Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan by Caroline Fourest

declaring for the benefit of the press. As if the
Brotherhood was a party that issued membership cards. As if the lack of a
formal tie vindicated the rehabilitation of his grandfather and the teaching
of the latter's thought to European Muslims-without any attempt to adopt
a critical perspective. "It's time to put a stop to these fantasies," he declared
to the Nouvel Observateur. "I am independent; there are differences of opinion between me and the Brotherhood in regard to matters of doctrine, even
if one of my uncles, Al-Islam al-Banna, is a member of the movement's governing body. But you know, the Brotherhood is not a homogeneous organization. There are differing groups and subgroups ... "49 There are, in effect,
different tendencies within the Brotherhood. But it is important to understand that these differences concern questions of method-never the objectives to be attained. It is quite likely that certain Muslim Brothers do find
the heir's methods a bit too modern for their taste. But that does not make
of Tariq Ramadan a modern Muslim! You can be communist without having the party card and you can disagree with other communists; but that
doesn't turn you into an anarchist. Wherever he goes, Ramadan spreads the
form of Islamism that he inherited. An ambassador for Islamism who is all
the more dangerous and difficult to pin down since he claims to be autonomous. Antoine Sfeir, founder of the Cahiers de l'Orient [The Orient Review],
who has written several books on Islamism and who was one of the first
to have exposed Tariq Ramadan's doublespeak, is certainly not mistaken in
saying: As far as I'm concerned, he is no doubt one of the key figures of
the Brotherhood. "50 Richard Labeviere, a Radio France International (RFI)
reporter and author of several books on Islamist terrorism, backs him up. In
April 1998, in the course of a trip to Cairo, he had occasion to interview the
head of the Brotherhood, Guide Machour. The latter confirmed the fact that belonging to the Brotherhood was not a question of "being a member" or "not
being a member," but a question of adhering to a certain way of thinking; he
added: "The work carried out by Hani and Tariq is totally in keeping with the
purest traditions of the Muslim Brotherhood."51

Violence? What violence?
    Tariq Ramadan vehemently denies that his grandfather had anything to do
with the ever-increasing recourse to violence in the name of Islam. In his
eyes, Hassan al-Banna is "by no means the `father' ofthat `modern Islamism
characterized by violent demonstrations and simplistic, obtuse anti-Western
prejudice."52 Listening to him, one tends to forget that al-Banna founded a
movement that intended to raise high the flag of Islam by whatever means,
even if this meant "death on the road to God": "Despite the portrait given
of him by the British colonizers (who, in Egypt and elsewhere, have always
accused their opponents of the worst violence and the most horrible crimes)
al-Banna never killed anyone or arranged for a political assassination,"
declared Ramadan in Questioning Islam53-even at the cost of escalating from
revisionism to negationism.
    Hassan al-Banna was quite explicit in his praise for the armed jihad that
he considered to be the highest form of courage. In 1940, he described, for
the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood, what holy war entailed: "What I
mean by holy war (jihad) is the duty that must be obeyed until the day of resurrection and which God's messenger sets down in these words .... The
first stage in the sacred war is to expel evil from one's own heart; the highest stage is armed combat in the service of God. The intermediate stages are
waging war with one's voice, one's pen, and one's hand, and by words oftruth
addressed to unjust authorities."54 This glorification of armed combat as the
supreme degree of the jihad was not a vain formula. In the months that followed, the Brotherhood decided to create a secret armed section,