Islam are doubly cursed, described as "lost souls" that God has transformed into apes and swine, "obstinate in their rebellion," deserving nothing but hatred: `Amongst them we have stirred up enmity and hatred until the Day of Resurrection. ,75 The ambiguity of the Koran, torn between two extremes in its treatment of the Jews, is also that of Ramadan, always ready to denounce attacks on Jews, especially religious Jews, but at the same time imagining a Jewish conspiracy around every corner. In 2002, Ramadan and his followers condemned the acts of violence perpetrated against Jewish places of worship. It is the least one could expect on the part of a monotheist, hoping that inter-religion dialogue will lead all monotheists to make common cause against atheistic materialism. In this regard, Ramadan has never been a Judeophobe. He is quite ready to sign petitions for peace between Palestinians and Israelis, along with other intellectuals. But none of this really indicates whether he is antiSemitic. Whenever one tries to get to the bottom of his feelings about Jews as a people, he emphasizes the fact of having come to the defense of Jews as members of the Jewish faith. As if the absence of Judeophobia signified absence of anti-Semitism. This ambiguity has its advantages. In particular, it divides the Left, split between those who think that Ramadan is anti-Semitic and those who believe the accusation to be unfounded-an opportunity for the preacher to see who are his real collaborators and who are more reticent.

  Solidarity with Algerians ... but Islamist Algerians

  Has Tariq Ramadan even once stopped to think compassionately of all those intellectuals, artists, men, women, and children murdered in the name of Allah in Algeria? No. In the glossary that was published as an annex to the French edition of Etre musulman europeen [To Be a European Muslim], after the Nouvel Observateur ended up refusing it, here is all he has to say about the Islamic Salvation Front:

  The leaders of the political wing of the Front are a mixed bag. Voices are raised that are constructive and reasonable, but they vie with others that are far more reactionary, more aggressive, and more obtuse. Early on, the Islamic Salvation Front piled blunder on blunder and made political mistake after political mistake, and its responsibility for the present state of Algeria is considerable. One must, however, remember that the electoral process was cut short, and no error of a political nature can justify the terrifying repression unleashed against them.76

  This sentence is the ultimate in political cant, fit to be recorded in the annals of Islamist rhetoric. It would be a laughing matter ifthe result were not to play down the fact of so many deaths. Every word is weighed, and weighed again, but the net effect is finally quite clear. Tariq Ramadan reproaches the Islamic Salvation Front above all for having committed "blunders," in other words for not having respected the rhythm that was part of Hassan al-Banna's method of establishing an Islamic regime without encountering resis- tance-"blunders" that could not justify the "terrible repression' of which they were the victims. This double standard is appalling, coming as it does from a man who was in contact with the Front's leaders. He does, in fact, say that he pointed out to them how wrong they were to use every means to prevent women from working ... Did he really not have anything more to say to them? It would appear not.

  Fromthe same glossary, this is what he had to say about the Armed Islamic Groups (GIA): "The Armed Groups are to be condemned outright. Yet, at the same time, it is clear that these groups are infiltrated. Perhaps one day we will know more about the double game played by certain high-ups in the military who stuff their pockets while the bodies of so many Algerians are drained of their blood." But who is draining these bodies of their blood? Who is massacring entire villages? The army? That is what Islamists like Tariq Ramadan and his brother are insinuating. It is possible that the Algerian army did try to infiltrate some GIA cells to arrest or even liquidate the jihadists, in particular when Zeitouni was in command of the GIA-a leader so bloodthirsty that he succeeded in creating havoc within the organization itself. It is probable that the security forces tried to stir up rivalries within the GIA to put an end to their deadly hold on Algeria. But is it enough to assert that the Islamists were manipulated by the army for them to be forgiven the blood on their hands? This revisionism, combined with conspiracy paranoia, is unfortunately not that uncommon among the militant anti-colonialists, bent at all costs on casting the Islamists in the role of victims. It is even more chilling when it comes from one of the descendants of Hassan al-Banna, trained in the school of Qutb, and in contact with the "oppressed" in question.

  Once again, if Tariq Ramadan is willing to talk in these terms publicly, imagine what he teaches within the movement! In his lectures, each time he takes up the question of Algeria, Ramadan laments the death of the Islamists, but not the democrats' dead. "It's not only intellectuals that have been killed in Algeria, intellectuals who think in Western terms; the entire political class of committed Muslim intellectuals has been decimated." 77 In other words, Tariq Ramadan treats as equivalent the radical militants ready to kill to take power and the men and women fighting to maintain freedom who have been assassinated simply because they dared denounce the Islamists' violence. Sorry, he does not treat them as equivalent ... He considers it abominable that Islamists have gone to their death because they wanted to establish an Islamic dictatorship, but remains coldly indifferent to the murders and threats of death that have been visited on those Algerian intellectuals who have resisted Islamism. Moreover, he refuses to consider as "intellectuals" Algerian women such as Khalida Messaoudi who have opposed Islamism: "One day it will come out that
she has been subsidized, aided and supported by the regime in power." 78 Tariq Ramadan was hostile to Messaoudi not because she accepted support from the Algerian government for her campaign in defense of Algerian women; he was hostile to her because she fought against the Islamists of the Islamic Salvation Front.

  When speaking within the movement, Ramadan denounces the "smear campaign' aimed at Ibn Taymiyya, the man that all the Islamists look up to, including the extremists; the man whom Ramadan recommends and whom he defends as having "a method and an approach intellectually well founded."79 Taymiyya's approach is so well founded that it is invoked by the Islamists who have gone in for murder, in particular the GIA members who assassinated seven Trappist monks in Tibehirine in 1996. To be sure, Tariq Ramadan does not approve of this sort of thing, but it is the death of Islamist fighters that he regrets the most: "The assassination of the monks is an abhorrence that we condemn in the same way and with the same intensity that we condemn the murder of all those intellectuals of whom nothing is said and who are killed because of their faith. "10 The statement just goes to show how quickly the condemnation of the GIA is passed over. It serves as a pretext for immediately lamenting the loss of the militants of the Islamic Salvation Front and the GIA, whom Ramadan treats as "intellectuals," in order the better to denigrate those intellectuals "ofwhom the press does speak" and who have been killed because they resisted the Islamists. Ramadan speaks of these murders, in particular the murder of the monks, as being "a dishonor for the GIA," but he adds that the assassinations only go to prove "the inability of the Algerian government to ensure internal security. 1'81 But ensure internal security against whom?