Fitzgerald: Keep Tariq Ramadan out

Tariq Ramadan has once again been disallowed entry into the United States.

Who will translate into English "Frere Tariq" by Catherine Fourest, which tells you all you need to know? Now that Ramadan has been exposed in France, both through his televised debates and through articles and books by no-nonsense people who set out his sinister taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, he had to get out of the French-speaking arena. His contract was not renewed at the University of Geneva. It was time to head to the English-speaking-world, where Fourest and others were not read, and he could start anew.

Some American TV channel would do well to obtain footage of Tariq Ramadan's two televised debates, one with Nicolas Sarkozy, and the other with Alain Finkielkraut. It would be well worth dubbing and showing both, and showing them again. Sarkozy dismembered him; Finkielkraut made mincemeat of what remained. A sight to see. It does not take much; he is such an obvious, even if soft-spoken and sly practitioner of taqiyya (he told a radio questioner once who dared to mention "taqiyya" -- Ramadan was startled at hearing the word, but knew he could not deny the practice outright -- that "taqiyya" is limited to Shi'a; we were given to understand that, therefore, Sunnis never ever lie about Islam, they just don't have it in them, and Ramadan is Sunni, so no need to worry). He is also a master of tu-quoque, omission, and stony silence. One has to be as willing to be fooled, as are the Scott Applebys (of the Kroc Center, would-be eager benefactor of Tariq Ramadan) of this world, to fall for a Tariq-Ramadan. That doesn't mean that various NPR talk-show hosts and others won't do so, for foolishness is in fashion. But it takes some doing.

Now we read in the papers that "Tariq Ramadan is teaching at Oxford." Sounds good to American ears. But Ramadan has been given a temporary post at a graduate college, St. Antony's, Oxford (Middle Eastern wing) -- not to be confused with St. Antony's College, Oxford (Russian and East European wing). In its Middle Eastern wing, St. Antony's has been a center for Arab propagandists. It was founded with money provided by the estate of Antoine or Anton Besse, a Jewish trader in the Yemen, who would not have been pleased with how his money has been spent. Within a year of its founding, the Middle Eastern part of St. Antony's became the sole fiefdom of Albert Hourani, and remained so for several decades. It is where Rashid Khalidi received his D.Phil. (no courses required), writing up stuff on the "Palestnian people" not noticeably dissimilar from what he had been producing as a PLO propagandist in Beirut as a thesis.

It is also where the Arab world's favorite Israeli, Avi Shlaim, now tries to ignore Islam, and it is the place that offered Tariq Ramadan a place from which, temporarily, to conduct his "work" in England -- that is, his campaigns of Da'wa and dissimulation, of teaching British Muslims to cool it, temporarily, and of talking incessantly about how "we are here to stay" and "we are creating European Islam." This nonsense about the creation of a "European Islam" is presented with all sorts of soft-voiced earnestness, but the actual distinguishing contents of that "European Islam" are carefully left undescribed. Certainly whatever might distinguish it from ordinary, Middle Eastern Islam, and how the Qur'an and Hadith and Sira would differ for adherents of this promised "European Islam," is never quite gotten to, in the many presentations by Tariq Ramadan.

Despite ending up in England, Ramadan has kept his eye firmly on the prize: the United States. It is there that he wishes to conduct his campaign, among those whom he must sense are sufficiently stupid to give him free rein. Why would he think otherwise? He does not sense any Sarkozys or Finkielkrauts or Fourests lying in wait. His contact with Americans has been with the likes of Scott Appleby, head of the Kroc Center. Joan Kroc, widow of the man who proudly claimed Six Billion Served, wanted to do good like so many of the very rich. Being unable, also like so many of the very rich, to choose wisely, she decided in her lavish will to help promote "world peace" -- which these days means that money will always somehow end up being handed out by the scott-applebys to the tariq-ramadans of this dialoguing-to-death, getting-to-yes, all-gods-chillun-want-exactly-the-same-thing-if-only-we-understood-one-another world.

Tariq Ramadan is a worthy grandson of that grandsire who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, Hassan al-Banna, the demagogue who used to whip up Cairene crowds so that, in fits of post-speech enthusiasm, they would then go out and attack Copts and Jews. He refuses to distance himself from his great relative: "he was my grandfather," he says, his voice full of filial piety. Would that answer satisfy you if instead of Tariq Ramadan, the person being interviewed was, say, the grandson of Martin Bormann?

For the take of an Egyptian Muslim who now lives in Italy, and who has become largely a truth-teller about Islam, the celebrated Magdi Allam, see his book "Vincere la paura." In it, he includes a "Lettera aperta a Tariq Ramadan" -- an Open Letter to Tariq Ramadan, in which he says, as one Egyptian Muslim to another, as someone intimately familiar with the Muslim Brotherhood founded by Ramadan's grandfather and with its network of agents throughout Europe (some of whom are quite close to Tariq Ramadan), he can write with authority: "I know you, Tariq Ramadan. I know all about you. You do not fool me." (This is not verbatim, but my recalled summary, distilling the essence of Magdi Allam's comment).

Why he should be taken seriously, or treated with respect, at this point, this sly creature who wears on his sleeve his slyness, is beyond me.

Translate that Fourest book and that Allam essay. Dub and broadcast those French television debates. Find out about Tariq Ramadan, that apparent master (for those who are ready to be led by the nose) of soft-spoken Taqiyya.

No one is forcing American Infidels to play the gull, the fool, the sap made fun of throughout history, now buying a bottle of political patent-medicine, now sending money to a Nigerian who apparently needs it in order to obtain the proceeds from his late father's bank account, which proceeds will of course be shared with the kind American who sends a nominal sum -- oh, $25,000 will do nicely for now.

That's the kind of idiocy one can live with. But the idiocy of those who refuse to study Tariq Ramadan, who refuse to understand his roots, his friends, his supporters, his aims, his insidiousness -- well, unlike the man who sends his life savings to a post office box in Nigeria, the folly in this case affects the rest of us, damages us, makes us all less secure.

And that we should not tolerate.

Keep him out. As Magdi Allam would insist: Non mollare. Do not relent.

Posted by Hugh at September 27, 2006 5:25 AM
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