Inheritance and the assignment of roles
Said Ramadan, the patriarch, the European Brotherhood's Guide, died on August 4, 1995. The Islamic Center, together with the Ramadan family, published an obituary in three languages (Arabic, French, and English): "The Islamic Center of Geneva sadly announces to the Muslim world the death in Geneva on Friday 4th ofAugust of Doctor Said Ramadan. He was the founder and general director of the Islamic Center of Geneva, which was the first center established in Europe. He was one of the spiritual sons of the Imam martyr Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement." Unlike al-Banna, Said Ramadan did not die a martyr, but from illness, in a Swiss hospital bed. His friends and relatives were, however, given the opportunity to claim martyrdom when Saudi Arabia refused them the right to bury him in Medina. And why should the Saudi authorities, known to have been at loggerheads with this Egyptian citizen for years, have granted the request? Instead, Said Ramadan was buried in Egypt, his native country. Tariq Ramadan was not able to attend the funeral. He was obliged to return home to his family when his wife, who had arrived in Egypt a few days earlier, informed him that the Egyptian authorities were planning to arrest him if he set foot in the country. It was not the first time that his entry into the country had run into problems. Going through the security checkpoints always took longer for him than for any other visitor, but this time it seems that a concerted decision had been taken before he even boarded the plane.
In late June, an Egyptian daily published by leftist supporters of Nasser, Al-Ahali, asserted that "one of Said Ramadan's sons" had been seen on the terrace of a Geneva cafe, seated next to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was sought by the police as the leader of the Al-Jihad group suspected of involvement in the attempted assassination of President Mubarak in Addis Ababa on June 26. Tariq Ramadan denied these accusations, which appear highly extravagant. Is it reasonable to suppose that one of the most wanted men at the time would meet in public with his friends from the Islamic Center for a cup of coffee in broad daylight on the shores of Lake Geneva? The explanation did not convince the European press, which sided with Ramadan, treating it as a false accusation manufactured by the Egyptian government. But the government had reason enough to be worried by the arrival of Said Ramadan s heir. It was a period of high tension following the attempted assassination of the president. Some forty-nine members of the Muslim Brotherhood were accused of "having incited hatred of the government among the people" and of "belonging to an illegal organization." Their trial was then taking place behind closed doors in a tense atmosphere, and the arrival of one of the Brotherhood's ambassadors in exile could only fuel the unrest.
After the death ofhis father, Tariq continued his Islamization project with renewed energy. In the months that followed, he went to Mauritius for conferences lasting several days, and there he was surrounded by Brothers and Sisters who came to present their condolences. Ramadan was greatly moved. On the last day he could not keep from paying tribute to the man from whom he had learned all he knew: "It is my father's image that has been with me from the mosque all the way here," he said, his voice trembling. "You know, he lived forty-one years of exile far, far from his native land [author's note: here Ramadan stops to shed tears], and what I feel now is exactly the message that he passed on to me from Islam, namely our message is one of love."5° He then evoked the fraternal ties existing within the Muslim community, and especially the ties within the Brotherhood, as something that enabled them to withstand adversity. At this moment, more than at any other, it is clear that Tariq Ramadan realized to what extent he owed his status as a sought-after preacher to his inheritance and to his name: "It is thanks to the parents I had, and the family I had, that I am here with you today; the merit is not mine." This was a sentence that he would repeat several months later in a lecture, given in Brussels, to a Muslim audience with ties to the Brotherhood: "I deserve no credit for being here with you. None at all. Because I had a grandfather who gave birth to a father who gave birth to a son. And I myself will be judged according to what I will transmit to my son, not according to what you see now. The day when you will see my son here before you, or see my daugh ter live as she should or my other son, and if they find the way to speak to you in the true way, then you can say `Tariq has passed on the message."'51
This admission amounts to a political confession. Even if he sometimes gives the impression of wanting to go it alone, Tariq Ramadan is much less autonomous than one might think. He is limited by his status as heir, by the fraternal ties that bind the Brothers together, and, above all, by his own family. After the death of the patriarch, it is the evanescent, but increasingly decisive presence ofWafa al-B anna that reigns over the family and the administration of the Geneva Islamic Center, which, at the time of his death, had twenty dues-paying members and a public of roughly 500. The family's children all joined the executive board so as to ensure continuity and share the various responsibilities. A memorandum emanating from European intelligence services even asserted: `After the death ofthe patriarch, the family divided up the apparently considerable sum that Said Ramadan had administered on behalf of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The result was a spectacular increase, both in quantity and quality, of the products and activities of the Al-Tawhid bookshop in Lyon, as well as the As-Salah bookshop in Ferney-Voltaire."52
If this memorandum is correct, it would mean that Tariq Ramadan himself finances the Tawhid publishing house, and thus the production of his own books and cassettes, the sales of which provide him with an income. It appears highly probable. Yamin Makri ofTawhid affirms that every month he pays Tariq Ramadan a fixed sum of 2,000 Euros in the form of royalties. But even on the basis of a generous estimate, the number of books and audiocassettes actually sold would not seem to account for such a high income. Does the money invested in Tawhid, and thus in Tariq Ramadan's productions, not come then from the funds divided up among the children when they became administrators of the Geneva Islamic Center after the patriarchs death? That is what the French intelligence services assert. The same source refers to an open conflict, which broke out when the funds were divided up between the Geneva administrators and the Egyptian headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood. The latter insisted that certain activities linked to the dawa be speeded up. If we are to believe the intelligence memorandums, the hyperactivity displayed by Hani and Tariq must not have come as a disappointment. The two brothers were, indeed, more visible and more productive from this moment on. Up to then, between 1992 and 1994, they had competed to demonstrate which of them was capable of taking over from their father. Hani set up a "Muslim cultural space" within the Center, while his younger brother created an autonomous "Muslim Cultural Community Center" equipped with a library, As-Salah, in Ferney-Voltaire.53 During this period, their relations even became strained. But in the Ramadan family, quarrels are short lived. The mother sees to it. After their father's death, the brothers were already reconciled when it came time to choose which of the two was to replace him at the head of the Islamic Center. At the time, Tariq was already better known, but also more likely to create scandals. The resounding failure of the MMS congress indicated that he was not really taken seriously by the Swiss Muslim community. On the other hand, he was undeniably gifted in attracting the outside world. It became obvious how to assign the tasks. For Tariq the outside world; for Hani the world within.
Hani Ramadan
A lot has been written about the difference in character between the two brothers and their relative degree of charisma. Tariq Ramadan is seductive and full of nuances; Hani Ramadan is forthrightly austere and extremist. As director of the Geneva Islamic Center, he is the official head of the Muslim Brotherhood at war with "Europe's atheistic materialism," and in particular with secularism that "enforces in school programs the separation that eliminates the vertical relationship to God."54 Which is a bit disturbing to hear, coming as it does from a product ofthe Swiss state school system ... Like his grandfather, Hani Ramadan hardly ever recognizes
the difference between education and propaganda. He is also as haunted as was his grandfather by the idea of being contaminated by Western decadence: "Is it not in fact true that today, in our modern societies, despite scientific progress and material comfort, we are prey to all sorts of evils that draw us constantly towards worship of the taghut (the irreligious) in all its forms? To cite only the unbridled sexuality that results in adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, harassment, rape, paedophilia, and incest."55 The specter of a loosening of moral stan dards obsesses him. In interviews, the director of the Geneva Islamic Center never misses an occasion to recall the fact that for Islam "homosexuality is a dead end, both in law and logic; you cant open a door with two keys.56
In 1998, Hani Ramadan brought out a book entitled La femme en Islam [Women in Islam] published by Tawhid, a book that many found shocking.57 In it, he developed a strictly fundamentalist view of the world that is highly moralistic. In his eyes, "if a society encourages hedonist values and unrestrained individualism; if it becomes more permissive and extols self-serving pleasures; if it calls for the `loosening of moral standards' and authorizes fornication, it will then lose the sense of mutual confidence necessary for marriage to subsist." For which reason, "Islam advocates a restriction of freedom so as to preserve mutual confidence and fidelity." Hani Ramadan has in mind, of course, that these restrictions on liberty, intended to guard against adultery, be applied first and foremost to women, called on to behave with decency and wear the Islamic headscarf. "The headscarf, in Islam, is the sign that faith obeys the divine commandments. Why then should a young schoolgirl be prevented from expressing her belief? Forcing her to remove the headscarf, is it not repeating what the merciless inquisition and the communist executioners have done?"58
The Geneva Islamic Center consistently urges women to wear the headscarf and to go to court if they are asked, as a teacher or a jury member, to remove it. Hani Ramadan is the first to protest against attacks on religious liberty. On the other hand, the Center's director never thinks of himself as an inquisitor or an enemy of freedom when he requires women to wear the headscarf so as to protect men against temptation, while at the same time granting their husbands full rights, including polygamy. His writings are conceived as testimony to the infinite superiority and the loftiness of soul of Islam: "In its struggle against the secular extremists, Islam will, whatever comes, remain a haven of wisdom and tolerance: `No compulsion in religion' says the Koran. A lesson that the secular torturers never taught us!" Yet secular democracy offered a good number of advantages for those who knew how to abuse its weak points.
Said Ramadan s sons knew full well that they could play on the neo-colo nial complex and, above all, on the open-mindedness of the democratic system to use and abuse the right of free speech. Here is what Hani Ramadan had to say in 1995 to his followers, massed in front of the European headquarters of the United Nations to call for "an international campaign against the ungodly": "The advantage of our being in Europe is that we can make use of the free zones within the democratic regimes."59 Why indeed do without? In 2001, the director of the Geneva Islamic Center published a collection of articles on "Islam and Barbarity," dedicated to those Muslims of Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, and Algeria "persecuted on account oftheir faith."6° The contents are alarming, but the most terrifying thing is that all the articles were published in the mainstream Swiss press. In his preface, Hani Ramadan warmly thanked the Swiss daily newspaper Tribune de Geneve and Le Courrier for their "open-mindedness." One can well understand why, on reading the legion opinion pieces that Hani Ramadan managed to have published in the press during the 199os, almost one per month-sometimes published simultaneously by three mass -circulation newspapers-with titles like "The West is out to dominate Islam! '6' Always in the name of open-mindedness.
In a text entitled "The Sharia Misunderstood," published in Le Monde on September 10, 2002, the director of the Geneva Islamic Center justified stoning as "a punishment, but also a purification." He spoke of AIDS as a divine chastisement: "Who created the AIDS virus? You will notice that a person who strictly obeys the divine commandments is safe from this infection, which cannot-except in cases of blood transfusion errors-affect anybody who has no sexual relations outside of marriage, who is not a homosexual and who does not take drugs." The moral lesson: "Muslims are convinced of the necessity to return to the divine law, in all places and at all times." This opinion piece did not seem to have greatly upset the editors of Le Monde, who agreed to publish it, whereas, had it been written by a Christian fundamentalist, they would surely have refused. Moreover it was not the first time that this newspaper had opened its columns to Hani Ramadan-let alone his younger brother Tariq. On September 22, 2001, just eleven days after 9/11, the same Hani Ramadan took advantage of the "Horizons" section of Le Monde (a page reserved for opinion pieces) to put the corporal punishments advocated by Islamic law "in their proper perspective," and by the same token to justify them.
Yet at times democracy will turn against those who exploit it so aggressively. In Switzerland, where Hani Ramadan teaches, his opinion piece on the "sharia misunderstood" sparked a scandal. Le Courrier informed Hani Ramadan that it would no longer publish his pieces "whatever the subject. ,62 The editor-in-chief published his correspondence, some of it quite harsh, with the Muslim Brotherhood's European representative. In one ofhis letters Hani Ramadan spoke of "an absolutely stupefying exclusivist dogmatism' and concluded with a menace: "Man is worthy only in so far as he submits to God. Perhaps it is not only me, a Muslim, that you are betraying by defying divine law. God will pass judgment." In the meantime, it was the Geneva State Council that was to pass judgment. After investigating the question, the members of the council decided unanimously that "Mr. Ramadan has violated the obligation of loyalty and the duty of confidentiality that apply to all public servants." He was suspended from his post as teacher of French for the Golette Orientation Program. In the end, the decision was annulled by the conciliation commission, but the State Council stuck to its guns. They had taken the political decision to get rid of Hani Ramadan and were prepared to pay damages rather than have him return to teaching.
Throughout the affair, Tariq Ramadan had interceded in the press on behalf of his elder brother, in particular in the columns of the newspaper Le Courrier (which still publishes contributions by Tariq): "I dorft agree with what he said, but I am against preventing him from expressing his views on the pretext that, outside his employment context, he supposedly violated the `duty of confidentiality,' a duty for which there is no clear definition. They make use of their authority to attack an easy target, a public servant who is said to be a model teacher, in order to prove to the world that they can stand up for their values. "63
Two sides of the same coin
Tariq Ramadan is constantly being called upon to make it clear that he is different from his brother. He is obliged to do so if he intends to continue his dawa in the outside world without being unmasked, applying the Muslim Brotherhood's time-tested principle of keeping those sections most in the public eye separate from the more radical ones. That is why he makes a point of stating that he is out of tune with his brother: "The truth of the matter is that, for the last fifteen years, we have followed separate paths. I respect him for his intellectual integrity, but I don't agree with his way of thinking." 64
This assertion comes as something of a surprise, if one takes the time to compare the speeches and articles of the two brothers over the past fifteen years. In reality, Tariq Ramadan plays with words and takes advantage of the ignorance of the general public. He does indeed have some differences of opinion with his elder brother, in particular as to whether or not (and how) to re-examine corporal punishment and its application, but their disagreements are minimal and occur within the framework of an ideology that is in itself integrist (political-fundamentalist). They have the same guiding principles and the same objectives. It is only the style that can, on occasion, differfor purely tactical reasons. Tariq has to
be acceptable to the general public if he is to continue being invited to appear on television. On the other hand, Hani, as director of the Geneva Islamic Center, has nothing to lose; he says what he thinks clearly and without beating around the bush. That does not mean that he never imitates his brother and never tries to be tactful. Ifyou listen closely, you can even recognize some of the rhetorical subterfuges used by Tariq. Like him, he says he respects the law and the need to be modem: "I belong in this country as a citizen who respects its laws and accepts the ingredients of modernity." 65 He also claims the right to be integrated, while simply campaigning for a form of secularism that is more "open." He also reminds us that Islamic law stipulates that a woman cannot be married without her consent, nor be forced to wear the headscarf. He also defends the return to modesty and the wearing of the headscarf as "Islamic feminism."66 And he condemns violence and the attacks of 9/II: "The Muslim religion, a religion of peace, cannot give birth to such acts." 67
Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan Page 10