Tariq Ramadan: Moderate or Radical?
The Agonist - Tariq Ramadan has resigned two professorships at The University of Notre Dame - professor of Islamic studies in the classics department and professor of religion, conflict, and peace building - and has accused American authorities of assailing academic freedom. This preeminent Catholic institution had invited him to teach Islamic philosophy and ethics at its Kroc Institute for Peace Studies. Prompted by the Dept. of Homeland Security, the US government revoked his visa without explanation in late July, just days before he was to begin teaching. When asked, State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon referenced the Immigration and Nationality Act, but declined to say which section directly pertained. Time magazine honored this Swiss-born intellectual imam, naming him one of the 100 innovators of the 21st century. A highly respected major American university invited him to teach. Yet, the US perceives Ramadan enough of a threat to bar his entry into the country.
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Tariq Ramadan: Moderate or Radical?
Worldwise | December 19
The Agonist - Tariq Ramadan has resigned two professorships at The University of Notre Dame - professor of Islamic studies in the classics department and professor of religion, conflict, and peace building - and has accused American authorities of assailing academic freedom. This preeminent Catholic institution had invited him to teach Islamic philosophy and ethics at its Kroc Institute for Peace Studies. Prompted by the Dept. of Homeland Security, the US government revoked his visa without explanation in late July, just days before he was to begin teaching. When asked, State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon referenced the Immigration and Nationality Act, but declined to say which section directly pertained.
Time magazine honored this Swiss-born intellectual imam, naming him one of the 100 innovators of the 21st century. A highly respected major American university invited him to teach. Yet, the US perceives Ramadan enough of a threat to bar his entry into the country. Seen as moderate by some and a radical by others, a closer look at what fuels the controversy is in order.
In a written statement Ramadan said:
"No matter what decision I have taken today, I am still waiting for the American administration to reveal the results of their investigation so that my name can be cleared of all the untrue and humiliating accusations against me during these last few months. As yet, not a single piece of evidence has been produced to substantiate the claims made against me, which I believe is a classic case of infringement of academic freedom."
"My hope of teaching in the United States was based on the sincere aspiration to participate in the pressing and topical debates of our time. An unjust decision does not bar me from continuing this imperative struggle for dialogue and understanding between women and men, between religions and cultures."
Notre Dame
An August 25 AP report filed by Tom Coyne cites Notre Dame representative Matt Storin saying that ''He's[Ramadan] a voice for moderation in the Muslim world." Ramadan is a teacher at the College of Geneva and the University of Fribourg that "has gained a popular following among European Muslims in showing how Islamic values are compatible with those of secular European society," according to Coyne. This view is echoed in a letter written August 26 from Kroc Institute Director Scott Appleby in response to an "overwhelming" amount letters and calls in support of Ramadan, prompted by the revocation of his visa. In this letter Appleby writes:
Tariq Ramadan is a strong but moderate voice in a world plagued by extremism. He addresses issues that evoke strong feelings because they touch the heart of personal and communal identity. We have known from the start that he is controversial. But controversy cannot and should not be avoided in a place that examines the challenges to international peace. The University of Notre Dame is such a place. We look forward to having him here.
Apparently Notre Dame was aware of the contestation hovering around Ramadan and chose to make the appointment regardless. Regardless of what?
Ramadan seen as radical
The day following Appleby's posting the New York Sun published an article written by Daniel Pipes entitled, "Why Revoke Tariq Ramadan's U.S. Visa?" Pipes is a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, one of four members of the Presidium of the Jerusalem Summit, ostensibly a conservative organization that includes distinguished Israeli academics.
In his article Pipes argues Americans should be thankful the DHS kept Tariq Ramadan from coming to America. Pipes refers to Ramadan as "Islamist royalty" noting that in 1928 Egypt Hasan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, a powerful Islamist institution and is the maternal grandfather of the forty two year old Ramadan.
Pipes suggests that the DHS knows much more than he about why Ramadan's valid visa was revoked. This could be the most complete truth Pipes offers. Most of what he invokes are suspected associations, accusations based on others actions whose motives aren't elucidated, or possibilities suggesting atavistic characteristics that are compelling in the way delusory arguments were before the Iraq war.
Pipes insists "the pattern is clear." Hyperbole is clearly exaggeration too, but not very helpful in understanding Tariq Ramadan. The background Pipes provides is worthwhile, as is one of his last paragraphs where Lee Smith of the American Prospect affords him the opportunity to label Ramadan a "cold-blooded Islamist" whose "cry of death to the West is a quieter and gentler jihad, but it's still jihad."
What journalist Lee Smith actually wrote was:
"Evidently, American academics have come to the same conclusion their French intellectual counterparts reached: Better someone like Ramadan than a jihadist. But as his new book, "Western Muslims and the Future of Islam," makes clear, he is in fact a jihadist -- not a violent one like Osama bin Laden, but a jihadist nonetheless."
Smith is referring to an article by Prof. Ramadan posted on a Muslim Web site, www.oumma.com, last fall. Ramadan wrote that several French intellectuals "who have always been considered as universalist thinkers" are "increasingly affected by a community-based sectarianism which tends to relativize the defense of universal principles of equality and justice." He continues and states how the "political positioning" of "French Jewish intellectuals" was a result of their being "Jews, nationalists and defenders of Israel."
Ramadan was talking of Andre Glucksman, Bernard-Henri Levy and Alain Finkielkraut. Their "political position" was support for the Iraq war and in Levy's case, a recent book he'd written on the assassination of American Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl. Ramadan saw this as supporting Israel´s pro-India policy while attacking a Muslim state, Pakistan.
This happened in the context of the recent ban on the hijab, or Islamic headscarf, from French state schools and rising tension and sometimes violent conflict with France's Islamists.
This is where charges of anti-Semite leveled at Ramadan emerge.
Smith is perceptive if not prescient when it comes to understanding Ramadan. He latches on to Ramadan's "Islamism" by noting that Western liberal democracies and not Arab culture states is Ramadan's idea of where one Islam can manifest itself. This turns the notion of one Arab Islam on its head. Perhaps Smith is most cogent when he writes this:
To understand fully the scope of Ramadan's conception, it's important to understand that for the Islamists, Islam is not just one of the three monotheistic faiths, nor is it merely the completion of the Abrahamic tradition. As Ramadan writes, it "corrects the messages that came before it." Islam doesn't complement the Torah and New Testament; it supersedes them. Today in the West, the Jews and the Christians have again lost their way, much as they did 1,400 years ago. That's why he calls the West dar al-dawa, or the place for "inviting people to God." Ramadan quotes a source as saying that in the eyes of the first Muslims, "The Arabian peninsula was dar al-dawa." The West is awaiting the call to Islam, just as the 7th-century Arabs were.
Foreign Policy, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, interviewed Ramadan and one question stood out as supporting this very point:
FP: Do you think there is a special role for Arabs within Islam?
TR: No! I am telling the Muslims and the Arab Muslims to be careful. The Arabic language is the language of Islam. But the Arab culture is not the culture of Islam. I am saying this to the Western Muslims and also the Asians.
This is from where the charge "Islamist" comes.
Stephen Schwartz, noted author, journalist and Islamic scholar has recently weighed in to the Ramadan debate. The whole article is worth reading, but again I will cite only his main points:
Ramadan should not be admitted to the U.S. He has written extensively on the challenge of assimilating Islam in Europe, but has shown by his public statements there that he is not an Islamic moderate at all, but a man committed to quite radical postures. Even Hicham Chehab, news editor of the Beirut Daily Star, a newspaper obviously dedicated to Arab interests, was forced to admit early this month that "During the controversial visit to Britain last July by Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, himself accused of sanctioning suicide bombers, Ramadan defended Qardawi on the BBC television program 'Hard Talk.'"
Using the Ramadan controversy for context, Schwartz is really making a larger point, which is one reason I suggest reading it entirely. In his view, Western politicians and intellectuals fail to find true moderates and accede to accepting "the least radical", a practice he says will "haunt America".
What do others think?
Ramadan elicits suspicion from Arabs and Westerners alike, for his Western sensibilities on one hand and his controversial roots on the other. In the article, Trying to Bridge A Great Divide, Nicholas Le Quesne takes an even, more salutary tone. This was written four years prior to the current flap, free from the emotional effects and context regarding events that have occurred since. He views Ramadan in the environment of a separate European Islam. In Ramadan Le Quesne sees someone who is ready to "abandon the dichotomy in Muslim thought that has defined Islam in opposition to the West." Ramadan: "We need to separate Islamic principles from their cultures of origin and anchor them in the cultural reality of Western Europe."
At Egypt's national publication Al-Ahram Mohamed Sid-Ahmed remarks on how curiously quite it is there despite what he calls the "uproar in France and elsewhere in Europe" over Tariq Ramadan. His questions reflect observations that Le Quesne made four years earlier, wondering if the silence is "because his independent thinking does not operate only towards French society but also towards Arab and Muslim societies." And similar to Schwartz, Sid-Ahmed sees a larger picture forming:
In fact, the issue goes beyond Ramadan as an individual. It has its origins in the undeniable duality between the Islam to which Ramadan attributes himself and the Western Judeo-Christian environment in which he was brought up and with which he is forced to interact.
The furore over Tariq Ramadan, by Mohamed Sid-Ahmed is fresh and offers a distinctly non-Western view that makes a valuable contribution to the debate.
Jane Lampman writes for the Monitor about ethics and religion. She attempts to reconcile what she terms as "attacks" by long-time critics of American Muslims that accuse Ramadan of anti-Semitism and terrorist ties. Apparently she has actually read Ramadan's most recent book, "Western Muslims and the Future of Islam," and says "Its stated goals are to foster a reinterpretation of Islam that fits the times and to encourage Muslims' positive integration into Western society." Lampman was present at a national assemblage of American Muslims in 2002 at which Ramadan spoke. She quotes Ramadan from that oratory:
"We feel vulnerable and defensive, but this is not a time to justify ourselves," he said. "We have to be self-critical ... To kill innocent people anywhere is not Islam and must be condemned. We must speak out when radical groups use jihad wrongly, and when there is wrong in so-called Islamic countries."
In her summation Lampman is contemplative of the apparent incongruities between Ramadan's accusers and his willingness to engage Muslims in an effort to revive the dormant practice of ijtihad, the reinterpretation of the sacred texts:
It's difficult to imagine why anyone with a destructive agenda toward the West would devote such profound energies to this effort, or want to teach at a major Catholic university in the United States. If the US government is serious about winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world and avoiding a clash of civilizations, it might consider sitting down for lengthy discussions with Tariq Ramadan, rather than barring his entrance.
Finally, I offer Ramadan's own words posted at his site:
My reasons for resigning my position at the University of Notre Dame.
Related reading:
Muslim Scholar Whose Work Visa Was Revoked Resigns Appointment to Notre Dame
Posted by Candy | AP | December 14
Tariq Ramadan
Fouad Ajami | Wall Street Journal | September 7
Western Muslims and the Future of Islam
By Tariq Ramadan
Oxford University Press 256 pp.
Other articles on Moderate Islam by Worldwise
Moderate Islam and the Problem of Difference
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By worldwise in Global Politics & Culture on Sun Dec 19th, 2004 at 12:34:04 PM PDT
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