Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan

by Caroline Fourest

  In the early 199os, after having travelled the world in search of his true vocation, Tariq Ramadan decided at last to make Europe his home base. He is quite open about it: "Up to the age of 23 or 24 I felt more Egyptian than Swiss. I thought again of leaving. Then I decided I was European and Swiss and should accept the fact."33 This decision was a strategic, thought-out political choice, rather than a heartfelt impulse. Tariq Ramadan was to remain marked for life by what was the very backbone of his identity: not Egypt, which was to remain a source of cultural enrichment, but the Islam of the Muslim Broth erhood that he was now determined to spread to the very heart of Europe. The Creil Affair of 1989, the first controversy in France concerning the wearing of the Islamic headscarf at school, seems to have sparked things off. It encouraged him to take a stand as a European Muslim. But to preach he needed a title, even if it fell short of the minimum course of religious training. In 1991, he decided to return to Egypt to study Islamic sciences in an accelerated program. He was then thirty years of age. Like his grandfather, he did not choose the long and complex apprenticeship offered by Al-Azhar University. He was not out to cultivate his mind, but to learn how to produce coherent arguments on the basis of a limited number of Islamic references. He settled down with his family in his mother's apartment near the airport, and in a few months went through "an intensive training program' in the form of private tutoring given by a friend of the family's, Sheikh Aqwabi.

  On his return, Ramadan could at last give lectures on Islam. He was not yet quite sure of himself, and he lacked familiarity with certain verses of the Koran-which he was later to acquire, thanks to a year of study at the Leicester Islamic Foundation-but he had made enough of a start for his natural verve to do the rest. It is one of the advantages of waging political war in the name of Islam: no need to work one's way up through a rigorous hierarchy to become a preacher. He began taking over the role, in particular in the Geneva Islamic Center, where he sometimes presided over prayer meetings. After his second visit to Egypt, Hassan al-Banna's grandson was convinced of one thing: Europe was to be his land of dawa, his preaching land. The French intelligence services claim that, between 1992 and 1993, Tariq Ramadan was chosen by the Brotherhood to continue the Islamization project begun by Said Ramadan. Indeed, the heir presumptive stepped up the rhythm of his meetings, not only in Switzerland, but wherever the European branch of the Brotherhood could provide him with an occasion.

  Propelled by the Union of Islamic Organizations of France

  In 1992, shortly after his return from Egypt, he suddenly emerged as the star speaker at the annual congress of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), a French organization close to the Muslim Brotherhood. When Fouad Alaoui of the UOIF was asked about his links with the Brotherhood, he replied: "It's one movement among others. We have respect for it, in that it advocates a renewal and a modern interpretation of Islam. But our job is elsewhere." And he added: "We have no functional connection with the Muslim Brotherhood." Obviously, as is the case for Tariq Ramadan, the French branch of the Brotherhood enjoys sufficient autonomy to be able to deny having any "functional connection' with the Egyptian head office. But despite this, the UOIF is indeed an organization modeled on the Brotherhood's philosophy and methods, working hand in hand with other Brotherhood organizations, in particular with the Geneva Islamic Center. The UOI F's ideology clearly belongs in this tradition, and its fundamental principles are almost entirely drawn from its Egyptian predecessor. One of the pamphlets published by the organization-Criteres pour une organisation musulmane en France [Criteria for Muslim Organizations in France]-pays tribute to Hassan al-Banna in particular: "What distinguishes Imam Hassan al-Banna, who is rightly considered-and clearly merits-to belong to the tradition of great thinkers and reformers ... is that he provided an organizational capacity for the spiritual and intellectual aspects of the movement." Not only does the UOI F refuse to repudiate any of the theoreticians that paved the way for Muslim fundamentalism, but it treats those who dare to criticize them as heretics: "Today you can find people who take pleasure in talking down Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Abdul Wahhab, Sayyid Qutb, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, or Faisal Mawlawi. But what is to be gained by destroying Muslim memory? What is to be gained by destroying these Muslim founding figures? Unless it be the scorched-earth policy of people who are inspired by hatred, ignorance, or heresy?"34 The UOI F, it should be said, belongs to the most radical school within the Brotherhood and has never dissociated itself from Sayyid Qutb, even if it does practice doublespeak: moderate on the outside and radical within.

  Founded in 1983 by Abdallah Ben Mansour (a Tunisian student) and Mahmoud Zouheir (an Iraqi engineer), the UOIF was conceived as a means of radicalizing the young Arabs who had come to France as students. It has been remarkably successful in expanding, having established more than 200 associations throughout France.35 The organization attracts a growing num- her of students of Muslim faith. From 1995 on, the UOIF took steps to accommodate the new influx, readjusting the make-up of its governing body. Two French citizens of Moroccan origin took over the leadership of the organization: Thami Breze and Fouad Alaoui. Despite this evolution, the UOIF continues to serve as an organization where French Muslim students become more radical through contact with Islamist theoreticians belonging to the Brotherhood: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Faisal Mawlawi, Hani Ramadan, and, of course, Tariq Ramadan.

  Tariq Ramadan wrote the preface for the first compilation issued by the European Council for Fatwa set up by the UOIF.36 This body was officially introduced to the press as a highly promising initiative, capable of providing theological guidance adapted to the needs of European Muslims. Some journalists and university professors wrote laudatory articles in celebration of the founding of an institution that would issuefatwas (religious opinions) from Europe and no longer from Egypt or the Middle East. In fact, the very firstfatwas to be published were adroitly chosen for their deceptively modern look. Two opinions attracted a lot of attention: one authorizing bank loans, the other suggesting that mixed marriages might be authorized. Unfortunately, alongside these two progressive fatwas (that the media made much of), the European Council for Fatwa quietly issued dozens of markedly less modern ones. Without going further than the compilation prefaced by Tariq Ramadan, one can read that the council authorizes a husband to forbid his wife from associating with certain persons and declares abortion illegal. In his introduction, moreover, Tariq Ramadan issues a warning: "Muslims who are always on the lookout for what is the easiest, the simplest and most 'moderate' will not find here what they are after, for each individual must be committed to avoiding the creation of a second-rate Islam, an Islam ... without Islam." In fact it is a hardline Islam that the European Council for Fatwa advocates. How could it be otherwise? Its president is not a European Muslim, but the most virulent of theologians, and someone that the Muslim Brotherhood considers its Guide: none other than Yusufal-Qaradawi, the man who issued thefatwa authorizing Hamas to engage in kamikaze operations.37

  Qaradawi, who commutes between Egypt and Qatar, where he hosts a religious television program on Al-Jazeera, is one of the Brotherhood's legendary figures. He was even considered for the post of Supreme Guide. It seems that he declined the offer on the basis that he would be more useful in Europe. And, as president of the European Council for Fatwa, based in London, he has never been more effective at radicalizing Muslims. On the occasion of its eleventh meeting in Stockholm in July 2003, the council over which he presides issued, almost unnoticed, afatwa justifying suicide attacks as martyrdom operations in perfect keeping with the Koran.38 It is enough to make your blood run cold when you learn that Faisal Mawlawi is the council's second-in-command. A Muslim Brother, he put theory into practice as director of the Lebanese Jamaat Islamiyya, an organization involved in several terrorist attacks.

  This aspect of the UOIF has been glossed over by the media ever since Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Minister of the Interior, decided, whatever the cost, to include the organization as part of the Fr
ench Council of the Muslim Faith, adopting a strategy that specialists of Islamism have yet to fathom. In 2002, moreover, this integration was the subject of a violent quarrel between Tariq Ramadan and the UOIF. It was not simply a difference of opinion as to strategy, but a disagreement on fundamentals. Qaradawi was to remain the theological mentor for Ramadan and for all members of the Brotherhood. In London on July 12, 2004, the two ofthem, surrounded by the leading lights of the European Brotherhood, took part together in the launching of a vast campaign in support of the hijab (the Islamic headscarf). The presence of Qaradawi, who is barred from entering the United States, created a scandal, especially when he declared: "There is no dialogue between the Jew and us except by the sword and the rifle."39 And this is not Tariq Ramadan's only brush with scandal. He also refers to Mawlawi as a theoretician worth consulting.

  Despite the recent falling-out between the preacher and a number of UOIF officials, Said Ramadans son is still a star in the eyes of the organization's activists. It is thanks to the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood that Hani Ramadan, Tariq's older brother, organized his first series of conferences in France, becoming one of the accredited lecturers for the many clubs on the UOIF circuit. His writings serve as reference works for the institute that trains imams in Chateau-Chinon. Tariq Ramadan had only to follow in his footsteps to become the next guru of all the young Muslim associations connected to the UOIF, such as the French Muslim Students, an organization created for the purpose of Islamizing the campuses, or the Young Muslims of France, founded by the UOIF to attract a wider audience of the young interested in discovering or rediscovering radical Islam. All these young people were already under the influence of Hani Ramadan, an austere figure, when they succumbed to the charm of his brother, whose every lecture was a major event. But the organization that was to serve as Tariq Ramadan's true stronghold is the Lyon-based Union ofYoung Muslims. Abdelaziz Chaambi, its president, recalls: "It was like love at first sight. We were looking for a spokesman. And he was looking for a base."4°

  Tawhid, the Lyon bastion

  An hour by train from Geneva, Lyon and the surrounding suburbs constitute the ideal stronghold for a young Islamist preacher. In the i98os, the city was the driving force behind the Parade of the Beurs (people born in France of North African parents) and the anti-racist movement. Ten years later, the situation had not changed. Fed up with the political patronage, disappointed by the associations that had sprung up in the wake of the Parade of the Beurs, such as SOS Racisme, the youth of the city suburbs and of Venissieux, on the outskirts of Lyon, tuned in to other voices that promised fulfilment of their dreams-the voices of Islamism. Associations such as Divercites (Diversity), created to offer an alternative that was more radical than the anti-racist associations, found a new source of self-assertion in proclaiming their pride in being Muslim rather than Arab, even if it meant no longer appealing for open-mindedness, but rather shutting others out. A Lyon Islamist activist put it this way: "You didn't want anything to do with me because I was Arab; so as a Muslim I'll turn my back on you." 4' This return to Islam was a reaction born of exasperation, but it quickly became a headlong rush into radical intolerant Islamism. The late r98os were a propitious time in this respect.

  In 1989, three young girls were expelled from a French lycee because they refused to take off their Islamic headscarves on the school premises. The headmaster succeeded in arbitrating the matter, but the UOIF intervened, urging the young girls to take a more radical stand and refuse any form of compromise. As a result, the affair boiled over, and their expulsion strengthened the conviction that France was contaminated by anti-Muslim racism. The Gulf War did nothing to change matters. A good number of French youth of North African origin considered the American intervention as aggression vis-a-vis Arabs and Muslims in general, even if officially it was a question of defending a country that was itself Arab, and even if the dictator in question was a secular nationalist that the Islamists had execrated up to then. These events contributed to the success of Islamist associations-clearly inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood-associations such as the Union of Young Muslims, co-founded by Abdelaziz Chaambi and Yamin Makri some two years earlier.

  The association has both money and ideas. It owns a big building located on Rue Notre-Dame in Lyons sixth district. One entry hall gives onto a conference room; the other onto the bookstore, which displays the works of its publishing house, Tawhid ("divine unity" in Arabic)-the Muslim Brotherhood's favorite term, and the name given to their chain of bookstores. Created and financed by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Lyon bookstore is a showcase for radical Muslim thinkers. Some of its funds come directly from the Leicester Islamic Foundation, the propaganda center for Qutb and Mawdudi, where Tariq Ramadan received his training. It thus distributes the works of the most disreputable Islamist theoreticians, such as Qutb, Mawdudi, and Ibn Taymiyya. It resembles an Islamic version of a Pentecostal or fundamentalist Christian bookshop, in that it features antiabortion and anti-euthanasia literature as well. But the publishing house's leading light, whose books are always on display, is, of course, Tariq Ramadan. The sales receipts of his works would suffice to finance the association, which claims to have sold several thousand copies of his books and audiocassettes. The figures cannot be verified, but they suggest the degree of influence exerted by the preacher over the Islamists of the region for the last fifteen years or so. It is no mean achievement if we are to judge by the increasingly fundamentalist positions taken by the young people who spend time there and visit the Tawhid bookstore, where one can always find the latest bulletin of the Geneva Islamic Center. Aware that his followers' radical opinions could spoil the image of respectability that he is at pains to construct on the exterior, Ramadan would have us believe that he has tried to exercise a moderating influence. He recounts how he had to prove he was bona fide before they were willing to accept him: "They were suspicious. I had the reputation of being too modern. The first time, they took me aside to one of the smaller rooms, not the large hall. They wanted to test me before presenting me to their audience."42 It is a fact that the Union of Young Muslims makes a point of inviting speakers such as Rashid Benaissa, an Islamist militant close to the FIS. They might well have been on their guard having read newspaper articles that referred to Tariq Ramadan as a Muslim who wanted to modernize Islam, but on hearing him speak they were quickly reassured. Said Ramadans son was perhaps modern in style, but in regard to essentials he was indeed the heir to al-Banna, their Guide. And he adopted the same line as their model speaker, Hani Ramadan. The same Islam, the same radicalism, but more charismatic, and, in addition, better suited to the media-the ideal synthesis. "Tariq was the combination of all the qualities we were looking for," Chaambi recounted. "He had the theological background, and a social and political vision, a Westerner who had succeeded in coalescing identities. He only lacked one thing: he was a well-established bourgeois from Geneva who knew nothing about our neighborhoods. We fed on his religious learning, and he soaked up our knowledge of the suburbs."43

  This Swiss bourgeois of Egyptian origin was thus taken up and adopted, to the extent that he became the spokesman of the suburbs and of the French North African community. Ramadan had found his true audience, for whom he could play in earnest the role of political leader that was his destiny. As time goes by, the number of his followers only increases. Today he delivers several speeches a week all over the globe, sometimes for audiences numbering in the thousands. Often he arrives late, so as to increase the anticipation. However, his first try at politics was a resounding disaster.

  Failure in Switzerland

  Tariq Ramadan founded his first Muslim association in 1994, the Muslim Men and Women of Switzerland (MMS). Officially, its purpose was "to contribute to a more favorable reception of Muslims in Switzerland." The program appeared inviting, and the prestige that Tariq Ramadan enjoyed with the press ever since the publication of his book Les musulmans dans la laicite [Muslims in a Secular Society] provided him with the
opportunity to advertise the associations first congress, to be held from December i6 to i8 of the same year. He himself expected a lot of this first large-scale meeting, organized entirely by the networks that he had set up. Taken in by the preacher's charm, and persuaded that his influence on the Muslim community was beneficial, the journalists expected to find the hall crammed with the faithful, eager for a modern and dynamic Islam. The disappointment was palpable. On arrival, they found a hall that was practically empty: only 300 people out of the 15,000 Muslims living in the region. Furthermore, half of them had come from France, mostly from the suburbs of Lille and Lyon. In fact the "silent majority" of the Swiss Muslim community had boycotted the event, despite the colossal publicity provided by the press. The journalists were quick to understand why, when they listened to the preachers on the rostrum. Ushered in by Ramadan, each speaker proved to be more radical than his predecessor. Hassan Iquioussen, a preacher close to Ramadan, introduced as a promising candidate to invigorate Islam, explained that: "Wives must obey their husbands, since for them it is the best way to approach God."44 He was followed in the same vein by Malika Dif, another of Ramadan s close associates: 'Algerian women who demonstrate for recognition of their rights have understood nothing. Islam gives them all these rights. On the contrary, it is from a lack of Islamization that Algeria suffers."

  Instead of serving as the promised opportunity to reconcile Swiss citizenship and Muslim identity, the congress turned out to be a get-together of fundamentalists. The journalists who attended were accused of wanting to "annihilate Islamic civilization'45 or at another moment of "favoring free speech contrary to the rules of the Koran."46 One speaker even treated them publicly as "insects." Shocked by what they heard, most journalists left the symposium. On the steps leading up to the meeting hall, they found themselves face to face with FIS sympathizers handing out tracts in which it was explained that "true Muslims are those who take up arms to fight for the survival of Islam." The same tract urged Muslims to "follow the edifying example of our Algerian brothers," all of this with the approval of the sponsors 47 Neither the association nor Tariq Ramadan could continue to fool the people. In particular, L'Hebdo, a Swiss weekly news magazine, expressed its disappointment: "What was officially presented as a symposium of dialogue and exchange turned out in fact to be a meeting of confrontation and tension."48 Criticism of the first association founded by Tariq Ramadan was unstinting: "His minority movement is playing with fire. Even worse: he runs the danger of stirring up tensions vis-a-vis the Muslim community in general, which is diverse and many-sided and obviously not supportive of the MMS." The editor-in-chief of L'Hebdo, who had often published opinion pieces submitted by the preacher, explained that he was putting an end to their collaboration: "In the weekly column that we provided him, we were looking for a religious dialogue. Unfortunately, it was used as a political platform."49 As he always does when in trouble, Tariq Ramadan called it "Islamophobia," but his reputation appeared to be seriously compromised in the Swiss Confederation-for the time being at least. Ramadan has, in effect, lots of journalist friends who are ready to defend him whatever he says and whatever he does. And, above all, he had learned one lesson: when the message fails to get through in one place, go and establish a reputation elsewhere. That is what he has done every time he has got into trouble, thanks to his chameleon-like talent, inherited from his father. The very same year, in 1994, when he appeared washed up in Switzerland once and for all, he went to Belgium, the Dom-Tom (the French overseas territories), and France itself to rest and recharge his batteries. He claims to have taken part in more than 120 meetings in the years 1994 and 1995 alone, often by invitation from networks closely linked to the Brotherhood, but not always. In 1997, he was to found a new asso ciation, Presence Musulmane, designed to successfully achieve in France what had not been achieved in Switzerland. In the meantime, Said Ramadan's son had become his heir.