Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan (26 page)

Tariq Ramadan bans homosexuality for his followers: "Islam, in regard to
sexuality, has established limits. God decreed that there be an order. And
that order is a man for a woman and a woman for a man." 86 Obviously, it is
no invention of his. The Koran, like all the monotheist religions that invoke
Sodom and Gomorrah, condemns homosexuality. But some believers have
revised their opinion on this prejudice that belongs to another age. Tariq
Ramadan is not one of them. For him, fundamentalism always takes precedence over reform: "The ban is unequivocal; homosexuality is not something
that Islam permits."87

This irrevocable condemnation concerns more than the private sphere.
When Jacques Neirynck brought up the question ofthe Pacte civile de Societe
or Civil Solidarity Contract (which allows unmarried heterosexual or homosexual couples to legally formalize their relationship), the preacher's reply
was unambiguous: "Homosexuality is not allowed in Islam, and the pub lic legalization of homosexuality, which is what is demanded in Europe, is
inconceivable in Islam, whether it be a question of social acceptance, of marriage, or anything else. There are limits to what can be considered as normal in society and in the public domain."88 At least he makes no bones about
it. The simple fact that Ramadan does not advocate the death sentence for
homosexuals is enough for him to be considered a liberal Muslim. We can
be grateful to him for encouraging his peers not to insult those whose lives
are, in his terms, "outside of nature." He admits being moved by the numerous letters received from young Muslims suffering from the hostility that
they encounter in their communities. He invites his brothers and sisters of
the faith "not to pass judgment on human beings, even if they pass judgment
on the acts they commit."89 Which brings to mind the hypocritically compassionate distinction proposed by the Pope when he differentiates "the sinner"
from "the sin." As in the case of Christians, the rejection of homosexuality
goes together with "an offer to accompany them' on the road to repentance
and recovery. What Tariq Ramadan calls "guiding them towards a more righteous way," "that is in harmony with mans creation. "90 As far as compassion
is concerned, it is, above all, a means of diluting the intolerance of his message with a semblance of charity-the sort of "charity" that has led Jewish and
Christian fundamentalists (and soon their Muslim counterparts?) to set up
associations of "reformed homosexuals," in which the faithful who are in the
grips of temptation are propelled towards heterosexuality by means of sermons, "guilt" sessions, and sometimes even exorcism. In Tariq Ramadaris
case as well, the call for tolerance is rapidly exhausted: "For Islam, homosexuality is not natural; it lies outside the true way and outside the rules by which
we become human beings in the eyes of God. Such behavior is a sign of disorder, dysfunction and disequilibrium."91

As a result, the problem of homophobia in the Muslim community is
by no means resolved. Young people coming from Muslim families who
are unlucky enough to fall in love with someone of the same sex are immediately classed as apostates; which, in the eyes of the scholars close to Tariq
Ramadan, warrants the death sentence. Sheikh Qaradawi puts it this way:
"When a man becomes effeminate and a woman virile, it's a sign of chaos and moral decadence."92 Tariq Ramadan shares the same obsession: "Just
how far can one accept that a young boy acts like a girl, and a young girl
like a boy? Where is the border line?"93 Once more, he is on the same wavelength as his brother Hani.

This intransigence is not limited to homosexuals. Even heterosexual
sodomy is a tragedy! According to a hadith cited by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the
Prophet is supposed to have said: "Do not visit your wives by the anus" for
"it is almost homosexuality."94 In obedience to this teaching, Tariq Ramadan forbids sodomy: "That sort of act encourages something that is close
to bestiality."95 He says the same thing about pornography, characterized as
"bestiality in the form of images."96 Finally, even if Islam is supposedly less
prudish than Christianity, and despite his promise of achieving serenity, the
figure of Tariq Ramadan that emerges from his advice on sexuality is very
much the puritan.

In a conference devoted to the "major sins," recorded in Reunion in August
1999, Tariq Ramadan called for mobilization of the Muslim community as a
whole to combat fornication among the young:

It's a monstrous transgression, a monstrosity, to live such an experience outside
the bonds of marriage. And young people today, in our Muslim community, here in
Reunion, are doing things that are shocking to us and that are not Islamic. We are
all of us concerned. Rather than staying behind in the mosque repeating "Please, 0
God, protect us from that," we must launch a vast campaign of education to bring
back our children, our daughters and our sons.

At least Ramadan has the merit of insisting that parents stop making
more stringent demands of their daughters than of their sons. Which is certainly worthwhile, given the fact that daughters in some Muslim families are
constantly spied on and denied any sort of outing on their own, so strong is
the fear that their virginity may be at stake, while their brothers can do anything they like, including mistreating, attacking, or raping girls: "I have not
spoken only of young girls, as I dori t know where you got the idea that to pro tect your daughters you should let your sons have their way .... In terms of
protecting the body, there is no difference between a boy and a girl."97 Unfortunately, we see that this call to keep as close a watch over boys as over girls is
an encouragement not to grant more liberty for all, but rather to impose more
restrictions on all.

As is the case in all the monotheistic religions, Tariq Ramadan is obsessed by
the perils of zina, that is to say, fornication or adultery. Like all men, he would
reform society so as to protect men and their sexual instincts, rather than
challenge the ideology of male domination. Tariq Ramadan calls on women
to protect men from temptation! Ifthey want their husbands to remain faithful, they are expected to "give themselves over entirely." "What is asked of
a Muslim wife in regard to her husband is to be the cloak that protects him
from the unlawful ... to know how to surround him with tenderness and
offer him in terms of sexuality what he need not seek elsewhere."98 It is a recommendation that brings to mind several hadiths in which women are clearly
presented as sex objects for men: A woman must never refuse a man, even
on the edge of a burning stove";99 or again, A woman must never refuse him
even on the back of a camel." This recommendation may appear unimportant, but it is one of the prerogatives of Muslim men, and is by no means the
least. In the West, men who regard equality between men and women as an
offense to their virility are sometimes attracted by a religion that seems to
cater to their desires. This patriarchal conception would be a matter of personal morality if it applied only in the sphere of the family. But to Ramadan's
way ofthinking, these taboos and recommendations are to be extended to the
social domain, with the result that women are asked to do everything in their
power to avoid tempting men; in other words, they are obliged to hide themselves beneath a veil, so that their feminine silhouette should not excite men's
male instincts. Ramadan's explanation resembles the most odious expressions of male chauvinism: "If it is women who are asked to wear the veil, it's
because the weaker of the two is not the woman; in reality, the weaker of the
two is the man, and the man who looks at a woman is far more vulnerable than the reverse. The veil is a protection for the weaker of the two."°° So it is
the men who are the weak beings, and women, acting as good Muslims, must
help them overcome their instincts ... by hiding! And all of this, of course,
in the name of that marvelous strength that women possess, which is always
invoked as a prelude to requiring more obedience of them. To be sure, the
requirement to act with decency is supposed to apply to men as well as to
women; but in practice this recommendation, as always, concerns primarily
women. They are the only ones required to wear a veil because "beauty must
not suggest seduction." So, Ramadan tells women, "ifyou try to attract attention, by your body, your perfume, your appearance, or by gestures, you are not
on the path of decency, you are not on the way that leads to spirituality."'

Tariq Ramadan has devoted considerable time to thinking about relations
between men and women. According to him, three things can disrupt relations: ignorance of the principles of Islam, the overly restrictive constraints
insisted on by certain scholars, and systematically choosing the opposite of
what is done in the West, instead of relying on Islam: "In the name of the
campaign against certain types of relations between men and women based
on seduction," he explains, "we tend to forget the true sense of our relations
founded on spirituality, on the sense ofourbeing, and on complementarity."b02
Which leads him to urge Muslims to do away with the atmosphere of suspicion that prevails between them: "The Muslim community-it is brothers and sisters together, respectful of Islamic principles; not brothers against
sisters." 103 As an example, he takes campuses where the young Muslim male
students speak with other women, but not with their Muslim sisters. "You
can speak with your sisters, but only under certain conditions." His grandfather was more adamant on the subject, since his program "banned male
and female students being educated together," and considered that "students
meeting alone together were committing a punishable crime." Ramadan,
however, knows that he has to deal with audiences that are very much in favor
ofcoeducation. Yet his acceptance ofopen relations between men and women
has its limits.

In theory, Tariq Ramadan is very critical of overly staged respect for
decency. He makes fun of those who tremble at the very idea of taking a good
look around them. In practice, however, a young man or woman, having listened to one of his lectures, will come away convinced that duty requires
him or her to make every effort to avoid succumbing to temptation or seduction, according to a conception of life that remains Manichean in religious
terms: "Don t forget the angels ... the one on the right notes down what you
have done that is good; the one on the left what you have done that is bad." 104
Behind his apparently reassuring words, Tariq Ramadan turns out to be an
outdated bigot, obsessed with chastity and the risk of transgression. After
having intimated that caricaturing the West was no substitute for thoroughgoing self-criticism of the Muslim community, he lapses into an apocalyptic portrait of a decadent Western society that is a menace to Muslims intent
on remaining true to their principles: "When we witness what is happening in the world, and you can see it via television or the press, then all sense
of decency is lost. And when decency is lost, it's just do whatever you please;
and when you do whatever you please, there are no longer any values, any
limits, any sense; there is only total permissiveness." 105 Posters displaying
pictures of naked women are particularly repugnant to Tariq Ramadan. On
this subject, his rhetoric comes close to that of certain feminists; except that
the feminists-at least the majority of them-protest about sexism, rather
than the absence of decency. They reject domination, not seduction. Tariq
Ramadan says exactly the reverse: "We live in a society that assaults our senses-that accentuates all that stimulates the instincts, particularly by exploiting what, for men, is the feminine dimension. `01 He explains that publicity
material featuring scantily clad women constitutes "aggressive stimulation'
for him who "has moral principles and wants to please God."107 In his course
on "Today's Muslim man' that he gave to a Muslim audience in Roubaix in
zoos, he even went so far as to recount his own embarrassment when, on
stepping onto a moving walkway in an airport corridor, he could not turn his
head without coming face to face with an enormous poster of a woman in a
bikini. "Which means that when you walk in the street you should keep your
eyes glued to the pavement! 11,o8

He began his lecture by saying that he wanted to put an end to the atmosphere of suspicion in public places and the child-like fear of looking at a
woman; however, he was adamant in warning against "lustful looks": "In this
community, there are some who are not sufficiently reserved in their way of
looking around them."I°9 As an example, he mentioned young boys whose
behavior was not beyond reproach during a party organized on a Saturday
evening in a community hall. As always, this obsession with decency quickly
became a call for separation of the sexes. Of course, he has nothing against a
woman and a man talking together in public, but he considers it immoral for
an unmarried woman and an unmarried man to be alone in the same room.
He would even prefer them not to shake hands, unless it is really necessary so
as not to appear too much of an extremist. "Try to avoid it when you can; but
if someone stretches out their hand, then shake hands." He also spearheaded
a vigorous campaign for separate swimming pools for men and women, as
indicated by the anger he voiced in the course of his lecture on the "Major
sins" delivered in Reunion. "Today, the swimming pools in Reunion are not
Islamic! Certain men go there anyway, saying But I know how to protect
what needs to be protected'; but what do you look at while at the swimming
pool? You can't go there because you will be looking at things you shouldn't
be seeing! Because you go there, and inevitably it attracts you! So we have to
provide for places where it's healthy, where there will be swimming pools that
are in accord with our ethical principles."II°