Tariq Ramadan is the world's most famous "moderate Muslim." He was slated to take a professorial job at the University of Notre Dame this year, until his visa was revoked by DHS. DHS hasn't explained why, and his case has become a cause celebre for the anti-anti-terror Left, but here is a French-language story (from the Swiss Le Temps, via proche-orient.info, with thanks to Phil), that gives a hint as to why Ramadan may have been kept out of the U.S. Here is Phil's translation of the salient part:
According to the bill of indictment, Djamel Beghal, the preacher accused to have prepared a suicide mission against the American embassy in Paris, was preparing Tariq Ramadan's speeches.
Sweet.
If terrorists can write speeches that western intelligentsia mistakes for "voices of sweet moderation", then I ask, why do we need such pompous intelligentsia at all?
TRANSLATED TEXT!!
According to the accusation act, Djamel Beghal, accused preacher to have prepared an operation commits suicide against the American embassy of Paris, prepared the speeches of Tariq Ramadan « A fear haunts europe. Since the attempts of Madrid and the murder of the Dutch director Théo van Gogh, politicians and intellectuals evoke the presence on the Old Continent of « parallel corporations » based on an extremist islam, sometimes violate », explains Sylvain Besson in « The Time ».
« January 3 next one will open to Paris a process that will allow to understand the functioning of an of these « parallel corporations ». On the bench of the accused: a computer scientist, an attending social, a driver of for, a cleaning lady, some unemployed... In all six persons, Arabic or French converted to the islam, that would have prepared an attempt against the American interests to Paris. The accusation act of 219 orderlies, that « The Time » obtained itself, informs astonishing for them diverts.
In July 2001, the authorities of Dubaï, in the golfe Persian, stop a certain Djamel Beghal. For a few years, this traveling preacher put his beautiful pace to the service of a radical islam that advocates the violence against the unfaithful ones and a return to the life method of the first Moslems. It says to have become practicing in 1994, to the contact of a brotherhood of Corbeil, it group « Dawaa and Tabligh », considered as fondamentaliste but apolitical. To this era, according to the accusation act, « it loaded himself notably to prepare the speeches of Tariq Ramadan ». The intellectual genevois, that did not never admit to have met or to remember Djamel Beghal, did not reply to the messages left by « The Time » to his residence.
The interviewers think that Djamel Beghal, Nizar Trabelsi and Kamel Daoudi received the direct encouragement of oussama ben Laden to take an operation commits suicide against the American embassy of Paris. But, according to the declarations of their friends, their first goal was to live in a really Islamic corporation
JUST FOR THOSE WHO DON'T READ FRENCH??
Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE USA AN HER FIGHTING FORCES AND ALL WHO FIGHT WITH HER GIVE THEM STRENGTH,WISDOM,SIGHT AND COURAGE TO STAY THE COURSE TO DESTROY ALL ISLAMIC TERRORIST AND ALL WHO SUPPORT THEM AMEN
ROUGH TRANSLATION OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE:
derniere the hour
December 21st, 2004 / 11 h 55
[HEADLINE]
According to the bill of indictment, Djamel Beghal, preacher accused of having prepared an operation commits suicide against the American embassy of Paris, prepared speeches of ***Tariq Ramadan***
By Time (Switzerland)
« A fright haunts Europe. Since the murder attempts of Madrid and the murder of the Dutch film director Théo van Gogh, politicians and intellectuals recall presence on the Old Continent « of parallel societies » founded on an extremist Islam, sometimes violent », explains Sylvain Besson in " The Time ".
« January 3rd of this year is going to open in Paris an action which will allow to understand the functioning of one of these " parallel societies».
On the dock: a computer scientist, a social helper, a coach driver, a cleaning woman, some unemployed persons... In all six persons, Arabs or Frenchmen converted to Islam, who would have prepared a murder attempt against American interests in Paris. The bill of indictment of 219 pages, that " The Time " obtained, researches their amazing centreboard.
In July, 2001, the authorities of Dubaï, in the Persian gulf, stop a certain Djamel Beghal. For some years, this travelling preacher put his nice paces in the service of a radical Islam which advocates violence against faithless and a comeback to the way of life of first Muslims. He began in 1994, in the contact of a brotherhood of Corbeil, the group " Dawaa et Tabligh ", considered as fundamentalist but apolitical.
In this epoch, according to the bill of indictment, « it notably made responsible for preparing speeches of Tariq Ramadan ». The intellectual genevois, who has never allowed to have met or to remember Djamel Beghal, did not answer messages left by " The Time " in its domicile.
The interviewers thinks that Djamel Beghal, Nizar Trabelsi and Kamel Daoudi accepted the direct boost of Ussama ben Laden to lead an operation commit suicide against the American embassy of Paris. But, according to declarations of their friends, their first target was to live in a society indeed Islamic ».
It seems that Tariq Ramadan has connectections to some very unsavory characters indeed.
Thank you Catherine and Andrew for the translations which drive home why we should not have allowed him entry into the United States.
It's too bad that other less notable, but perhaps just as lethal, Muslim "scholars" and clerics have not received the same scrutiny. The United States and Canada would have been better for it.
Several things have happened to Tariq Ramadan that have made him extremely eager to move to the United States. Essentially, in Europe, for him, the jig is up. Too many people have been studying his connections, his speeches, the contents of his books, described by NPR as "scholarship" but, in reality, he is no Muslim scholar (Bassam Tibi is a Muslim scholar), but a full-time propagandist for Da'wa.
These include:
1) the appearance of Ramadan on a television show with Nicolas Sarkozy, who demolished every one of Ramadan's well-worn attempts to practice taqiyya/kitman, to turn aside any discussion of his support for "my grandfather" Hassan al-Banna (who used to whip up Cairene crowds which crowds would then express their enthusiasm, as they did on November 2, 1945, by attacking Coptic and Jewish shops, and murdering Copts and Jews -- something about his father that Ramadan has never condemned or mentioned, just as he has never uttered a syllable against the persecution of the Copts in Egypt, nor of the persecution of any non-Muslims anywhere in the Muslim world.
Sarkozy's steely performance destroyed Ramadan, who has never before had to face any real interviewer -- the same way, on NPR the other day, he had only the gush and mush of Jack ("McCarran Act! McCarran Act!) Beatty, the sympathetic Gail Harris, worrying about what this "great Islamic scholar" would do now, and what is family would do, since he had been denied admittance to the United States, and Jay Tolson, apparently a recent recruit to the ranks of Ramadan groupies, who would not tolerate anyone invoking such words as "taqiyya" and "kitman," and who stood, stoutly and ignorantly, by his man -- and his main man is Ramadan.
2) the careful study of Caroline Fourest, "Frere Tariq," which is the main book on offer even in provincial towns in Brittany, according to an informant, and which sets out all sorts of Ramadan's prevarications, omissions, and outright lies -- one by one by one. It is a book from which, like the encounter with Sarkozy, Ramadan will not recover, and has no reply. He will simply hope the book is not translated into English, and that the clear-headed at Notre Dame -- that leaves out Scott Appleby, who "knows" all about Tariq Ramadan, and does not wish to be confused with fact after fact after dismal fact -- in particular, never read it. Ditto with Esposito at Georgetown, who doesn't want to have James V. Schall (terrifying thought: Esposito has to mix it up with James V. Schall before the Georgetown University trustees, who may be getting calls to sever their now most-embarrassing institutional connection with the Arab-financed Center of Muslim Apologetics that provides Esposito with his handsome returns of the day).
3) the emission by the Franco-Arab journalist Mohamed Sarfaoui (whom google), which the Union of Muslim Associations tried to prevent from being broadcast on France-2 on December 2 (the broadcast went on anyway), by threatening Sarfaoui himself. They were not subtle: they said that such a broadcast against "Frere Tariq" would be tantamount to apostasy -- and while we are not saying more, you know what can happen to apostates.
The broadcast needs to be seen in this country, as well, with subtitles, so that the Notre Dame administration, trustees, and interested faculty can read the book ("Frere Tariq") and see the movie, or movielet, about this sinister figure.
4) the connections with assorted terrorists -- a meeting with Al-Zawahiri, and similar sinister socializing that have been documented by Daniel Pipes -- whom Ramadan kept referring to on NPR, as if the only thing he had to worry about was the charge that he had met with known terrorists, and not his whole propaganda operation -- which, for obvious reasons, the French and American governments cannot go into in any detail (nor explain how they know what they know, in orer to satisfy Mesa Nostra or the Scott Applebys of this world) -- also have not gone away, nor been forgotten.
5) Ramadan has a few select rhetorical tricks, but behind those tricks is this reality:
He wants to see the islamization of Europe. He thinks that Europeans suffer from a "spiritual emptiness" and that they are ripe for wonderful Islam. He has said that "the West is in decline, and the Arab-Islamic world is on the road to renewal" -- yet that "renewal" he believes will take place when Islam conqueres, through his kind of Da'wa, far more cunning, with far more roses than guns, than the Da'wa of Qaradawi, or of Sheikh Tantawi -- and of course than the threats of Bin Laden, Zarqawi, et al.
But the goal of Ramadan is the goal of Bin Laden and indeed of all Believers: the victory of dar al-Islam over dar al-Harb, the removal of all obstacles in the dar al-Harb to the spread of Islam, and the subjugation of all non-Muslims who will be placed, as they have always been subjugated over 1350 years of Muslim conquest (with not a single exception anywhere) and, as dhimmis (where not killed or converted outright), subject to a permanent status of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity.
Keep that in mind. But until you have read -- as Beatty and Gail Harris clearly had not -- at least a few of Ramadan's books (worthless in any literary or historicla sense, but instructive as lines of propoaganda), even if you have to brush up your parley-voo, and Fourest's "Frere Tariq," and seen Sarkozy's debate, and Sarfaoui's program, you simply cannot defend Ramadan, out of ignorance, out of some dreamy interfaith idea (the Scott Appleby approach to life, where all religions "want the same thing" and they are "all the same" and everything is the same of a sameness).
Ramadan is kaput as a propagandist among the Infidels. No one takes him seriously. His job in Geneva had come to an end. He was desperate to find innocent Infidels elsewhere -- and to start over where they would not, he felt, know him as well as the French and Swiss had come to know him.
But guess what? Some of us know French, and can read, and can even watch French television. You should have thought of that, before angling for the Joan Kroc Center. And Scott Appleby -- you should have asked yourself whether or not a good many other people might not take lying-down your feelgood approach to matters that, in the end, involve our own security, and the survival of a relatively tolerant, bemused, curious, and interesting civilization, which Tariq Ramadan's belief-system undercuts and threatens at every turn. One hopes, but does not expect, that you will learn some lesson.
And why not offer instituional care and feeding, at this point, to some refugee Copt or Maronite scholars, who can from their perch at Notre Dame inform the American public about how non-Muslims are treated? Habib Malik? Walid Phares? Or perhaps offer a platform for those who were born into Islam, but are viewed as "defectors" from it and in danger of their lives? How about inviting Azam Kamguian to teach about Islam and Women? Reza Afshari, to set up a Center on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Shari'a? What about Ali Sina? Ibn Warraq?
Cat got your tongue?
Wonderful post, Hugh!
Never knew that snake Ramadan had been so throughly excreted upon in Europe.
Can we have a transcript of the sarkozy interview, pls? Is it online anywhere, maybe on theat tv channel's website? Am sure the translation software won't do too bad a job for those of us who're ignorant of the french tongue.
Tks again.
Mr. Fitzgerald:
Thank you for your insightful comments! Any chance a publishing house will decide to print a translation of "Brother Tariq"?
As you know, Tariq Ramadan won't be coming to Notre Dame. Sadly, he will not be teaching because of any action by the University, but rather because he realized that the "jig was up" and resigned his post. Although the end result is great - one less Islamist in the USA - it seems like a hollow victory. It would have been far more gratifying had the University decided to terminate his employment.
http://FireTariqRamadan.blogs.com
I've read Caroline Fourest's work. Let,s all hope that it is soon translated into English so that the anglosphere can have a good look at "moderate Islam". It's just moronic! think of it; someone actually has to write a book to expose this. Imagine, for an instant, that we were so morally confused that scholars would actually have to wirte a tome exposing so-called 'moderate nazism'.
Well, he was probably just preparing speeches for Mr. Ramadan about the inner struggle and social justice type of jihad. Because Islam is the Religion of Peace™.
Great Jumping Jellyfish, why would a SCHOLAR need someone to write his speeches! This is like finding out that a Best Seller Autobiography was actually written by a GHOSTWRITER...Shame on you Tariq, you can't even write your own speeches.
Can't say I'm not enjoying the expose of arrogant
Mr Ramadan who thought all Western Dhimmis would dance to his tune...hey strict Moslem aren't allowed music and dancing... Can't wait to read translation of 'Brother Tariq.'
CHECK THIS OUT:
When officers in Army Col. H.R. McMaster’s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment deploy to Iraq early next year, their preparation for countering the insurgency will have included not only a list of arduous military readiness exercises, but also a litany of books on warfighting and Middle Eastern history.
http://defense.iwpnewsstand.com/insider_books.asp
Not a SINGLE book on militant Islam - you've GOT to be kidding me!!!!
There is something very wrong with the kind of books that are assigned to officers, and the kind of information available to the men. Some of the "papers" prepared by intelligence officers NEVER mention Islam, and instead, dwell on all sorts of other factors -- attempting, in fact, to make understandable, and acceptable, the meretriciousness, the disloyalty, the hostility of Iraqis to, for example, the Marines, by explaining with all sorts of psychological folderol that which can be explained more easily by discussions of Islam.
Is there no sense of the nation-state, but rather emphasis on loyalty to one's self, then one's immediate family, then the extended family, and then the tribe? Could that be because there is no real conception of loyalty to the state, but rather to the umma al-islamiyya? Is there a "wake-me-when-it's-over" attitude toward the whole "reconstruction" enterprise, where the Infidels are supposed to do all the work, and there has been much whining and complaining because the Americans have not, and of course could not, create "an instant America"? Is there an indifference to nation-buidling, with a handful of exeptions? Is there indifference to American casualties, at best, and at worst, a lot of dancing around and taking delight in American corpses? Where does that come from if not from the hostility toward Infidels that Islam teaches?
But the army is having none of it. And the morale problems it has now, and will have in the future, will come not only because the Humvees lack armor, but because the soldiers, and the more intelligent and skeptical and questioning they are (in other words, the better they are), the more they will see the disconnect between how the Iraqis are described in P.R. handouts in Washington, and how they really are -- and why the invasion was justified, and necessary, and why the post-invasion attempt to create a "Light Unto the Muslim Nations" is a misallocation of resources, of men, materiel, money, interest -- and now morale.
That cannot go on. We must get out of Iraq, and preserve those men, save that money and material, and keep morale high, and attention focussed, for the much longer, much wider war (without real end) against the Jihad. And it should start by helping raise awareness of the tenets of Islam, and of Muslim history.
Who put that damn list together? Some cheerful Muslim serviceman who has been entrusted with tasks beyond his knowledge, and beyond his ability to recognize -- for it would embarrass and worry and confuse him -- what Islam is really all about, such as the recent author of supposed study that repeats all sorts of untruths about basic Muslim doctrine, one Lt. Commander Aboul-Enein
HUGH
jUST BECAUSE A BOOK IS NOT ON THE LIST DOES NOT MEAN THAT OTHERS ARE NOT BEING READ!!!
Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and ALL who Fight with her Amen
PS
FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND SHORT SKIRTS BEER AND WINE!!
Keeping a lid on the reasons for Dr. Ramazan's visa refusal does not indicate stonewalling by the US government, mere malice, or bad faith. Chances are there is information that could be highly embarrassing to Ramadan; and thus it will be kept under wraps unless it is deemed relevant to some legal proceeding.