[lbo-talk] Tariq Ramadan and Islamic Socialism

[Sean Andrews]

On 2/16/07, Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ian Buruma is hardly an ideal writer to introduce Tariq Ramadan's
> ideas to the American audience, but this ultimately (if very much
> grudgingly) sympathetic portrayal of Ramadan's work, published in the
> New York Times Magazine as well as the International Herald Tribune,
> may serve to pique some open-minded people's interest. -- Yoshie
>
> <http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/04/europe/web.0204tariq.php>
> Tariq Ramadan has an identity issue
> By IAN BURUMA
> Sunday, February 4, 2007
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This section of the article may also spur some people's memories.

<blockquote>
Speaking about his grandfather, Ramadan observed: "People say that his
ideas formed the basis of Al Qaeda. This is not true." The spiritual
father of revolutionary Islam, according to Ramadan and others, was
another Egyptian Muslim Brother, Sayyid Qutb, who advocated a holy war
against the idolatrous West. Ramadan pointed out that "Qutb actually
joined the Muslim Brotherhood after my grandfather was killed. They
didn't even know each other. My position on Hassan al-Banna is that he
was much closer to Muhammad Abduh. He was in favor of a British-style
parliamentary system, which was not against Islam."

This may or may not be an accurate representation of Hassan al-Banna,
but it tells us a lot about the way Ramadan presents himself.
Reconciling what seems hard to reconcile is what makes him an
interesting and sometimes baffling figure. It is why the University of
Notre Dame appointed him as Henry R. Luce professor of religion,
conflict and peace building. Prof. R. Scott Appleby, the man who did
everything he could to bring Ramadan to South Bend, Ind., was hardly
naïve about Ramadan's European reputation. Over breakfast in New York
recently, he told me: "He's doing something extraordinarily difficult
if not impossible, but it needs to be done. He is accused of being
Janus-faced. Well, of course he presents different faces to different
audiences. He is trying to bridge a divide and bring together people
of diverse backgrounds and worldviews. He considers the opening he
finds in his audience. Ramadan is in that sense a politician. He
cultivates various publics in the Muslim world on a variety of issues;
he wants to provide leadership and inspiration. The reason we wanted
him is precisely because he's got his ear to the ground of the Muslim
world."

And this may also have been the reason that the U.S. State Department
revoked his work visa in July 2004. Ramadan had already sent all his
family possessions to South Bend. His children had been enrolled in
local schools. According to the Department of Homeland Security,
Ramadan was denied entry under a provision of the Patriot Act that
bars foreigners from the U.S. who "endorse or espouse terrorist
activity." After the A.C.L.U and various academic groups contested the
government's refusal to process Ramadan's application for another
visa, a federal judge ruled that the State Department had to make a
decision. The State Department refused to issue another visa on the
grounds that Ramadan had donated roughly $900 to two European
organizations that give aid to Palestinians. The organizations were,
and still are, legitimate charities in Europe but since Ramadan made
his donations have been blacklisted in the U.S. for supposedly giving
money to Hamas. The A.C.L.U. lawyer, Jameel Jaffer, told me that
Ramadan had fallen foul of the same principle that used to bar
Communists from coming to the U.S.: his politics are not welcome.
<close blockquote>

Ramadan was invited to speak at a conference here at GMU in the spring
of 2005 but was unable to attend due to these travel restrictions.

As for Buruma, I think the last two paragraphs say it all about what
the "choices" are which are (or which Buruma says are) available to
young muslims looking for role models:

<blockquote>
I thought of the Somali-born Dutch activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, as
charismatic in her way as Ramadan. Having had her fill of
controversies in the Netherlands (she wrote the film "Submission,"
which led to the murder of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim
extremist), she now works at the American Enterprise Institute in
Washington. Her mission, too, is to spread universal values. She, too,
speaks of reform. But she has renounced her belief in Islam. She says
that Islam is backward and perverse. As a result, she has had more
success with secular non-Muslims than with the kind of people who shop
in Brick Lane.

Ramadan offers a different way, which insists that a reasoned but
traditionalist approach to Islam offers values that are as universal
as those of the European Enlightenment. From what I understand of
Ramadan's enterprise, these values are neither secular, nor always
liberal, but they are not part of a holy war against Western democracy
either. His politics offer an alternative to violence, which, in the
end, is reason enough to engage with him, critically, but without
fear.
<end blockquote>

The AEI, as we all know, is the pinnacle of "universal values."  I
wonder which side Jahanbegloo--as Yoshi points out, a former National
Endowment for Democracy fellow--would say more accurately represents
the "soft universalism" he sees as necessary for dialogue with the
West?  My suspicion would be that Ali would win hands down, despite
what seems to be a greater commitment to pluralism as Berlin describes
it on the part of Ramadan.  Then again, my sense of Jahanbegloo is
that he's a bit more open minded than those that think we have to
choose sides.

s