Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan (4 page)

Hassan al-Banna was all the more inclined to agree with the latter outlook, in that he was a student of one of the most rigorous proponents of the
Salafist school, Rashid Rida. Unlike Afghani or Mohammed Abduh, who had
studied in France and was relatively open to modernizing influences, Rida,
motivated by intense anti-Western sentiment, did all in his power to make
the reformist impulse more rigid and steer the Salafist school towards an
archaic fundamentalism. It is thus not without interest that al-Banna should
have attended courses in the reformist Salafist school during this period, nor
that he should subsequently have given birth to a movement that was to turn
reformism into a version of Islamism violently opposed to any form of ratio nalism that bore the slightest resemblance to Western ways-blocking the
aggiornamento of Islam for generations to come.

For this achievement, Tariq Ramadan considers his grandfather as "the
most influential of the reformist Muslims of the century"17-an opinion that
he developed at length in his thesis, defended in 1998 at the University of
Geneva, "Hassan al-Banna and the reformist tradition since al-Afghani."
This was a masterpiece of propaganda in praise of Hassan al-Banna. His
argument runs as follows: reformists such as Afghani, Abduh, or Rida were
brilliant intellectuals, but they were not effective enough. As intellectuals,
they remained on the fringes of a true dynamic and true social and political drive. Providentially, Hassan al-Banna appeared and provided the political movement with the reformism it needed. In other words, Tariq Ramadan
considers al-Banna's philosophy and the Muslim Brotherhood as the high
point of Salafist reformist thought and of the Salafist reformist initiative. In
addition to boasting of his grandfather's success in combating atheism and
permissiveness, he situated all the reformist intellectuals in the same tradition, despite the differences that existed between men such as Abduh or Rida.
His aim was to make Hassan al-Banna appear as the successor to all of them,
the most fundamentalist as well as the most open-minded. Yet there existed
significant differences between them, as Ali Merad, a specialist on Muslim
reform movements, has reminded us: "Mohammed Abduh is the father of
rationalist reform. He tried to open up Muslim thinking to rationalist influences. But one of his disciples, Rashid Rida, was determined to rigidify this
aspect of his thought and to rid it of all rationalism. He passed himself off
as Abduhs heir, so as to be in a better position to minimize the new perspectives proposed by Abduh."18 But it was Rida's lectures that al-Banna attended,
and not those of Abduh, at a time when everyone was free to attend them and
to become a supporter, thanks also to the influence of his review, Al-Manar.
Ramadan does not deny that this is true, but insists nonetheless on presenting al-Banna as the disciple of Abduh, whereas in reality he was obviously
the heir to Rida's uncompromising fundamentalist reformism. It serves his
purpose to skip over his apprenticeship to Rida, so as to convince those who
are not going to bother to check the facts that his grandfather was commit ted to modern reformism. This does not prevent him, page after page, from
disparaging the rationalist reformers who followed in the footsteps of Abd alRaziq. In the course of a footnote, Tariq Ramadan clearly implies that Abd
al-Raziq's ideas were the result of Western scheming: the translation of Ali
Abd al-Raziq's book was "sponsored by the French mission for research and
cooperation in Egypt." "We know how eager the Western governments are
to publish and distribute texts that are in harmony with their system of values and their view of the world .... It was no accident."19 This biased view,
nakedly propagandist, might have gone unnoticed by novices in the field, but
it did not escape the University of Fribourg's thesis jury, to whom he had initially submitted his manuscript. Presided over by Charles Genequand, a specialist on the Arab world, and made up of scholars of Muslim reformism, the
jury was simply dumbfounded by the exceedingly partisan nature of the thesis. According to the jury's president, it "was intended as an apologetic" for
Hassan al-Banna20-an opinion shared by the other members of the jury.
They unanimously refused to accept it as scientific in character. Tariq Ramadan was furious; he threatened to bring the jury and the university to trial,
but without success, since a jury has a perfect right to refuse to accept work
that it does not consider to be scholarly. Ramadan was obliged to convoke in
extremis a second jury, which included Bruno Etienne'21 to have his diploma
granted-without honors-by the Faculty ofArts of the University of Geneva.
The important thing for him was to have a scientific imprimatur before publishing his thesis in book form. The jury gave him permission, adding that
it "authorized the publication of the thesis without expressing any opinion
regarding its contents. "22 They could not have been more explicitly critical.
In spite of everything, this handbook in praise of Hassan al-Banna was published under the title Aux sources du renouveau musulman [On the Origins of
the Muslim Renaissance], by Tawhid, but also by Bayard, a far more mainstream publishing house. The two editions are prefaced by Alain Gresh, editor-in-chief of Le Monde diplomatique. Since then it has not been uncommon
to hear non-Islamist militants-even secular militants-tell you, with the
most naive candor, that al-Banna was "a great reformer" and that the Muslim
Brotherhood was "a liberation movement. .. "

The Muslim Brotherhood began organizing when, in March 1928, six companions, fired with enthusiasm by al-Banna's preaching, sought him out to
ask him to launch a political campaign in the name of Islam: "We have listened to your message, we are aware of where we stand, we are committed,
but we do not know what practical steps to take to reinforce Islam and bring
betterment to Muslims."23 The Guide was at last to have the opportunity to
demonstrate his gift for organization. He began with a piece of advice that
would provide the Muslim Brotherhood with the means to survive the obstacles that repression was to bring-and to counter its critics: the cult of the
informal. "One of his companions asked: `By what name shall we be called?'
And al-Banna replied: `None ofthat; leave aside appearances and officialdom.
Let the principle and priority of our union be thought, morality, and action.
We are brothers in the service of Islam, so we are the Muslim Brotherhood.-24
A judicious piece of advice. Al-Banna had understood that a movement that
could not be pinned down would be indestructible. In giving his movement
a name that was both a title and an expression currently employed in Arabic, in which believers often address each other as "brother," he created a
means of identification that was discreet. From its birth on, the Brotherhood
was both an official movement and a school of thought that one could claim
to belong to, or deny being part of, according to circumstances. On the other
hand, the watchword was clear and unambiguous: "Our motto will forever
be: God is our objective. God's messenger is our guide. The Koran is our constitution. Struggle is our path. Death on the road that leads to God is our ultimate desire."25

In other words, it was never al-Banna's intention to advocate a rationalist,
secular Islam; on the contrary, he wanted to organize a movement capable of
putting pressure on Egypt, and then on the rest of the world, to adopt a fundamentalist social order destructive of freedom. As proof, one has only to read
the political and social program drawn up by al-Banna in 1936, a program
entitled "Fifty Demands," which was the Muslim Brotherhood's manifesto for "concrete reform." The manifesto spelt out in detail the steps to be taken
to establish legislation, and subsequently a social, political and economic system based on the sharia. Throughout the manifesto, it is said that individual
liberties must yield to dictatorship by divine right. As to method, the Brotherhood intended to "go beyond political differences and direct the energies of
the "umma" [the worldwide community of Muslims] towards one sole aim':
the attainment of a political Islam. The organization defined its objectives as
"reforming the laws in conformity with Islamic legislation, particularly as
regards the definition of offenses and the punishments for crimes '1126 and
spreading "the spirit of Islam throughout all the branches of government so
that all citizens consider it their duty to put Islamic precepts into effect." In
the meantime, in their everyday dealings, the Brothers intended "to initiate
respect for morality among the people and make everyone aware of the regulations set down by the law," which meant that "the punishments for violations of the code of morality should be strictly applied." This objective, which
was central to the program, involved several provisions, namely "eradicating
prostitution," "treating fornication, whatever the circumstances, as a serious crime punishable by law," but also "forbidding co-education," "considering all private contact between members of the different sexes as a punishable crime," "closing down dance halls and other centers of debauch, as well
as outlawing dancing and any form of physical contact between a man and a
woman." And that is only a brief resume of the contents.

The manifesto was, for many years, available only in Arabic, until the
journal Islam de France decided to publish it in French, so as to enlighten all
those who, misled by the angelic presentation ofthe text given by Tariq Ramadan, were ignorant of the basically fundamentalist and reactionary nature of
the Muslim Brotherhood. The publication of this program, which proved to
be quite different from the version that Ramadan had spread among the antiglobalization leftists, was by no means welcomed by al-Banna's grandson.
Michel Renard (born a Christian, but a convert to Islam), one of the founders of Islam de France, recalls having been the target of the latter's anger: "It's
then that I realized that he practiced doublespeak: you cart believe in a secular society and in Hassan al-Banna at the same time."27 This affront to the founder's dignity resulted in the closure of the journal. Al-Bouraq, the house
that published the journal, but that also publishes Tariq Ramadan, all of a
sudden canceled its contract after the publication of the issue in question,
bringing to a close one of the most stimulating editorial initiatives devoted to
Islam in France.

For Tariq Ramadan, it is essential that the movement that inspired him
be seen in terms ofhis own particular perspective. For someone who is aware
of the harm done by the Muslim Brotherhood's fundamentalism-and I am
referring not only to the violence but also to the fanaticism that Tariq Ramadan considers to be wholly legitimate-it is frightening to hear him explain
to European Muslims that the "extremely critical remarks" made concerning his grandfather are to be accounted for by the fact that his "national liberation movement" was a thorn in the side of Westerners.28 He points to the
fact that the Anglo-Saxon press presented the movement in 1936 in favorable terms, until the day when the Muslim Brotherhood stood up against "the
Zionist presence in Palestine": "It is quite clear that once it became evident
that there was popular support for the Brotherhood's stance, they began to
cast suspicions on Hassan al-Banna's activities, to spread rumors about him,
and disparage the movement as a whole."29 This was a way of implying that
all the criticisms made of al-Banna and the Brotherhood were the result of
a campaign of lies designed to protect the Zionist interests. In fact, what we
can conclude from all of this is that Time magazine-which was to designate
Ramadan as one of the "innovators" in the year 2ooo-was not particularly
perspicacious ...

It is true that, during al-Banna's time, the British government and King
Farouk thought they could make use of the Muslim Brotherhood as a counterweight to the Egyptian Left and the Wafd Party. According to Olivier Carre
and Michel Seurat, they even received a formal grant of Soo Egyptian pounds
from the Suez Canal Company, a building permit for a first meeting place, as
well as a mosque under their control. These findings emerged in the course
of research into the first bulletins published by the Brotherhood, in which alBanna attempted to explain things to his companions. According to Carre
and Seurat: "Banna, who would subsequently deny the gifts from the Canal Company, began by trying to justify what he had done in the eyes of his companions, who expressed their indignation, and took leave of him."3° Subsequently, al-Banna would simply state that he had never received any such
gifts. A Muslim Brother, then, is free to lie or change what he has said, if
it serves his purpose. At any rate, that's one aspect of the Muslim Brotherhood's past that Tariq Ramadan is by no means eager to remember when he
speaks to an anti-globalist audience-or even to an audience of Islamists that
he wants to convince of the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has always,
right from the very beginning, been a movement of resistance to colonialism.
The Muslim Brotherhood did, in fact, take part in the putsch organized by the
army officers that liberated Egypt from the yoke of colonialism, but this liberation was only a phase dictated by the immediate context. Egyptian independence was never, for the Brotherhood, an end in itself, but rather a prelude to
the setting up of an Islamic dictatorship.

The Brotherhood's participation in the struggle for independence has, in
addition, been considerably exaggerated by the movement's propaganda. But
even in the course of their attempts to falsify history, certain partisans of the
Brotherhood revealed the extent to which al-Banna was, above all, obsessed
by the idea of re-instituting Islamic values. To that end, he was prepared to
negotiate with any government whatsoever. In 1946, for instance, he was in
the thick of negotiations to obtain the right to publish a daily, and to acquire
land on which to construct his propaganda centers, when the communists
sparked off a massive wave of strikes in the Cairo textile industry in order to
force the British to leave the country. The communist "Committee to Liberate the Nation' asked al-Banna to send his troops to join in the general strike
scheduled for February 21, but al-Banna refused, partly because he did not
want to jeopardize the ongoing negotiations, but also out of deep-rooted suspicion ofthe communists. On the appointed day, a number of Brothers disregarded instructions, and joined up anyway with the strikers. Bypassed by the
rank and file, al-Banna finally consented to call for a strike on the following
days, but refused to join in the collective movement, which then fell apart.31 It
was not until 1948 that al-Banna decided in earnest to organize joint demonstrations with the communists against the British occupying forces. It was an alliance dictated by the circumstances-and one that did not last for long. In
the same year (1948), al-Banna still included the communists in the lengthy
list of enemies who were conspiring against the Brothers: "Worldwide Judaism, and international Communism, the colonial powers, and the advocates
of atheism and moral degeneracy-they all, from the very first day, considered the Brothers and their message as major obstacles." 32