Customer Reviews

Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Tariq Ramadan is always shown to be the good face of 'moderate European Islam' and he is trotted out, or rather trots himself out, everytime there is some question about the ability of Europe to swallow and assimilate its millions of Muslim immigrants. A passionate defender of Muslims he pretends that Islamism is but a tiny minority and that Islam and European civilization can go hand in hand. But despite having been born in moderate and tolerant Switzerland he learned none of the nuetrality of that country. Instead as this book shows he speaks with two mouths: one to Europeans and Westerners and another to his fellow Muslims in Arabic

In fact Ramadan is a practitioner of 'Taqieh', the Muslim Shiite idea that is defined as "to hide the truth is the ultimate art of a Moslem" according to Interruptions. This book does the reader of the service of translating what he says in Arabic and showing that it does not jive with what he says in English and what is often quoted in English language media.

A fascinating expose that will surely startle anyone familiar with this influential individual.

Seth J. Frantzman

I applaud Caroline Fourest for making sure that people know who they're really dealing with in Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan is feted by many people as a 'moderate' Muslim voice and a bridge between Islam and The West (and unfortunately Fourest thinks in these same rigid, esseentialist categories, but I'll get to that). The general reaction to Ramadan is revealing in itself; most of his message, examined critically, is hardly "moderate" but simply a toned down version of fairly typical Caliphist rhetoric, and even then many Orthodox Sunni Muslims consider Ramadan to be a sellout with no credibility. If Ramadan represents anything, it's that the supposedly healthy body of moderate Muslims is largely mythical, with most supposed moderates either being eloquent extremists or de facto atheists. The recent murder of Salman Taseer, and the reactions from the Muslim world, threw this into even sharper relief than before.

Fourest shows that even though Ramadan's message for his 'Western' audience is fairly unremarkable, his message for his Muslim audience is quite a bit more frank. Ramadan's ideas are, in substance, not that different from that of the Ikwhan whom his family is so closely associated with. And the Ikwhan's penchant for dissimulation has reached new depths with Ramadan, who can say 'night' to a Dutch or French audience and 'day' to an Arab one, as Fourest shows quite clearly here. Even if Ramadan's apologists could somehow make a case for 4/5 of the examples being 'out of context' or misleading, that last 1/5 would still be alarming. Liberal and multiculturalist defenders of Ramadan would do well to exmine Fourest's claims, and realize that ultimately what he advocates is antithetical to their values.

In my view, Fourest's biggest mistakes are two; she tends buy into the idea of Islam and the Western world as two seperate monoliths when, frankly, she should know better. As a liberal feminist, she knows that not all of the western world is exactly an enlightenment paradise, and she does say so, but lapses into rhetoric that sounds alarmingly like the European far right at times. Relatedly, her second mistake is talking about taqiyah in a way that reinforces some of the paranoia that many people feel towards Muslims. Taqiyah is NOT some kind of Muslim code that allows every Muslim to lie to non-Muslims. It is a very specific Shia doctrine that allowed Shia to pretend to be Sunni to save their lives in times of persecution. It did not "drift over" into Sunnism as Fourest implies; some Sunni individuals and some Sunni organizations are guilty of doublespeak, to be sure, perhaps most of them. But I would argue the same is true, to some extent or another, with many organizations with various origins. Islamism is a cause for a lot of concern in this day and age and the lack of a clear distinction between ordinary Muslims and extremists is a troubling one; nonetheless, claiming that all Muslims have a mandate to lie and can't be trusted is a bigoted calumny similar to those heaped upon Jews for centuries. Too many authors have advanced this idea and Fourest did herself no favors by resorting to it; her case against Ramadan was strong enough to stand on its own.

This serious reservation aside, anyone interested in the way the next couple decades play out in Europe between an increasingly Islamic population and a changing pluarlistic society should read this book.

While Fourest's book is written (or perhaps translated) like a grocery list, this book exposes Ramadan as the wolf he is. He is the typical race and religion baiter, using the openness of the West as the tool by which he hopes to destroy it. We might write Ramadam off as a comic character if he was acting for personal wealth - and that may indeed be one of his motivations - but his main motivation is to promote his fringe and violent ideology and promote his political movement. Why the spineless Europeans allow this man to live and do his work among them is beyond me.

TARIQ RAMADAN was interviewed and the results posted on a Pew research website.

[...]

If you get a chance, read Ramadan's answers -- they don't say much, and in some cases don't make sense. He seems to claim that Apostacy is not a crime punishable by death in the last few sentences, part of the obfuscation and word salad that this fellow spews out hoping nobody will challenge him, since his arguments are not logical, not even based on fact.

He is, in a word, an apologist for Islam, trying to befuddle those who see Islam as an intolerant religion.

*Tariq Ramadan is an adept at delivering reassuring speeches and interviews to the public at large: it gets to hear what it wants to hear.
*This while he promotes ideas harmful to liberty, equality, and fraternity the rest of the time!
*The book is very interesting and very complete. Lots of details.
*If you want some proof of his deceitful behavior before you buy this, Google him for his very recent (April 12, 2010) CNN television interview with Christiane Amanpour.
You can see and hear him dodging the outright condemnation of the stoning of women!!! (Also visit Wikipedia if you want more juice.)
*The ideology this guy promotes can only fracture a society in two, causing fatal enmity and conflict.

The book was needed !

Infidel Europe have to learn about Taqiyya, Kitman and Takfir.

And Ramadan is perfect because he can't open the mouth without using Taqiyya!

NOTE: I read this book in French in the language it was written. This is the English translation, I doubt it is still accurate...

I don't have much to say. There is a great debate where both Tariq and the author Caroline Fourest where met face to face... The point is anybody can write a book, but the question is the information accurate? Well, Caroline Fourest was caught using faulty reference and citation for her book and if you don't believe that do the search yourself without forgetting that the book is FULL of vocabulary/grammar mistakes. Read for the sake of building an intellectual foundation and to develo[ the critical thinking skills and NOT believing anything somebody say or write. "... Even a parrot can talk..." Sad but true, I just cannot believe how this book made it to the shelves and how come someone can give 5 star ratings!!!! With all my respect Caroline is not an intellectual by any means, she is free to say what she wants and I respect, but if the information is inaccurate then I am not interested. Knowledge is great, but can be dangerous and understanding is the challenge... In sum, not understanding a subject quite well and writing a book about it is a very unhealthy to the contemporary reader.

There is something fair and just when a propagandist is taken down. Tariq Ramadan must be taken in the same way as other apologists for Islamic imperialism; Esposito, Eduard Said, Saudi Embassies and Consulates.

This is a very detailed expose comparing the subversive methods that are being used to try to gradually entrap the world (or at least the Western developed nations) into a hypothetical Islamic paradise.

I liked "Muslim Mafia" better as it was pretty much the dry facts, whereas "Brother Tariq" is written from a viewpoint that is fairly extreme in terms of the author's strong allegiance to secularism (as opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood allegiance to a world umma with a 7th Century form of Sharia as the absolute law). "Muslim Mafia" is more focused on relatively recent activity (and mostly in the U.S.)

"Brother Tariq" fills in a lot of the detail as to the historical and world-wide activity of the Muslim Brotherhood and their goals, and documents clearly the relationships between so-called moderate spokesmen such as Tariq and the active terror organizations such as Hamas (as does "Muslim Mafia" regarding Tariq's counterparts in the U.S.)

The author's extreme positionalities, however, make some of her accusations sound petty and even make some of the Brotherhood's positions sound relatively sane.

I see a lot of people giving this book a 5 star rating. Nothing wrong with that. They are free to voice their opinions and reviews as they like but I feel we need to dig a little deeper at the potential cognitive bias of the audience that Caroline Fourest appeals to.

Ms. Fourest seems to have gone at great lengths to 'pick and stick' labels at Prof. Ramadan which are simply not accurate ! There is a great deal of intellectual dishonesty in her book as it is replete with selective quotations, misquotations, false teleology and above all glaringly obvious 'equivocation of fallacy'. This is the case for atleast 4/5ths of the materials she has produced against the Professor and branded it as 'revelatory', 'astonishing' and 'alarming'.

Regarding the remaining 1/5th of the material, well - at best she is either innocently ignorant and out of touch with the socio-economic reality and context of the Muslim audience that Prof. Tariq Ramadan has to address from time to time. At worst she is quite deliberate in equating and anointing him as the 'false prophet of moderation' from the Muslim side who's hidden agenda is totalitarianism of a triumphant medieval religion. This second more troubling viewpoint is shared by people, who have nothing to say favorable for 1.5 Billion of the world population, they magnify the 'radical elements' within the Muslim community to sound as though the entire 'monolithic' community is 'in on this'. When you judge the actions of a very select few 'radical elements' and brand the over whelming law abiding majority of the faith as co-conspirators, it is nothing but deep rooted xenophobia, pure and simple. I can understand the 'fear' but if it is standing over the shoulder of 'malice' - I am very concerned.

The other audience of Ms. Fourest which can be termed as the 'innocently ignorant' readers, well they simply need to hear Prof. Tariq Ramadan speak for once. if they can only listen (and not just hear) him without any fear or reservation in their mind - half of their doubts and misconceptions would be addressed. Only those who display undeserved paranoia will leave the hall with the following ideas in mind: "that was a good point but he's bound to say that to me in this audience", "He's very articulate, I'll give him that but something's not quite right" or worst of all "This doesn't sound like what I had in mind of him, better go check with Mr. Christopher Hitchens first".

Well, What can you do in that situation...what can anyone do?

You can only lead a horse to water..