Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan (2 page)

I was further shocked a decade later, when Ramadan identified as "Jews"
those left-wing writers and intellectuals in France who took positions different from his own on international politics. For many on the Left-and for
most in the democratic socialist parties of France and Switzerland-Ramadan's remarks about Jews were unacceptable, and he lost much of the audience he had had in those countries.

Ramadan is a supreme finder of words that elide and hide meaning, that glide away sinuously from confrontation. The great service of Caroline
Fourest's book is that we can read here much of what Ramadan has said in
many different settings and in various languages.

This book was first published as Frere Tariq by the mainstream French
publisher Grasset in 2004. It is a disgrace that British and American publishing houses did not bring out a translation sooner, and this American edition
by Encounter Books is most welcome (an English edition has been published
by the London-based Social Affairs Unit). Ramadan has been the subject of
half a dozen other books in French, and it is high time that readers of English
had a fuller understanding of his beliefs and words.

The Tariq Ramadan of today may, of course, be a different man from the
Tariq Ramadan of five, ten, or fifteen years ago as described by Caroline Fourest. (I said and believed in things earlier on in my political life that I would
not say and do not believe in now.) Unlike Caroline Fourest, who is a devoutly
militant atheist, I respect religious belief. But I cannot accept the supremacy
of religion over democracy, and I am dismayed at any arguments that appear
to subjugate women to men or to religion.

I was recently in Pakistan. In the north of the country, three people were
stoned to death after accusations of adultery. The mosque used its loudspeakers to call the faithful to witness the lapidation. On his website, Ramadan
calls merely for a "moratorium' on lapidation, and he elides the religioussanctioned stoning to death of people with state-authorized capital punishment. He has refused to call for the immediate abolition of stoning. I have
read his justifications many times, and the words fall into neat, eloquent patterns. But they do not use his high authority to call without equivocationnow and worldwide-for an immediate end to this barbaric practice. The
loudspeakers of mosques will call people to witness this inhuman act again
and again, until such time as every shaper of Muslim opinion says it must
stop, and until the people organizing such evil are put in prison. And the
same goes for so-called "honor killings," where men murder their daughters
or wives in the name of a perverted interpretation of Islam.

There are other problems to do with the "double discourse" that rightly
condemns the perpetrators of the 7/7 attacks in London, but does not con demn those who prepare suicide-bomb terrorists to kill Jewish children and
women in the Middle East. As Jason Burke and other investigators of terrorism linked to fundamentalist religiosity have shown, it is the same ideas,
the same passions-often the same men-who have developed the suicidebomb killer of the innocent and harmless in both the Middle East and Europe.
To say the murder of a Christian woman or child on the London Tube is to be
deplored, but the murder of a Jewish child or a mother on a Tel Aviv bus is not
to be condemned with equal vigor is to enter a moral universe that all decent
people should shun.

Readers must make up their own minds. This book is rigorous in quoting from sources, and no one has challenged its accuracy, even if Ramadan
and his supporters dislike its tone and content.

Ramadan is clearly one of the most gifted communicators of our times.
His brilliant talents could help shape a new life for Europe's twenty million Muslims, so that they could live in peace and respect with and for their
faith-but do so in a manner that does not challenge the right of every European to live a full, secular, rule-of-law life, in which women and gays face no
discrimination, and where electoral democracy decides the common laws we
live under.

In Egypt, the country of Ramadans grandfather, there is a need for
renewal and reform that will allow true democracy to put down roots and
avoid both of the twin fundamentalisms-the nationalist statism and antiSemitism of Nasser, and the subordination of the Egyptian people to religious rule, expressed most notably in the denial of the rights of women.

Though for a short time a schoolteacher in Geneva, Ramadan has spent
most of his life as an activist writer-preacher. It is perhaps too much to ask
him to carry the burden of history by appealing for an end to the Islamism
that is causing so many problems, in so many different ways, in so many different parts of the world.

Born in 1962, Ramadan has had to act as the link between so many different worlds. Perhaps he is simply asked to do too much, or to say and do things
he simply cannot say or do.

But as we search for answers to questions both about the meaning of Islam for our society and for British Muslims, and about the meaning of Islamism as a powerful ideology in the modem world, we should strive to understand the words and ambitions of this important man. We are at the beginning of a long process of comprehension, and it is important that researchers,
policy makers, and the general public have as much access as possible-in
English-to the key texts and statements of the key players in this new area
of concern to democracy. It is for all of us to make judgments, based on what
we believe and understand. But to make a judgment, we need evidence. And
this book provides important evidence on one of the most significant phenomena of our times.

Denis MacShane

June2007

I would really have preferred Tariq Ramadan to remain true to his promise: the promise of a proud and dynamic Islam, but one that was enlightened
and modern. I can well understand that a number of Muslims in the West see
in him a model, or even a hero-especially now that he has been demonized
and can play the martyr's role. Will devoting a whole book to him succeed
only in further demonizing him and so providing him with yet another platform? When challenged by demagogues, democrats have only one weapon:
education-an education that is difficult even to begin in the course of a single article or in a TV program, when one is pressed for time and forced to
improvise, allowing the demagogue to escape with a flippant remark, an evasive answer, or a lie that is soon forgotten. The best of programs can serve to
alert people, sow doubt in their minds and wake them up, but it can be only
a brief spark, a snapshot. Tariq Ramadan is one of those people who perform
admirably on the spur of the moment. In a few seconds he has anyone who
suspects him of "doublespeak" backed into a corner. The accusations have
been around now for more than ten years without really harming him. Again
and again the question arises but is never resolved: is he an intellectual who
advocates a modern, liberal Islam; or is he a smooth, astute, well-mannered
Islamist preacher?

People are divided on the matter. In Europe, the United States and North
Africa-wherever he goes-his public statements and growing celebrity
spark off endless debates between adherents to "the sincerity theory" and
proponents of the "duplicity theory." The former are often irritated when
the media persist in mentioning his family ties with Hassan al-Banna, the
founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. As if that was proof of something. Are
we responsible for our grandparents? They fail to understand the intransi gence of his critics, which they attribute at best to a misunderstanding of
his message, at worst to "Islamophobia"-even when these critics are themselves Muslim and almost always Arab.

Those who are somewhat skeptical but well intentioned have read other
articles that speak of Tariq Ramadan in favorable terms, as someone holding out the promise of "a modernized Islam," an expression that he himself
never uses but that some journalists have attributed to him. Pushed by curiosity they decide to make up their minds on their own by attending one of his
lectures for the general public that are organized by left-leaning bodies such
as the Human Rights League (Ligue des droits de l'homme), the European
Social Forum, or UNESCO. On such occasions, nothing is said that shocks
them; on the contrary, it is a "reformer's" speech, the speech of someone
who claims to be attached to secularism, even if he wants to see it evolve. To
confirm their impression, the most dedicated leaf through one of his books
(often too boring to be gone over carefully). A few may even go so far as to
stop by an Islamist bookshop and buy one of his audio cassettes (in most
cases, it will never subsequently be taken out of its plastic wrapping). Others have made an effort to listen to what he has to say. But listening doesn't
bring understanding. They remain convinced that accusations of "doublespeak" are not justified. Doesn't he always speak of reform, of education, of
appealing for dialogue? Is he not hard on the traditionalism of certain Muslims? Does he not invite Muslims to "speak in clear terms"? Here and there
certain statements may rub them up the wrong way, leaving them a bit uncertain, with the impression of not having understood everything, but nothing
bears the slightest resemblance to Hassan al-B anna's line or to the rhetoric of
the Muslim Brotherhood. The problem is: none ofthem have read Hassan alBanna. They constitute the perfect public for Tariq Ramadan, who excels at
producing speeches that raise no hackles-unless, that is, one actually takes
the time to fit all the pieces together: his language, his allusions, his points
of reference and the evolution of his discourse. Unless, finally, one sets aside
fleeting impressions to take a look at what is hidden behind. And that takes
a whole book.

I dedicate this book to all those who have been impressed by Tariq Rama dan and yet are willing to listen, learn, and understand the sterile ideology
that lies behind his rhetorical dexterity. In writing this book I have followed
the advice that Ramadan gives his followers (and which I myself have always
heeded without making a big issue of it): never caricature an enemy, but carefully study his words and deeds, the better to do battle with him and confront
him with dignity.

Nevertheless, I did hesitate before embarking on this undertakingnot through fear of retaliation, but through dread of what such a dissection
implied: months spent in reading, analyzing, checking, and double-checking, so as not to become a prisoner of first impressions, so as to omit nothing and exaggerate nothing. The process is particularly exhausting when it is
a question of tracking a rhetorician as skilful and verbose as Tariq Ramadan:
a hundred or so cassettes, fifteen books, 1,500 pages of interviews and articles on him published in the English, French, German, and Spanish press,
never mind the historical studies of the Muslim Brotherhood and of Hassan
al-Banna, the brochures published by the Ramadan family, and the countless
investigations and interviews necessary to unscramble pieces of the puzzle.
For even though the contrast between Tariq Ramadan's language on the cassettes and the language he uses in talking to journalists is in itself instructive,
it is not sufficient. Ramadan's rhetoric is so complex that it cannot be decoded
without supplying the context and filling in the allusions, which are often
fleeting. Once this work was accomplished, it was necessary, for the sake of
clarity, to measure the impact that he has had on his followers. It is understandable that others have got lost in this process or have given up midway.
I am relieved not to have done so. While it is true that even non-mystics can
sometimes feel they are entrusted with a mission, I must admit that I fulfilled
this one with the unpleasant sense that it was both urgent and necessary.

Triq Ramadan was born in 1962, in Geneva, into a family of Egyptian
origin that had been exiled to Switzerland on account of their Islamist activities. He makes no secret of it: his parents were the first to have given him
a taste for a political Islam. His father, Said Ramadan, was, up to his death,
in charge of propagating the Muslim Brotherhood's brand of Islam throughout Europe. His mother, Wafa al-Banna, was none other than the favorite daughter of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna,
whom all Islamists, including the most extreme, consider a seminal figure.
Tariq Ramadan dislikes it when his family origins are held against him, considering it a form of persecution. "I am exasperated to have to reply to these
accusations!", Yet he himself boasts of his descent. In the course of the TV
program Noms de Dieu [In the Names of God] that was devoted to him, he
was proud to exhibit the photograph of his grandfather to illustrate his back-
ground.2 In an interview for Journal du Mardi, he objected to those who had
the temerity to accuse him of a "genetic offense," while at the same time stating: "I lay claim to this heritage since, if today I am a thinker, it is because
this heritage has inspired me."3

What are we to make of this? Is he a faithful heir to the Muslim Brotherhood or a man who has kept aloof from al-Banna's ideology? `Angel or
Demon?" was the title of an article on him that appeared recently in a Moroccan magazine.4 The Boston Globe, the New England daily, preferred not to
take sides: "The reformer to his admirers, Tariq Ramadan is Europe's leading advocate of liberal Islam. To his detractors, he's a dangerous theocrat in disguise."5 Where does the truth lie? Until recently, when he became more
provocative, the press was inclined to grant him the benefit of the doubt. He
was even presented as one of the most promising Muslim leaders of his generation. In December aooo, Time magazine named him as one of the six
religious figures that could contribute to the renovation and revival of the
Muslim religion in the coming century. Yet, in the mid-r99os, Hassan alTourabi, the high priest of Sudanese Islamism, whose regime had at one
point offered Osama bin Laden asylum, thought fit to declare: "Tariq Ramadan? Why, he's Islarris future!" Can one individual simultaneously embody
the hopes of an Islamist high priest and the promise of Time magazine? Is
the American press better equipped than Hassan al-Tourabi to understand
Islam and to situate Tariq Ramadan-to know what sort of Muslims he will
be turning out? The only way to get a clear picture is to examine the ways in
which Tariq Ramadan has transmitted the philosophy and the methods ofhis
grandfather.