Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan (36 page)

If he really disapproved of the GIA, Ramadan would not be a friend of
the only man to have dared declare in writing that the Tibehirine massacre
was justified in terms of the Koran: Yahya Michot. In 1997, this Belgian convert to Islam came to prominence for having dug out afatwa of Ibn Taymiyya,
dating from 1417, that proved the murder was justified on religious grounds.
His booklet-Le statut des moines [Rules Pertaining to Monks]-was published
under the name of Nasreddin Lebatelier, but Michot finally admitted to being
the author. It is said there that, in cases of conflict, the killing of monks is
permitted if they are in contact with other men (for they could keep Mus liras from pursuing their goals). On the other hand, it is illicit if the monks
are within walls. The GIA assassins thus acted in perfect conformity with
Ibn Taymiyya, since they murdered all the monks, except for one who had
taken refuge in his cell. This led Michot to conclude that the monks should
have heeded the order to leave the country issued by the GIA in 1993: "The
drama could, no doubt, have been avoided with a bit of common sense, if
the monks had agreed to `take a bit of a vacation in France."'az In brief, the
man is far from respectable. Few non-jihadist reformers have agreed to be
seen with him since. Tariq Ramadan, however, is still one of his friends. In
March 2002, the preacher even wrote a preface to his latest book, a book
published by Jeunesse sans Frontieres, the Islamist association of Montpellier for which Tariq Ramadan is an esteemed figure. Admittedly, the book
does not deal with Tibehirine. It is entitled Musulman en Europa [Muslim in
Europe], but Ramadan's moral support was an eloquent message for all the
young Muslims who followed this affair. All the more so, in that Michot indicated in his bibliography that he had translated Ibn Taymiyya's fatwa. One
might have expected that Ramadan would express some reservations over
the positions taken by the author. Not at all. Ramadan recommended Yahya
Michot as "a brother and a friend." He had nothing but praise for him, presenting him as "one of the few Muslim thinkers who know how appealing a
generous sense of humor can be." Er ... But Ramadan does take care to leave
himself a way out by adding the following sentence, meaningless in itself,
but which he can always cite if necessary: "Many a time we were in disagreement, often we were at odds." But over what? The youngsters who read the
book will never know. And as a result, they adopt as a model this "brother"
recommended by Ramadan-this brother so humorous and so apropos. In
the book, Michot describes Ibn Taymiyya as "our principal guide" and "one
of the great Muslim scholars."83 He frequently cites Khomeini, refers to the
modern jahiliyya (the pre-Islamic decadence), goes back over the Crusades
once again to exonerate the Muslims of any guilt for the crimes committed in
the name of Islam: "I would say straight out, even if it may appear shocking,
that we Muslims can afford to kill a lot, to liquidate and massacre a lot, before
reaching the degree of inhumanity that was the standard in the past for the ancestors of those who today accuse Islam of being a religion of violence."84
What a splendid model for European Muslim youth! And what a calling card
for someone who claims to be an uncompromising agent of peace.

Unlike his brother, Tariq Ramadan does not have to call openly for a jihad
to radicalize the Muslims that listen to him. His "open-minded" Islam is far
more efficacious. His approach, seemingly moderate, succeeds in attracting
the more or less modern Muslims that he will gradually initiate into radicalism, and then fundamentalism, the environment that produces future terrorists. How? By pretending to advocate a form of fraternity and tolerance that
has the effect, above all, of making any moderate Muslim feel guilty in comparison to the extremists. Once their vigilance has been dismantled, he has
only to put those he has thus outfitted in touch with the Brothers' network.
A youngster lured by the "modern' language of Tariq Ramadan will begin by
ceasing to look on fundamentalists with a critical eye. He will be convinced,
from then on, that those who are hostile to the Islamists are Islamophobes.
Having studied al-Banna's thought and his method, he will, from this point
on, belong to a fraternity that stretches from the Union of Islamic Organizations of France to Hamas, via the Islamic Salvation Front and the GIA.
He will absorb all that Tariq Ramadan has written, even the books he has
prefaced. The girls will have as their model Zaynab al-Ghazali and the boys
will eat up Yahya Michot. The religious authority will be Yusuf al-Qaradawi,
the Muslim Brothers' theologian that Ramadan recommends, the man who
approves of suicide attacks. Ramadan also recommends Mawlawi, the head
of one of the principal Lebanese terrorist organizations. "Mawlawi is right to
emphasize that, according to the majority of the ulemas, Muslims are bound
by the decisions and the acts of an unjust leader or a dictator `so long as he
does not commit a sin or act contrary to the teachings of Islam."'85 Even if
Ramadan talks of using "legal means," remember that it is in the name of
these legal means that Qutb yesterday and Mawlawi today call for a jihad
against "apostate" tyrants. Given his influence, does it come as a surprise that
Tariq Ramadan s name appears in the dossiers held on certain terrorists? Or that Djamel Beghal, the Lyon Islamist arrested for terrorist activities, had listened to his lectures without ever being dissuaded from waging a jihad? Does
it come as a shock to learn that Malika, the wife of one of the two assassins of
Massoud was a Ramadan fan-or that she approved of her husband's act?86
Does it come as surprise, finally, that Tariq Ramadan continues to be the star
performer of the most hardline Muslim Brothers-in Algeria, in Yemen, in
Syria-despite a press that still sometimes insists on presenting him as a
reformer and a pacifier? The answer is simply that the press is mistaken:
Tariq Ramadan is not an agent of peace but an agent of radicalization-all the
more to be feared in that he is so difficult to pin down.

Triq Ramadan knows full well that the future of Islam is to be played
out not in the Orient but in the Occident. While Islamism has its work cut
out for it in the Maghreb and the Machrek (the Middle East), because of government repression and the mobilization of civil society, the West, with its
human rights provisions, offers a sanctuary from which to launch campaigns
to swell the ranks and prepare for revenge. Ever since the failure in Algeria, this strategy has been the top priority of the Muslim Brotherhood. The
fact that Yusuf al-Qaradawi turned down the official role of Supreme Guide,
explaining that he would be more useful in Europe, speaks volumes for the
fraternity's hope of initiating the Islamist awakening in Europe. As leader
of the international branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Said Ramadan was
the first to believe in this strategy. Of all his heirs, Tariq Ramadan is the most
gifted. In the past fifteen years he has proved a remarkably effective agent in
the service of this idea. He has ensured Islamic renewal by the dawa, while
at the same time weakening the forces opposed to Islamism thanks to the
contacts he has established with other religious leaders, with academia and,
above all, with the anti-globalist, secular Left.

The dawa not only functions by means of conversion or by radicalizing
Western Muslims. In Tariq Ramadaris own words, it is a question of establishing "spheres of collaboration' with non-Muslims. The term is his. On
his cassettes, he openly encourages his followers to form alliances: "I want
you to understand that we are not alone in daring to challenge this Westernization that is without soul and without conscience .... The future hinges
on being intelligent enough to grasp a dual approach: locate the spheres of resistance and develop the spheres of collaboration .... We cannot remain
one against the many."1 One would, at first, think that Ramadan is calling on
Muslims to become the allies of non-Muslims vis-a-vis globalization. Except
that we know what Ramadan means by resisting Westernization: not some
"other" globalization, but a Confrontation of Civilizations that will result in the
triumph of Islam. Here is how it is explained on his cassettes:

Look, I'm going to turn Huntingtoris proposal around. What did Huntington
say? He said that the Occidental powers should seek out in the Muslim countries
those who defend the West's ideology. That's to say, seek out the Muslims known
as "secular" or the Muslims known as "liberal." You know: the Muslims without
Islam! ... Well as for us, those with whom we're going to cooperate, it's exactly the
opposite. We're going to locate in the West-and collaborate with-all those who
defend rights, justice, and human dignity. We're going to develop these bridges;
we're going to be there in the center of academic and social dialogue. For there are
lots of people who have negative opinions about Islam because they don't know
it, but who will be ready once they do know it-once they are talked to in the right
way-ready to defend, along with us, the rights of Muslims and more and more ....
Believe me, this phenomenon is already under way. So we are against a philosophy
of conflict, but we are for a philosophy of resistance within collaboration.'

The word "collaboration" is not without significance. For those who
might have been tempted to think that this common resistance implied an
exchange, Ramadan set the record straight: "Some people think that the
opposite of conflict is marriage. No. The opposite of conflict, it's intelligent
resistance and collaboration concerning what is just and honest; it's not a
form of submission-we resist, and we collaborate on the intellectual level." 3
In other words, you must separate the sheep from the goats. Ramadan knows
that he needs the Westerners, and even certain atheists, to conduct his jihad
against "Westernization' and atheistic materialism-but he has no intention
oflosing his soul in the process. It's clearly a question of a temporary alliance,
until the great day dawns. On that day, the Left, and the non-Muslims in general, will, in any case, be so few in number that they will be no match for the
Islamists bent on establishing an ideal society based on the sharia. Mean while, following what happened in Iran, Ramadan has understood that there
is a vast store of potential allies, either conniving or naive, ready to support
him if he knows how to handle them tactfully. Herein lies the reason for his
double talk, conceived as a way of establishing political bridges.

Wafa al-Banna was certainly right to entrust her son, Tariq, with the job of
preaching to the outside world. Never has an actor been better suited to his
role. In the course ofthe last fifteen years, during which he has practiced speaking both to ultra-radical Islamist audiences and to ultra-skeptical audiences of
secular activists, he has become a virtuoso of rhetorical and semantic undermining-an art that he has taught his followers, to whom he has explained the
necessity of having "a strategy of communication' so as to establish "spheres
of collaboration': "There are, in fact, an enormous number of people who are
ready-intellectuals, thinkers, people with social obligations-people who
would be ready to be partners in our resistance on one condition: that we
develop our ability to communicate."4 In order to be more effective, he has
urged Muslims to know their various audiences and adapt accordingly: "You
must attune your speech in accordance with the ear that is listening to you. It's
essential, but to attune your speech to the ear that is listening, you must also
know that ear's disposition."-' With his usual shrewdness, he speaks of this
adaptation process as "developing a form of discourse that clarifies so that we
can communicate with our interlocutors.i6 Never mind "clarifying": this is
more like duplicity, used in an attempt to deflect any suspicion.

Tariq Ramadan edited-and for the most part wrote himself-a little
treatise on "understanding, terminology and language" for the benefit of
French-speaking Muslims. The first objective, we are told, is to "adopt a form
of discourse that is faithful to our principles" while at the same time being
"understood." One passage stipulates: "Being faithful to our principles is the
priority. ,7 Published by Tawhid, this brochure constituted the proceeding of
the International Symposium of French-speaking Muslims, held in Abidjan
on August 4-6, zooo. Ramadan directed a workshop on the semantic modifications of the terms "rights, rationality, democracy and community." For each term, the booklet explains how the word is understood by Westerners
and what problems it poses for Muslims, and proposes a "conceptual formulation" that amounts to a redefinition capable of confusing listeners.

Here we find all the preacher's semantic tricks. The word "rationality,"
for example, is not the equivalent of a critical attitude born of the Enlightenment, but "an intellectual process leading to the rediscovery of faith." Just
one example among many. In fact, for every key word that Ramadan knows
will be sprung on him, he has developed a second definition-of which all
those who have attended his courses or read his most confidential books are
apprised. This makes it possible for him to speak in an apparently inoffensive
manner, while remaining resolutely "orf his eminently Islamist message,
and without openly lying-at least to his way of thinking. If one adds that
Ramadan has redefined the word "secularisrri' as simply a context in which
freedom of religious faith is guaranteed, and not as the separation between
the religious and the political; that by "citizenship" he means a "geographical region' and not a country to which one is bound; and that he claims to be
a reformer, while forgetting to specify that he is in favor of a fundamentalist
reform-then you can see why so many people are wrong about him. On the
outside, Ramadan appears as a rationalist reformer, advocating civic participation on the part of Muslims, and thus their acceptance of the laws of the
Republic. Within the movement, his followers know full well that Ramadan
is a fundamentalist preacher who counts on them to make use of their status as citizens to bend the laws "towards more Islam." And it is those on the
inside that have got it right. They have at their disposal the "translation manual" that enables them to read between the lines of Ramadans official discourse, which is designed to appeal to an outside audience.