Tariq Ramadan: “You’re an Arrogant Man”
I stumbled across this article while reading Polemiken. It’s in German but I have translated it below. Tariq Ramadan clearly doesn’t want to discuss the basics. He also seems very badly adjusted to anyone questioning him and his beliefs. He’s been known to criticise people for their Jewishness and is accused by some of being a master of the long con, Osama bin Laden with patience, waiting for the demographic explosion of the Moslem populations of Europe to take over Europe. What’s a bit frightening is that this man is an advisor to the British government and seems to be generally well received in the intellectual millieu.
In the translation, the links are all mine, the editor’s comments are the newspaper’s.
Weltwoche, ausgabe 47/04.
By Hanspeter Born and Eugen Sorg
Interview with Tariw Ramadan: What was supposed to have been a critical dialogue with the Islamist writer, ended in fiasco.
We looked forward to a stirring, critical second talk with the Islamist author and preacher Tariq Ramadan. The first took place two weeks before this, and after we had reviewed it, we had a few misgivings - with ourselves and with Ramadan. We talked about Islam and terrorism, Iraq, the backwardness of the Arab world, the United Nations, universal values, freedom of opinion, headscarves. Now we had the feeling that our questions were too ordinary and too tentative. And that his answers were too rehearsed, too evasive and too ambigous - without our asking more questions to gain clarity.
This time we wanted to do better. We wanted to be concrete, harder, more personal and, if possible, to prevent empty retorics and charades.We wanted to know Ramadan’s position on the following questions and issues:In the eyes of most Moslems the West is morally inferior. Tolerance is a sign of decadence. The Islamic law of Sharia demands the death penalty for e.g. Homosexuality, female adulterers, atheism, the apostates of Islam, etc. Assuming the following: Ramadan’s daughter goes to the pool in bikini, wants to move together with her boyfriend, her boyfriend is an atheist; Ramadan’s son announces to his parents that he is a gay and has acted on this: What is Ramadan’s response?
Righteousness and laws are central to Islam, but it has no concept of Freedom or individuals. Islamism is not Humanism. It is significant that the writer Rushdie had a fatwa proclaimed against him, but not Osama bin Laden, Zarqawi or criminals of that ilk. The Koran is the work of man, the Prophet a warlord with a large following. The desolate state of things in the Arab world is connected to the ban on criticism of Islam. The Prophet allows Taqqiya for the believers (Taqiya is the omission and the lie) if they live under the rule of the unbelievers: How can we belive that Ramadan believes in what he is telling us?
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