Agora

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.

You’re an Arrogant Man

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?

Tariq Ramadan asked to meet us at a Café in Genfer Airport; he arrived fourty minutes late, the same as last time. The talk that progressed was not exactly a model for a successful inter-cultural dialogue. Rather, it was a failure. We failed completely and the meeting ended with Ramadan getting up and stalking off, deeply offended, after fifteen minutes. Most of our question remained unasked.

Born: you’ve been quoted as saying that the West is decadent.
No, I never said that. Never. Read my books, e.g. “Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity”. I say exactly the opposite. Recently I was with a Sheikh, an Islamic Scholar, in an Egyptian Mosque. He said to the Believers present that Westerners behave like dogs. After the lecture, I opined that such talk is intolerable, because I live in Switzerland and there they don’t act like dogs. That is a false perception about the West. Also, philosophically speaking, I am against talk of decadence. You’re a citizen of the West, yet you also criticise the excesses, the rootlessness of the West. I am like you.

Born: Mister Ramadan, what is it you don’t like about the West?
The excesses.

Born: Which excesses?
To take an example, this is my current perception, the obsession with consumerism. The truth is that we lose our ethics when we go too far down that road. The obsession with our rights is somewhat… I maintain that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights must be respected. But at the same time I say: My fellow citizens you must be careful, you mustn’t forget about duties and responsibilities when you claim your rights - the responsibility to the other citizens, to the World, even to the animals. This ethical point of view is very important for me. I say: In the West we are facing challenges and different forms of excess and we must use our reason in many different ways. I do this. The French publicist Alain Grèche once said: “I am more critical of the West than Tariq Ramadan, yet noone asks me to state my allegiance.” So this is really the core of your question: To prove that I am a citizen of the West, I must be blind and silent.

Born: No, no… (is interrupted)
I am critical, yes, but I have never said the West is lost.

Born: Will it fill you with satisfaction when the West is Islamist a hundred years from now?
Never. I have never dreamed of an Islamist Europe.

Born: Why not? Every religion wants to… (is interrupted)
No. When God wills it, we will become a united community. Christians, Jews - even Atheists and Agnostics.

Born: You don’t want Islam to be the dominant religion of the World?
(quietly) I don’t want that, no. Do you know what I tell the Moslems? It is better to be the minority than the majority. Because each is tempted to lie in wait, waiting to oppress the other. My struggle is not about power, it is about values. Don’t say that I am doing Double Talk, that I am talking with a forked tongue. Read my books.

Sorg: How are you an Islamist? You talk about universal human rights. That is a Western concept, an idea from the European Enlightenment.
(Quietly, sharply) Totally untrue. Who told you this?

Sorg: So all the books say. Enlightenment is a European post-religious project.
Untrue. Al-Farabi talked of universal rights. Do you know of Al-Farabi?

Sorg: Who?
14th century. You are displaying your ignorance. This is Double Talk (Editor: Al-Farabi was born in the 9th century)

Sorg: In many Moslem countries you would be killed if you talked of universal rights.
I have not been killed in Moslem countries. Who told you this?

So it says every day in the newspapers. In Saudi Arabia you can be executed for the mere possesion of a bible.
I am as critical of Moslem countries as you have ever been. Where were you and your newspaper when the king of Saudi Arabia came to Switzerland? Nowhere. Do you know why? Money.

Money?
Because he was bearing money - 46 Million Swiss Francs.

Born: Did you protest?
I wrote an article. About how you don’t respect the values.

Sorg: Which values?
The universal values of the Human Rights. Which are not your property. You have never studied Islamic Philosophy. What do you know of Al-Farabi, what do you know of Averroes? And you want to tell me that….

Sorg: I know of Averroes that he too would be killed in Islamic Countries. (Editor:Averroes, Moslem Philosopher, 12th century, died in exile, his writings were burned by the Islamic Nomenklatura of that time.)
What is the meaning of this discussion? What is the point? I am not talking of the world of today. I am talking about universal values.

Sorg: It began in Europe with Descartes (is interrupted)
You know nothing of Chinese Philosophy, nothing of Islamic Philsophy. This ignorance is making you arrogant.

Sorg: But we’re talking of current politics…
(Loudly, offended) You are arrogant. You’re not talking about current politics. You’re talking about universal values.

Born: Let us talk about Freedom, about the Western values… (tries to pour oil on the troubled waters)

Sorg: (Spiteful) …Islam is in opposition to Humanism…
(Forceful) Stop, stop, stop this discussion…

Sorg: Why?
… And understand Islam.. What is it? How many Moslems do you know?`What have you read about Islam? You’re an arrogant Man. A Moslem such as Al-Farabi is more tolerant than you are.

Sorg: How many centuries did he live?
Why does that matter? I am more tolerant than you right now. I don’t say that Christianity is like this or like that…

Sorg: I wasn’t talking about Christianity. I was talking about the Enlightenment, which was European, critical of religions…
(Sharply) So there is no Islamist Enlightenment, then? Name three Moslem philosophers, please…

Sorg: The three most well-known are… (is interrupted)
(Sharper still)… please, name for me, apart from Averroes…

Sorg: I want to ask you something…
… name three for me. You’re an arrogant Man.

Sorg: Thank you. That is the fifth time you tell me that.

Born: No, please excuse…
(Stands) I will do nothing, I won’t talk to this commoner. That’s final. This discussion is finished.

Born: No, no, no…

Sorg: (Loudly) You’re running. Is this your idea of dialogue? I said Islam and Humanism are opposites. Prove otherwise.
(directed at Born, still standing, deeply offended) You brought this commoner here… You don’t listen to my answers… (Looking rattled, Ramadan puts Sorg’s calling card in Born’s breast pocket, very deeply offended and leaves the room grumbling.)…arrogant…unpolite…(loses himself in the crowd without looking back.)

Sorg: (Broken, addressed to himself) He is certainly not used to that.