Daniel Pipes (thanks to Andy for the link) uncovers some disquieting information about the renowned "moderate Muslim" Tariq Ramadan:
The Italian magazine Panorama interviewed Ramadan and posted the result on Sept. 13. Dissatisfied, Ramadan wrote the magazine, alleging that it misquoted him. Unfortunately for Ramadan, the interview with him was taped, so Panorama replied by publishing the following update by Silvia Grilli in its Sept. 23 issue (not yet online), titled "The art of ‘explaining' the killing of Jews":L'arte di ‘spiegare' l'omicidio degli ebrei
After the publication of the last issue with his interview, Ramadan sent this letter: "Panorama attributes me unacceptable sentences that I never pronounced and that would lead people to believe that ‘it is comprehensible to kill children.' Nothing can justify the killing of children and the innocent and these acts are in contradiction with the principles of Islam. My condemnation is clear."
The interview with Ramadan was recorded. Here is the full transcript of his answer to the question of whether it is right to kill children and Israeli civilians because they are considered soldiers.
I don't believe that an eight year old child is a soldier. These acts are condemnable; therefore one has to condemn them in themselves. But I say to the international community that they are contextually explicable, and not justifiable. What does this mean? It means that the international community today has placed the Palestinians in a situation where they are delivered political oppression, which explains (not justifying it) that at a certain point people say: we don't have arms, we don't have anything, and so we cannot do anything other than this. It is contextually explicable but morally condemnable.
Saying that killing Israeli children is "contextually explicable" is tantamount to a "clear condemnation"? Justifying that there is no choice but to kill is a "clear condemnation" of the culture of death? Is it a "clear" position to say that an Israeli eight year old child is not a soldier, but his parents who ride the bus and get blown-up are soldiers? Who then are the "innocent" in Ramadan's eyes? Why did he not reply to this question, as did Magdi Allam [a prominent Italian journalist of Egyptian Muslim origins], that "human life is sacred"?
Comment: It's case closed on the matter of both Ramadan's being moderate or truthful. He is neither one nor the other. (September 23, 2004)
Ramadan says it, but does he mean whatever he says? Even if he gives a clear and somehow justifiable explanation (which he never can)of the killings, will he ever mean it? Mozzies nod when everyone condemns acts of terrorism, do they mean it in their hearts? they can't, and thats why they are 'mozzies'
igotit.
Tariq Ramadan is a master of the art of taqiyya, or dissimulation (deception) of one’s religious beliefs to non-Muslims. In an article on the op/ed page of the September 27, 2004 Wall Street Journal, Fouad Ajami wittily noted, "The man [Tariq Ramadan] condemning McDonald's was coming to an academic institute funded by an endowment granted by McDonald's heiress, Joan B. Kroc," namely, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
See my post "George Mason University hosts Islamic Conference, September 24-25, 2004," http://northernvirginiastan.blogspot.com/2004/09/george-mason-university-hosts-islamic.html, where Tariq Ramadan was supposed to have been a featured speaker.
Not surprising that he would deny his words as he is a master of taqiyya and kitman as are many Muslims. It is wise to distrust what they say and to challenge their motives.
Well, I think we have to be careful. He is basically saying that in a specific context, i.e., "under certain circumstances," it can be explained why children are killed.
Although not saying that it's acceptable, you are correct; he is not "clearly condemning" the murder of children. But at least he isn't saying that it's okay, which is a hell of a lot more than most professional Islam-Apologists will do.
Perhaps Professor Ramadan should check out
www.rotter.net/israel
So Magdi Allam says that "human life is sacred". That seems clear to us. But a jihadi could say it too, and the next time he appeared before a bunch of Jihadis he would merely claim that "only Muslims are truly human" of "Infidels aren't human" or "Jewish Settlers aren't human", etc.
Furthermore, a Jihadi could claim all kinds of sh*t in English, while the cameras are rolling, and then tell an entirely different story for his comrades-in-arms, and explain that all the stuff he said before was a "hudna" of "taqiyya" that will ultimately benefit the cause. This is Yasser Arafat's (R-Ramallah) modus operandi.
It's all a word game for these (and all other) fools that know what's best for the rest of us.... only in Islam is it raised to an art form and praised as "Taqiyya"
Like the "MONTH-LONG FAST!!!!! MONTH-LONG FAST!!!!" of Ramadan... give me a f*cking break. The sextoys (Muslim women and girls) are up at four a.m., if not all night, making a huuuuge breakfast feast for the "real" Muslims (males.) They gorge themselves like the swine they dispise, start to get hungry again in the early afternoon, start cooking again at 3 or 4, and then have a huuuuuge "itfar" feast, and can eat as much as they want, all night if they please.
But when you see them on the street or see them in the news (like the PLO spokesperson she-thing just after 9-11... her name escapes me, probably "Aliyah" or "Ayisha") they say some cra-zeeee shit like "God willing, I will be able to complete the month-long fast...." with the starving, downcast expression and pitiful inflection. What a joke. I do that for months at a time, wake up and run out of the house without breakfast, work through lunch, and finally sit down to dinner at about 6 or 7.... big damn deal. I do it without even eating breakfast, and I do it without even trying.
It's called "having a job." The jihadis should look into it.
Those "professors" who are exercised by the refusal of a visa to Tariq Ramadan are striking attitudes. The fog, or miasma rather, of self-congratulation, the self-satisfaction, must be very thick. We are upholders of the First Amendment, they think to themselves, not realizing that the First Amendment has never been held to offer an absolute right of Free Speech. Who wrote the Alien and Sedition Acts? What Supreme Court justices upheld as constitutional the punishing of a handful of anarchists or socialists for doing nothing more than advocating opposition to some aspects of the economic system?
Even now, the idea that an alien, long a propagandist for a belief-system (let us skip this word "religion" for something that so much terribly more than just a matter of private worship) that does not wish the American people to continue to be ruled by that Constitution, but rather by the Shari'a, whose goal for the United States, as for the world, is identical to that of Osama Bin Laden, or for that matter the Ayatollah Khomeini, or Yusuf al-Qaradawi, or Qutb or Mawdudi -- the complete triumph of Islam. Ramadan likes to live in the West, and likes to think that the West, the decadant and lost West, is ripe for Islam -- the West is "Islam's future" is a standard theme. He counsels his Muslim followers not to be too openly aggressive, carefully -- very carefully --couching his advice to show that of course he shares their motives, their views, but it is possible to achieve these things without open acts of terror. He is very careful in how he deals with such questions as death by stoning, or suicide bombing -- not condemning, but not condoning, simply offering to "understand" -- "contextually" understand. But comprendre, c'est tout pardonner in Ramadan's book. No wonder even the likes of Bernard-Henri Levy, who keeps ignoring the real tenets of Islam, and instead focuses on this or that aspect -- today for him it happens to be Pakistan -- has realized, at the very least, that Ramadan is a sinister antisemite, quick to accuse others and to imply that support of Israel, against its vilifiers (and Europe is full of them), must perforce not be listened to.
The charge is made, with far more accuracy, at Ramadan and all those who see the world as divided between dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, and who insist that the former must, should, by right has to, swallow up the latter -- oh, because Islam is the only true belief-system, and it would be better for everyone the sooner that were understood, and accepted. And the way to do it best, at this point, Ramadan argues, is through words and by "example" --leading a "good" Muslim life. But surely a "good" Muslim life has always meant participating, in any way possible, in the Jihad to spread Islam -- so it is hard for Infidels to find anything soothing, if they comprehend what he is saying, in his message. The Jihad remains, as it must.
The "pluralism project" lady, the ex-insurance agent who goes back to school and obtains tenure through a fluke (a particular Ivy League school's history department was persuaded it realy needed another woman to receive tenure at that particular point), the PLO propagandist who has a bought-and-paid-for-by-Arab-interests chair at a university that has allowed, in the same halls where once Joseph Schacht and Arthur Jeffery walked, and the tutelary spirit of Jacques Barzun has not yet been chased out, the complete takeover by a"post-colonial hegemonic discourse" brigade from whom one will learn nothing, absolutely nothing, about the central tenets of Islam -- which, after all, is the biggest subject in Middle Eastern studies today, and the one most ignored, what with the "construction of the Palestinian identity," and the "de-construction" of the Israeli one. Hell, who has time to study Islam, except perhaps those wonderful "lyrical" suras in Michael Sell's Approaching the Qur'an, and those lovely little guides to it all from John Esposito and Carl Ernst and toute la galere de la dhimmitude. Row, you galley-slaves of Islam, row!
Does anybody remember what Steve Martin, a philosophy major in college, had to say about the study of philosophy in his old comedy shows?
Probably not, but I must use some condemnable language, which does not imply the necessity to condemn. "That is condemnable. But, I have more important things to do at the moment..."
Well, one would have to say that Tariq Ramadan has learned just enough philosophy to fuck us up for the rest of our lives...
Something tells me that dear old Tariq would never think the the US dropping bombs on the Taliban and Saddam Hussein as a response to 9-11 is "culturally explicable."
As always - double standards, thy name is Islam.
Dear forum regulars:
I know this is the fourth time I posted this, but I want to further expose the truth about this slick Qtubist to anyone new to this forum. Futhermore, alot of incredibly naive liberals (including my sister) think this creep is a "Muslim Martin Luther." Last week I sent emails to 25 newspapers (who had printed the story about the academic world 'up in arms' about Ramadan's visa revocation). Not one has written me back, so the word isn't getting out where it is really needed.
Dear Newbies:
These are Ramadan's own words. I have translated this from an interview of him a few days following 9/11. If you understand French, you can verify my translation using the link:
"No Arab or Islamic cause could profit from these (9/11) events, on the contrary: The Arabs and Muslims will suffer. With regards to those identified as the perpetrators, they drink, they go to clubs, they don't practice (Islam). Strange religious extremists. I ask myself whether or not Bin Laden is no more than useful terrorist like Saddam Hussein. A diabolical symbol one could use for alternate global strategies, both economic, and political." (Ben Laden, coupable idéal?" La Gruyere, 9/22/01, http://www.lagruyere.ch/archives/2001/01.09.25/article4.htm)
Who is this "Muslim Martin Luther" implicating for the 9/11 attacks?
WHY ISN'T ANYONE CONFRONTING HIM WITH THIS QUESTION?
kj
I read somewhere ages ago, can't remember where, that there is more food bought in the month of ramadan in muslim countries than during the other eleven months of the year. That's some fast!
Who is this "Muslim Martin Luther" implicating for the 9/11 attacks?
The Jews, of course! Every time a Muslim murders anyone, any where, it is because of the Jews in general and the "settlers" in "palestine" in particular.
So when a muslim blows up and tourist disco in Bali, it's because of the unfair treatment of the "palestinians."
When a muslim destroys the World Trade Center, it's because Ariel Sharon took a walk at the Wailing Wall.
When a muslim blows up a train in Madrid, it's because Jews got 10% of the English possession called "The Palestinian Mandate."
When a muslim throws molotov cocktails into a train carrying Hindu pilgrims in India, it's because Golda Meir said "There's no such thing as a 'palestinian.'"
When a muslim throws a hand grenade into a crowded market in Kashmir, it's because the Jews won the 6-Day war and took the West Bank for Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
When Suharto killed 300,000 East Timorese in the '70's it was because a Jew somewhere did something bad.
When General Khan ordered the murder of 1,000,000 and rape of 300,000 in Bangladesh in 1971, it was because Israel accidently bombed the USS Liberty. (If you wanted to sink a ship, would you send one, single torpedo?)
When the white Arab Jihadis of Sudan massacre and rape innocent black Africans, it's because Israel didn't return the six-mile strip of Lebanon to Syria fast enough.
When Iran builds nukes, it's because Israel did.
When Chechyns shoot Russian children in the back, it's because a Jew somewhere is planning to do something bad.
See? It all makes perfect sense in Bizarro-Islam world.
BTW Martin Luther HATED Jews.