Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan (10 page)

In the late 195os, even before the founding ofthe Muslim World League, Said
Ramadan persuaded Prince Faisal to help him found a network of Islamic
centers in the main European capitals. The objective: to re-Islamize the Old
World, that is to say, to facilitate the export of an ultra-reactionary, ultra-rigid
Islam, spilling over into the sole region in the world that had succeeded in
establishing a balance between politics and religion in a secular context.

After some two years of commuting between Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and
Saudi Arabia, Said Ramadan took up the question of what city would provide
the best home base. He arrived in Geneva in 1958, but then travelled to Germany, where he earned a doctorate in law from the University of Cologne
with a thesis, a very concise thesis, on the "sharia."9 In terms of scientific contribution, it consisted mostly of advocating a return to the founding precepts
and Salafist reformist doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood. Tariq Ramadan speaks of "a synthesis of the basic views of Hassan al-Banna regarding the sharia, legal power, political organization and religious pluralism.""
He was well advised to specify that his father insisted on "religious plural-
isrrf' and not political pluralism. In fact, Said Ramadan-as Hassan al-Banna
had before him-dreamed of a political system that would be not democratic
but theocratic, while allowing for pluralism, which meant that a diversity of
opinions and interpretations was, of course, possible ... But diversity only
between Islamic scholars regarding interpretations of the sharia! In his thesis, Said Ramadan defended a clearly "totalitarian' concept of religion: 'All
religious ideas that shape the imaginative outlook and content of human
mind and that determine the action of the human will are potentially or in
principle totalitarian." Which would not be that bad, had Said not to add in
the next sentence: "They must seek to impose their own standards and rules
on all social activities and institutions from elementary schools to law and
government.""

Published under the title Islamic Law: Its Scope and Equity, Said Rama dan's thesis comes with a preface written by Gerhard Kegel, a professor of
international law at Cologne University. He hailed Dr. Said Ramadan as a
"well-known active supporter of the Islamic Movement" who knows Islam
from the inside and is thus likely to avoid the hidden pitfalls that await the
"foreign student." He congratulated him on his "remarkable contribution
to our knowledge of the Islamic people and, perhaps, to peace between all
peoples." The "perhaps" takes on full significance when one reads a second preface that appeared in the French edition of the book-by M. A. K.
Brohi, the former Pakistani Minister of Justice. He enlightens us regarding the pertinence of a thesis that redeems the sharia from the colonial
version spread by "foreign researchers": "The problem is that it is impossible for Europeans, even the most enlightened, who have been brought
up in a secular culture ... to truly understand that a Muslim gives himself over entirely to the divine will as expressed in divine law, and that he is
called upon to situate every one of his acts in a divine framework that is allencompassing."" This double perspective points up the naivete of some
Western scholars, all too ready, as an anti-colonial reflex, to let Muslims
who know Islam "from the inside" have their way. Said Ramadan already
knew, well before his son, how to exploit this reflex when, in 1961, he chose
to establish an Islamic Center in the heart of Geneva.

"Here the family will live in peace," reads the introduction to the Center. And it was indeed in an atmosphere of calm that Said Ramadan, accompanied by his wife and children, inaugurated the Islamic Center of Geneva,
just a stone's throw from the seat of the United Nations, with the aim of persuading all believers to join in "the struggle against all forms of materialistic atheism,"13 a creed that the Center has never ceased to invoke. "Dedicated
to the service of God," the Center serves as headquarters for Muslim Brothers in exile. There you could run into famous Islamists, such as Malcolm X
or Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), or less illustrious figures, such as members of
the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) of Algeria or Afghan veterans on their way
through Geneva. In the beginning, the governing board consisted of wellknown figures of radical Islam from Asia, India and Malaysia.14

It might come as a surprise to see an association founded by Islamists who made no secret of their sponsors, their contacts, and their objectives
so respectably and publicly established. It is just that the Center chose the
right country for exile. Switzerland is a haven of peace, a paradise for freedom of expression. Furthermore, during the period they were settling in,
the Muslim Brotherhood was on excellent terms with the European and
American secret services, in that they, too, were fighting "atheist materialism," that is to say communism, the top priority at the time. In a brochure
published by the Center, Said Ramadan urged Muslims to fight Communism, which he considered a new form of idolatry: "Without an ideology
that can counter theirs, that can face up to communist agents that are to
be found everywhere ... disaster is imminent." And he added: "Muslims
are increasingly aware that it is for them a choice between communism
and Islam."15 Thus in Geneva, as elsewhere, the Muslim Brotherhood was
considered a valuable American asset in the Cold War. Jacques Pitteloud, a
former coordinator of the Swiss secret service, admitted as much: "At the
time Said Ramadan was pretty much on the side of the allies."16 Even when
the Center was no longer clearly on the side of the allies, its Saudi sponsorship-in a country of banks-was enough to protect it. So it was from
its Geneva base that the Muslim Brotherhood was to sow the seeds from
which the enemies of the West were to grow. The Swiss authorities, whose
initial welcome had cooled, were powerless to stop them.

In August of 1995, the fraternity's Supreme Guide, Mustapha Machour,
officially acknowledged the existence of a coordinated international network:
"We have branches abroad, in London, Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
Every Muslim Brotherhood activist who left Egypt has set up a branch in the
host country and remains in touch with the central organization." 17 Among
them, Said Ramadan was the most militant. After Geneva, he opened an
Islamic Center in Munich and then one in London in 1964.'8 His view of
things was simple: the West was to be the place of refuge for them to have
a free hand in planning revenge. He insisted on the need for lecturing and
producing newspapers and journals that would transmit the Brotherhood's
ideology, in particular via the Al-Muslimoon publishing house that he transferred from Egypt to Geneva. Located on Rue des Eaux-Vives, the Center is laid out along the same lines as the headquarters that Hassan al-Banna had
built in Cairo. Gamal al-Banna, who was eight years old when his brother
Hassan founded the Brotherhood, recalls the way the family home, which
was also a political center, was organized: "We had acquired a spacious threefloor house; the first floor was reserved for the Brothers' meetings, the second
for the family, and the third for Imam Hassan and his family." The Geneva
Islamic Center is more or less a replica. The ground floor serves as a reception room and conference hall, whereas the space upstairs is reserved for
more confidential meetings. Once a militant is sufficiently advanced in his
religious apprenticeship, he can go upstairs, where the rhetoric is far more
radical. Several former fellow travelers, interrogated in the course of investigations into terrorism in Europe, have confirmed the change oftone that they
observed. Unlike the language of the public lectures, which has to be read
between the lines, the preaching upstairs was apparently far more outspoken. No need to rush things. Whatever happens, demography is on the side
of the Muslims; a thousand years from now and Europe will be Muslim.

It is in this Center, on Rue des Eaux-Vives, that Tariq Ramadan was born and
grew up, surrounded by the choicest samplings of Islamic activism. In his
book written with Alain Gresh, he fully accepts the fact: "He [Said Ramadan]
had been put in charge of the Muslim Brothers in exile. So, from my birth
in 1962, I was surrounded by the sayings and thoughts of Muslims who,
while living in Europe, were totally immersed in the realities of the Muslim
world, Arab but also Indo-Pakistani."19 Tariq Ramadan was born barely one
year after the creation of the Geneva Islamic Center. The family consisted
already of four boys (Aymen, Bilal, Yasser, and Hani) and one girl (Arwa).
Tariq was, then, the last-born in the heart of Europe. It was to seal his fate.
His parents did not pick a name for him at random: "Tariq" echoes the name
Tariq Ibn Zyad, the first Muslim conqueror to have set foot on the Christian soil of Spain. The name Gibraltar, which means "rock of Tariq" in Arabic, is a reminder. Tariq Ramadan is quick to explain to the press that this is
a mere coincidence. According to him, "Tariq" had no belligerent connota tion for his parents. Are we really supposed to believe that Said Ramadan and
Wafa al-Banna, who had just created a center in the heart of Europe in order
to Islamize the Old World, chose their son's first name at random? It appears
unlikely, especially when we know the extent to which the career of each of
the children was planned in advance. When he grew to manhood, Tariq, the
aptly named, was to marry Isabelle, the Catholic. It is not a play on words: his
wife is, in fact, called Isabelle, and she was Catholic up to the day she converted, donned the headscarf, and took the name of Iman in order to marry
Tariq Ramadan.2O

The sense ofbeing responsible, from birth on, for continuing his heritage
was not limited to Said Ramadan's youngest son alone. Despite their quite
different careers and professions, his brothers all serve as administrators of
the Geneva Islamic Center. His oldest brother, Aymen, is a brilliant neurosurgeon, but he is no less of an Islamist and presides over the governing board
of the center. In a preface written for a re-edition of his father's book on the
sharia, Aymen paid homage to the man whose aura still surrounds each of
his children and grandchildren: "May God see to it that he remains the example of the true path we are to follow."" Said Ramadan, in charge of the Muslim Brothers in exile, is an example for everyone to follow-and in particular for Tariq, in whose eyes the greatest sin is to fail to honor one's father and
one's mother: "Tell me how you behave with your parents, and I will tell you
who you are," he insisted in a lecture devoted to the major sins.22 In a eulogy
after the death of his father, published as a preamble to his book on the confrontation of civilizations, he wrote: "Thanks be to God for having given me
such a father."13 Has Tariq really attempted to break free from the custody of
such an imposing father? No doubt he did try, as do all adolescents, but with
a fear of this patriarch and a respect for him that emerge even today when he
speaks as an adult:

I have an intense remembrance of his presence, his words, his silences. Long
silences sometimes lost in memories, in thought, in bitterness .... It was often
so. His eyes were bright, his expression penetrating and intense, conveying at one
moment his warmth, his gentleness, his tears; at other times fortifying his determi nation, his commitment, his anger. It was a difficult thing for me when I caught the
expression in his eyes-wide-open, powerful, suggestive-questioning eyes that
went with his words straight to my heart that was woken, aroused and shaken by
them.14

From his earliest years Tariq Ramadan felt he was different from other
children. When he was eight, he used to kick a soccer ball with all his might,
dreaming of becoming a sports star, but his coach was obliged to explain to
his team mates that, as required by his religion, Tariq took his shower fully
dressed so as not to show himself naked.15 At school, he was a fairly bright
student-diligent even. He asked one of his teachers for his opinion of a
play that he had written. When older, he offered to give remedial instruction
courses for younger students who were having trouble, a family reflex. His
grandfather had two obsessions: train minds and train athletes (he encouraged militants to be physically fit). His grandson chose teaching as a vocation
and amassed exploits in sports: ski instructor, soccer coach, a ranked tennis
player. His hyperactivity was less a proof of integration of some kind than an
expression of the malaise and suffering that haunted all the members of his
family.

The Ramadan family probably never fully appreciated the charm of Lake
Geneva. All is drab when one's eyes are fixed on the Nile. For them, Switzerland was never a land of refuge, but a land of exile. A golden prison, where
the essential thing was to organize for revenge, organize for the day when
the Muslim Brotherhood, deprived of their nation, would return in triumph
to Egypt to join in an Islamic government. Tariq Ramadan was brought up
with the myth of this return, continually postponed. In this context, becoming integrated or "dissolved"-an expression that he uses frequently-in the
West was out of the question. His brothers and his sisters learned to grow up
in a family welded together by the promise of return. From his earliest years,
he suffered to see his father endure exile. "His life was not life," he wrote
when his father died, as a way of describing his forty-one years spent away from Egypt, haunted by the fear ofbeing kidnapped or liquidated by the Egyptian secret service.

Before being banished from Egypt, Said Ramadan had already chosen
to be the roving ambassador of the Brotherhood. But it is a different matter
when the choice is not a free one. In addition to holding secret meetings and
fomenting conspiracies in the name of the cause, Tariq Ramadan's father
had to struggle to find funds. His son has bitter memories of the day when
money from the Saudi benefactors stopped pouring in. For years, the Rabita sponsors had supported the family without protest and had subsidized all
of Said Ramadari s projects. But after thirteen years of financial infusions, he
could no longer tolerate the Saudi authorities' right to supervise his activities,
and he wanted to have greater leeway, even if that meant refusing the hand
that had nourished him in exile. According to the Center, Saudi contributions came to an end in 1971, but this remains to be proved. At any rate, Tariq
Ramadan recounts that his father was in pitiful straits: "We were totally without financial support; we had no money left. I remember that I couldri t leave
the country, we had no means, and no papers."26 Said Ramadan had been
stripped of his Egyptian nationality by Nasser, after having been condemned
in absentia to three twenty-five-year prison sentences for high treason, in particular for having organized the World Islamic Congress in Jerusalem and
damaging relations between Syria and Egypt. Years later, the Egyptians were
to try to mend relations with the Brotherhood by proposing that Said Ramadan request that his nationality be reinstated; but he refused the opportunity,
because-according to the Geneva Islamic Center-"he considered that he
had never stopped being Egyptian." He could have asked for Swiss nationality, but had always scorned the idea. As a result, his children had a total of six
different nationalities acquired in the course of his various political negotiations, but which he considered borrowed identities, and which, for a long
time, kept them from making a place for themselves as real Swiss citizens.
Tariq Ramadan readily admits that "this remained with me as something terribly disturbing and painful."17