Tariq Ramadan dances a minuet
Tariq Ramadan explains things.
My position on homosexuality is quite clear…Islam, as Christianity, as Judaism, as even the Dalai Lama…[are] not accepting of homosexuality, saying that this is forbidden according to the principles of our religion…My position, with homosexuals, is to say, “We don’t agree with what you are doing, but we respect who you are,” which I think is the only true liberal position that you can have.
Why no, actually, that’s not the only true liberal position you can have. On the contrary. The true liberal position would be to look carefully at those ‘principles of our religion’ and ask whether they are good principles or not, in secular, human, this-world terms. The true liberal position would be to know that the fact that something is ‘forbidden according to the principles of our religion’ is not necessarily a good reason to disapprove of it, much less to punish or ostracize or threaten it. According to the principles of some (and not a few) religions it is ‘forbidden’ for women to work, or travel without permission, or leave the house. Such ‘principles’ are bad principles and should not be obeyed. The true liberal position would be to realize that no one has managed to offer any real reason for homosexuality to be ‘forbidden’ or for Tariq Ramadan to be telling gay people that he doesn’t agree with what they are doing.
My position on the death penalty, stoning and corporal punishment is once again quite clear. There are texts in the Koran and in the prophetic tradition referring to this. But I have three questions to ask Muslim scholars around the world: What do the texts say, what are the conditions to implement [the punishment], and in which context? As long as you don’t come with a clear answer to this, it’s un-implementable, because what we are doing now is betraying Islam by targeting poor people and women.
Great, isn’t it? ‘There are texts’ – so he can’t (that is, won’t) just say it’s shit and we must have nothing to do with it. No. He has to palter and equivocate and do a little dance. He has to offer a delaying tactic as if it were some bravely defiant stance. Maybe for him in his situation it is, but substantively, it isn’t. Frankly he and his situation aren’t all that important. He may have his reasons for being reluctant to say that stoning is barbaric and should be rejected entirely everywhere in the world – but I don’t care whether he has reasons or not – the important thing is that he didn’t say it. He’s not helpful. He’s certainly not any kind of liberal.
So I guess I’m not a “true” liberal, since I tend to see people’s sexual identity as being part of who they are and deserving the same respect. I guess it just sucks for me that we’re letting Islam define what counts as a “true” liberal now.
So now blindly accepting the dogmas of Islam (which literally means “submission”) is the only true way to be liberal.
In one important sense, this man is more dangerous than other fundamentalists – he masquerades as a liberal, and I’ll bet that there are plenty of people who believe him.
Where did the idea come from that this man is in any way remotely a liberal? There is not a liberal bone in his body. Everything you read he either states clearly, or, where there is a difference between Islam and secular liberalism – which is most ot the time – he dances a little jig. Jesus and Mo catch it perfectly. “So, stoning: for or against?” Mo: “Clearly.” If Ramadan represents the liberal face of Islam, then Islam in the West is an Arabian horse!
He seems to be suggesting that stoning would be okay if it were applied consistently throughout the world. How liberal.
It’s hinge question for him. If he says he is in favour of stoning people to death, he will be roundly condemned in the West – to the extent that the liberal West still exists and has some gumption. If he says he is not in favour of stoning he loses his Muslim constinuency both West and East. So he can only mumble when it comes to this question. Such men are dangerous – and he does have a lean and hungry look.
How come he can ask three questions about stoning but not about homosexuals?
It’s very odd that a guy like Ramadan is able to don the garb of a liberal. Then again, in Australia, we have a political party called the Liberal party which is pretty conservative. Perhaps Ramadan is following that lead.
He could be a true political (Rawlsian type) liberal if he thought that homosexuality was a sin against God but that it should not be punished by law. I.e. he could have his belief about what is or is not sin, but as an essentially private matter. His position is not clear at all, as he doesn’t say whether this is his political philosophy or not. If it is, he should be stating it loud and clear. The stuff about stoning suggests that it’s not his view, since he seems to be quibbling rather than saying that non-violent sexual activities are none of the law’s business in any event.
Its sort of like Bill O’Reilly claiming he’s moderate and independent because Rush Limbaugh is so far to the right that the center has shifted
Like Russell I read his words as implicitly opposed to stoning, but they’re scarcely clear, and given the ease with which the religious can selectively interpret texts at the expense of humanity, for all I know he doesn’t regard stoning as barbaric if it’s done respectfully.
That’s not what I heard Russell say. I don’t think Ramadan is a liberal in any sense whatever. He clearly sees Islam as a solution to the West’s problems, and there is something decidedly insidious about his lack of clarity. That he was fired by Rotterdam City Council does not surprise me. What does surprise me is that he has a respected public voice anywhere in Europe.
Eric, sadly it doesn’t surprise me. We seem to be listing in a self-imposed sea of perceived colonial guilt. Worse we think that the cure is to agree with the so called colonised no matter what they say. After all, to disagree is to colonise again. N’est-pas?
I think Mo has nailed the shiftiness of Ramadan’s position very well…
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2009/09/24/texts/
Actually, if “respect who you are” means “support your right to legal equality,” then he is a political liberal on that issue. He morally disapproves of homosexuality, but doesn’t want to impose it forcibly on others.
His moral beliefs on this issue are crap, of course. But if “liberal” broadly means allowing people to do what you personally disagree with (which is a huge part of the political philosophy, no?), then he is one on the homosexuality issue.
Not on the stoning/lashing/executing issue, though! Isn’t this the guy who asked for a moratorium on killing apostates? I.e., not “don’t do it,” just “don’t do it for now“?
“But if “liberal” broadly means allowing people to do what you personally disagree with (which is a huge part of the political philosophy, no?)”
Well I don’t know. This is an area of the political philosophy I always have trouble with. I don’t “get” Rawlsian political liberalism – I’m too much of a comprehensive liberal, it seems. Because it all depends on how “what you personally disagree with” cashes out. Are we talking about mere differences in taste? Or are we talking about something more?
Even if one cashes out “what you personally disagree with” as, say, distaste for homosexuality – that might still be a problem (and really is quite likely to be a problem) in the real world. I’m not a bit sure that gut-level distaste for homosexuality is something it’s safe to shrug off as personal. So I don’t “get” Rawlsian liberalism unless the personal stuff is so trivial that it just really can’t make any difference to anything.
There’s a certain kind of Islamist who makes the argument that it’s okay for stoning to be prescribed exactly because the burden of proof that has to be met is so high. It reminds me of how Americans in favor of the death penalty point at the incredibly long appeals process and protracted court cases and standards of evidence that need to be met before we execute a person.
Of course, innocent people get executed in American prisons, which is why the entire system needs to be rejected for the cruel and barbaric farce that it is. So it is with Tariq Ramadan’s fantasy Islamism.
If you call Ramadan a liberal, I suppose you could call the Vatican liberal because they don’t mind if you’re gay, just so long as you never have sex. Really enlightened lot they are.
He also benefits, in my opinion, not from some post-colonial guilt but from the very real bigotry of low-expectations. It’s like most people in the “west” expect Muslims to call for stoning and other barbarities, and when Ramadan does his little dance he seems positively liberal when he’s really not. It’s disgusting and lets charlatans like this get away with way too much.
Tariq Ramadan can be liberal, conservative, a radical leftist, a fascist, or anything he likes. Nothing matters any more. Civilisation is coming to an end.
Forget AIDS, global warming, nuclear weapons, Afghanistan, the global financial crisis and the battle of ideas. It’s all last week’s porridge.
The Islamic world may have not produced much in the peer-reviewed literature of science, nor too many Nobel prizewinners, but it has come up with a staggering invention; that in one hit combines tragedy, (and I mean real tragedy) with farce, low comedy, whodunnit drama, politics, economics, war and just about anything else you can think of.
I refer of course to The Suppository Bomb. The world will never be the same again.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8276016.stm
PS: OB, I have tried to make this as on-thread as I can.