Author: Tariq Ramadan
Publication: Newcultureforum.org
Date: December 12, 2009
URL: http://www.newcultureforum.org.uk/home/?q=node/236
Tariq Ramadan is one of the most influential
Muslim figures in Europe today, speaking and writing on Islam to a wide variety
of audiences in Arabic, French and English. A constant fixture in the media
- most recently, he defended the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks on BBC's
Newsnight - he has cultivated an image as an Islamic liberal and reformer.
But is he in fact a clever Islamist strategist
who uses the language of liberalism to disguise a fundementalist agenda? The
French feminist writer Caroline Fourest set out to answer this question, and
her book, Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, came out in France
in 2004. Now the Social Affairs Unit (www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk) has published
a British edition. NCF director Peter Whittle met with Caroline to talk about
the book in London.
Peter Whittle.: Why did you decide to write
about Tariq Ramadan?
Caroline Fourest.: I think Tariq Ramadan is one of the major leaders of Islamism
in Europe today, probably one of the most influential. The challenge was to
demonstrate that if you think this guy is a modernist reformer, and if you
expect him to be challenging Islamism in Europe, by real reform, then you're
just going to have a very bad surprise at the end of the day.
The only way to show this was to write a book,
so I devoted my time to reading his books, reading all of his interviews and
listening to all of his tapes, comparing what he's saying in the media and
what he's saying 'on the ground', in order to get a clear idea of whether
there was 'double-speak' or not. Basically I'm an investigative journalist,
with a University background. I work a lot on all types of Fundamentalism
as a feminist and secularist journalist. I work a lot on Christian fundamentalism
too. I created a journal called Pro-Choice aimed at the pro-life movement,
and the extreme right in France and the USA also. While studying Ramadan,
I very soon recognised the equivalent of a Pat Robertson of Islam. Today in
Europe everybody thinks that Tariq Raman is the Martin Luther King of Islam.
P.W.: Do you think there exists a wilful desire
to see him in this benign way? In this country many people who would say that
parts of Europe are just simply not facing up to Islamism.
CF.: There are a lot of peole who in good faith want to resist the risk of
racism, and because of that, they are starting to deny the danger of Islamism.
Tariq Ramen is not the open-minded reformist he appears to be in the media.
I would much prefer it if he was, because he's so effective, he's so influential,
in Europe. Most people here are convinced that he can be a moderate influence
on Islam. It's true that he's more moderate than a Taleban or a Salaafist
Judge; of course he's more moderate than that. But the problem is that he
has no influence in Pakistan or the Middle East. Nobody knows him there. He
is regarded as a clown, a Western Guy. So his influence is on the European
Muslim. This is where his influence is bad, because instead of helping the
European Muslim to be a citizen and a citizen first, he's helping them to
become a citizen in order to make political Islam more important in Europe.
P.W.: Could you give us an example of this
double-speak?
CF.: If you listen to him in the media he will tell you that he's teaching
the European Muslim to be a good citizen who respects the law of the country
where he is a citizen. He says, "Respect the Laws of the country where
you live." But when you listen to some of his tapes, he then continues
the sentence "when those laws are not contrary to Islamic Principles."
Another example: when he says "I am for
Islamic Feminism", you hear that he is feminist; you do not know his
definition of Feminism. If you listen to some of his tapes about women's rights,
you will learn it. For him real Islamic Feminism is a feminism which is against
Western Feminism. It is a feminism where of course the woman is treated as
equal in the eyes of God, but in the family the real power is in the hand
of her husband, as with the religious principle. So, in a conference where
people are attacking him on women's rights, he will only say "You're
kidding. I am for Islamic feminism. Are you accusing me of not being an Islamic
feminist? I am for it."
You know, in France, 70% of French Muslims are completely secularist. We have
95% who are for equality between men and women. I am not sure that it is going
to be the same in ten years because of peole like Tariq Ramadan. I am not
saying that he's teaching people to be sexist directly, but at the end of
the day it's the same. What he's doing is teaching a political Islam connected
to the political agenda of Islamism. For example, without Tariq Ramadan in
France, I can tell you that very, very few Muslim young men would have known
who Hassan al-Bannah is. He is the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. The
Muslim Brotherhood was not present in France twenty years ago. But it started
during the nineties with the War in Iraq, and the Algerian problem, but also
because of people like Tariq Ramadan, his brother Hami Ramadan and many other
preachers who are all in the same network. They all belong to the same network
which has the Muslim Brotherhood approach.
P.W.: I'm interested that you say that the
Muslims in France do respect secularism and are more liberal in their attitude
to women. That does not appear to be the case in Britain.
CF.: I think the big difference is that here in Englsnd you have had more
immigration from Pakistan, which is a country which is more hard-line than
Tunisia or Morocco or Algeria. In France we have a lot of youth of North African
parentage and some of them, the more recent arrivals, are coming to escape
Islamism, and they've a lot to teach us because they know very well what Islamism
is about.
France and England have had different models
so far as integration is concerned. I'm not saying that the French model is
perfect, not at all. We are all struggling to make it better. In France we
consider people on the basis of their identity as citizens first, before any
'community' identity. But there is racism, so the Islamist can use his propaganda
on the French Muslim. They say "You see they don't love you. We love
you. Become a Muslim: you will be respected. As French citizens you are not
respected, as a french citizen from an arabic country." Twenty years
ago, there were young Muslim men who would never have defined themselves as
Muslims - they spoke about themselves as Arab maybe, and French, because they
were proud to be French. Now, because of men like Tariq Ramadan, that has
started to change, because Ramadan is one of those preachers who has convinced
them that they can find the way to be proud in Islam, in Political Islam.
He is not a separatist; he is completely involved in the public debate. But
definitely he thinks that Muslim Identity is the major issue.
P.W.: What was Ramadan's reaction to your
book? Has he tried to sue you?
CF.: No he hasn't sued me. He cannot really, because I went ahead and did
what he had been asking for for years. Each time he was attacked, he would
say to people, "Read my books and comment upon them." And this is
exactly what I've done. I quote him, I give the source where I found it and
more than that, I explain the context; where he said it, why he said it and
what he forgot to say. However, I did receive some threats and intimidation
on the internet. But it's not really a question of death threats or physical
attacks; he's smarter than that. He is a professional when it comes to lying.
What I've had to face is constant defamation of my work and of who I am. They
try to present me as a neo-consevative which I am not. They try to present
me as a racist when I am an anti-racist activist, and they try to present
me as an Islamophobe. Well, I've written books where I defend the idea that
all kinds of Fundamentalism are bad. But even with all of that, I was prepared
to face a big progaganda attack on me, and I was not disappointed.
P.W.: Thank you very much, and very good luck
with the publication of your book here.
