The old playbook again: when caught in wrongdoing, play the victim. My latest in FrontPage:
Ever the victim, no matter what. The West’s great hope for Islamic reform, Tariq Ramadan, has been accused by several women now of violent rapes. In a video he recently uploaded, he acknowledges some nebulous wrongdoing, but then claims that the accusations against him are all an attempt to discredit him, and thereby to “neutralize the Muslims.” It’s the same old victimhood paranoia we see from Islamic supremacists whenever they’re accused of any wrongdoing at all.
“We have to be clear,” Ramadan said, “that there is discrimination, stigmatization, racism that is at stake in the whole issue.” Of course! What else could multiple rape charges against him possibly be? He goes on: “And I was a symbol. To destroy me meant, let the people understand: If you want to be vocal you have to face the reality. It happened to Tariq Ramadan now, it could happen to anyone in the future.”
Anyone who is allegedly a violent rapist, sure. RFI reported Thursday that “the prominent Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan has been formally charged with raping two more women, adding to two existing charges of rape. The charges were pronounced on Thursday at the end of a court hearing in Paris….Supporters of Ramadan, who is a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford’s St. Anthony’s College, have called the accusations against him part of a ‘international Zionist plot’ to blacken his name.”
Ah yes, the Jews. Of course! It couldn’t be that a cosseted Muslim academic, hailed and feted all over Europe and the United States despite the abject vacuity and sinister disingenuousness of his thought, began to indulge his worst impulses, now, could it? He couldn’t have been tempted to do so when it became clear that, in light of his value to Western authorities as a “moderate Muslim” who seemed to prop up their fantasies about the jihad threat, he would be allowed to get away with virtually anything – could he?
“Virtually anything” is actually an understatement. The allegations against Ramadan are particularly revolting; if they are true, he is a monstrous sadist. One of his accusers said he subjected her to “blows to the face and body, forced sodomy, rape with an object and various humiliations, including being dragged by the hair to the bathtub and urinated on.”
His sadism, however, appears to be, if the allegations are true, closely intertwined with his celebrated Islamic piety: another one of his accusers said he told her he was raping her because she didn’t wear a hijab.
He would have gotten away with it all, being just too valuable for the Western political and media elites, if it hadn’t been for the #MeToo movement. The problems arose for Ramadan only in 2017, when that movement began to gather steam and his accusers started to come forward, at which point the great reformer’s statements in response were decidedly unsatisfactory. “His last hearing,” RFI notes, “dates back to 2018 when he stunned the public by admitting to ‘consensual’ sex with his accusers, months after denying he had had no sexual contact with them.”
Since then, Ramadan has claimed to be suffering from multiple sclerosis, and has been freed on bail. He claims he will not flee France to escape justice, but we shall see. He has to hand over his passport, but that is not an insurmountable obstacle. The accusations are extremely serious, and the case is being investigated in an atmosphere of Muslim Brotherhood thuggery (Ramadan is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna): one of his accusers has already been beaten and threatened.
Indeed, it wouldn’t be at all surprising, given his connections to all varieties of powerful people, if Ramadan were cleared of all the charges. If this happens, it would be in keeping with the duplicity that has characterized his entire career. French journalist Caroline Fourest’s illuminating book Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan concludes that this much-lionized putative “Muslim Martin Luther” is actually anything but a reformer: in reality, Ramadan is “remaining scrupulously faithful to the strategy mapped out by his grandfather, a strategy of advance stage by stage” toward the imposition of Islamic law in the West.
Ramadan, she explains, in his public lectures and writings invests words like “law” and “democracy” with subtle and carefully crafted new definitions, permitting him to engage in “an apparently inoffensive discourse while remaining faithful to an eminently Islamist message and without having to lie overtly — at least not in his eyes.” Ramadan, she said, “may have an influence on young Islamists and constitute a factor of incitement that could lead them to join the partisans of violence.”
Fourest was also the first to reveal, back in 2017, long before these new charges were levied, that Ramadan had at least four other victims besides the first woman who came forward, Henda Ayari. “A request for religious advice turned into a compulsive sexual relationship, sometimes consented to, often violent and very humiliating, before ending in threats.”
Fourest had evidence. “I presented it to a judge. But Tariq Ramadan scared him too much…. I am well-placed to know the violence of the networks of the Muslim Brotherhood when one stands up to ‘brother Tariq.’”
Those violent networks may yet prevail. “It was a plot,” Ramadan insists. “It was a political set up. And this could happen to anyone.” The worst part of this duplicitous whining is that there are hordes of deluded Leftists who will fall for it.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
I clicked on the link to “abject vacuity” above, and the Deep Thoughts of Tariq Ramadan have made my day.
Westman says
Yes. When I read the “Deep Thoughts” it came to mind that Reza Aslan may not be the only Muslim “academic” who has familiarity with the taste of brain matter. It didn’t even rise to the level of, “Wherever you go, there you are.”
Regardless of how the trial plays out, or, if Ramadan flees, he has brought dishonor upon Islam and may be in danger of an “honor rectification” wherever he ultimately resides.
Jule Bacal says
So he thinks stopping or punishing rape only neuters men of Islam?
Michael Copeland says
“Tell the infidels in public we respect your laws and your constitutions, which we Muslims believe that these are as worthless as the paper they are written on.”
Tariq Ramadan to a muslim audience.
https://gatesofvienna.net/2019/04/tariq-ramadan-respect/
Michael Copeland says
Ramadan explains Sharia in an interview with Erick Stakelbeck:
“You have another understanding of Sharia, and the understanding of Sharia is based on the human agency that is taking from the scriptural sources, the Koran and the prophetic tradition, to try to get the principles and the objectives, and say what our religion is all about, protecting the dignity of the human being, protecting their rights — men and women — and then if you have this understanding, and this is my position, this, look, Sharia is a way, it’s a path.”
You see now?
https://gatesofvienna.net/2019/04/tariq-ramadan-respect/
Steve Edelman says
Right!? And the Pope is a Muslim. . . wait, he might be!
mortimer says
Hot, steaming, farm-fresh piles of TAQIYYA.
mortimer says
The rape tortures of Tariq Ramadan are imitations of the rape tortures of Mohammed and his companions in the Sira and hadiths.
jca reid says
Typical Mozzie, playing the ‘victim card’. The female students at the universities in Spain, France & Switzerland have “all got it in for him. I’m forgetting the female students at Oxford, England. The Authorities there ‘bought’ the young women off! There is an interesting clip on youtube, where the Belgian Philosopher, Wim van ROOY, is speaking with a Dutch Philosopher, van CLITEURS. They were discussing the Muslim mess in their countries. van Rooy talked about a TV Debate he had with a Muslim. I’m sure it was Ramadan. The Muslim went first & the TV audience had buttons to press to show favour/disfavour. The Muslim spoke first. Of course the buttons were 100% in favour for him. Then van Rooy spoke. The needle on the screen went 100% for van Rooy.& stayed there & never budged! The usual question was trotted out, “Have you read the Koran.?” To which, van Rooy replied, “Yes. In German, Dutch, Flemish, French & Spanish.These are the only languages I’m fluent in.” The usual response was, ” Did you read it in Arabic?” Reply. “No” The Muslim responded, “If you’d read it in Arabic, you would’ve got a completely different meaning.” & with that he got up & walked not only off the set, studio, but out of the building & off down the street thinking he’d won the debate! Since then, van ROOY has become totally fluent & literate in Arabic. They simply cannot debate. They won’t listen to logic or simple reasoning. Time for them to go.
David says
Did van root understand a different meaning of the Koran, when he read it in Arabic. I doubt it very much. Just read a verse, translated by a dozen translaters, all next to each other. The difference is minimal. The meaning is clear.
andrew mckendrick says
” International Zionist plot” wonder if the International Zionists helped Harvey Weinstein get his sentence reduced to 25 years? Must be a worrying time for Tariq Ramadan when he sees this type of justice being dispensed for rape ,pity the British justice system could not take a leaf out of the American system, maybe 25 years in prison might deter muslim rape gangs in Britain, instead of the derisory 3-4 years most of them get.
keith says
Personally I believe rapists should be surgically castrated as well to prevent re offending and branded with an R on their forehead as well.
David says
That sounds a bit harsh! I agree with you. They should also be imprisoned for life.
elee says
Convict imprison and quarantine.
Stieve says
France will most likely free him. Maybe even give him medals of honor, freedom, etc.
If they don’t, the French authorities know what will happen.
Basically, the choice is, let a rapist go free, and the victims fend for themselves (easy, nobody important gets hurt), or punish a rapist, and watch France burn.
ntesdorf says
If ever anything needed ‘neutralising’ it was and is Muslims. Playing the victims is standard Taqiyyah.
gravenimage says
‘Muslim Martin Luther’ Tariq Ramadan Says His Rape Charges Are ‘Political Set-Up to Neutralize the Muslims’
…………………
Of course, this is claptrap.
But how many Infidels would be tempted by the chance at raping large numbers of women, in any case? Doesn’t Tariq Ramadan realize how damning this claim is?
Firefox says
The enemy is inside the gates. The next Crusades will be on free lands. There is absolutely nothing good about Islam.