Tariq Ramadan accused of anti-Semitism
Caroline Monnot and Xavier Ternisien
Translation by Douglas
French original: "Tariq Ramadan accusé d'antisémitisme"
(Le Monde, 2003/10/10)
See also: "Critique des (nouveaux) intellectuels communautaires"
(Tariq Ramadan, Oumma.com, 2003/10/03)
Bernard-Henri Lévy calls on the anti-globalization movement to distance itself from the militant Muslim who is helping prepare November’s European Social Forum.
Is Tariq Ramadan an anti-Semite? The question was put clearly by André Glucksmann in Le Nouvel Observateur of 9 October and by Bernard-Henri Lévy who, in his “note-pad” column of the 10 October issue of Le Point, wrote: “This clever intellectual, trained at the school of the Muslim Brotherhood, (...) had until now always been able to present a smooth, socially acceptable self-image. (...) He has lowered his mask. He has dishonored himself.” For his part, André Glucksmann has written of the “anti-Semitic obsession” of the Muslim intellectual: “What is astonishing is not that Mr. Ramadan is an anti-Semite but that he should dare to admit this publicly.”
This serious accusation comes after the appearance on the Internet (at the Web site oumma.com and on the mass email list of the European Social Forum) of an essay by Tariq Ramadan entitled “Criticism of the (new) communitarian intellectuals,” above which it is noted that the essay was rejected by the newspapers Le Monde and Libération. Its author criticizes “French Jewish intellectuals whom we had thought of until then as universalist thinkers,” who have, according to Ramadan, begun “to develop analyses increasingly oriented toward a communitarian concern.”
Tariq Ramadan cites in order Pierre-André Taguieff (who isn’t Jewish), Alain Finkielkraut, Alexandre Adler. He also criticizes Bernard Kouchner, André Glucksmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy for their support for the Anglo-American intervention in Iraq. He reproaches Bernard-Henri Lévy for having “vilified Pakistan” in his book on the murder of Daniel Pearl.
In Le Point, Bernard-Henri Lévy decries “the infamy of such suggestions that, under the pretense of a legitimate attack on provincialism, only revive the notion of the good old Jewish conspiracy.” But above all he calls on the anti-globalization movement, at the heart of which this document was distributed, to distance itself from this “nauseous text,” which is close, he says, to that of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the famous anti-Semitic pamphlet: “Mr. Ramadan, dear anti-globalizationist friends, is not and cannot be one of yours. (...) I call you on you quickly to distance yourselves from this character who, in crediting the idea of an elitist conspiracy under the control of Zionism, is only inflaming people’s thoughts and opening the way to the worst.”
An intellectual and militant Muslim living in Geneva, Tariq Ramadan holds considerable sway with young Muslims, especially through the Collective of Muslims of France and the Union of Young Muslims (UJM) in Lyon. For a year, the points of contact between the anti-globalization movement and the Ramadan network have grown in number. The anti-globalization movement seeks to expand its social base among the growing immigrant population, be it with the Suburban Immigrant Movement (MIB) at the secular end of the spectrum or with the Collective of Muslims of France for the faithful. Militant Muslims are helping prepare the European Social Forum, which will be held from 12 to 15 November in Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis. But differences among its members emerged this summer through essays published in the weekly Politis: Tariq Ramadan denounced what he called a “lack of openness” in the anti-globalization movement to “the world of Islam”; while Bernard Cassen, honorary president of Attac, called the Muslim leader “a very subtle rhetorician” who used “purely opportunistic, if not totally demagogic arguments.”
Contacted by Le Monde, Mr. Ramadan said: “I entirely reject the accusation of anti-Semitism that is made against me today. I have had no respite from combating all the occurrences of anti-Semitism among Muslims by refuting each of their so-called theological, political (based on a the criticism of Israel) or ethnic legitimizations one by one. Essentially, my aim was to denounce those who, from a communitarian or pro-Israeli attitude, offer a biased reading of national or international realities.”
"RED FLAG"On the the anti-globalization side, all agree that Mr. Ramadan’s text “has no place” on a European Social Forum mailing list. “It is not relevant to the ESF question,” said Mr. Cassen. “One of the characteristics of the European Social Forum is the stark rise in immigrant and Muslim organizations,” he adds. “It is an important phenomenon and a positive one in many ways.” For Peter Khalfa, a member of the Attac organization which also responded to Mr. Ramadan this summer, “Ramadan’s essay is not anti-Semitic. It is dangerous to wave the red flag of anti-Semitism at any moment. However, it is a text marked partly by Ramadan’s communitarian thought and which communicates his view of the world to others.” “The anti-globalization movement defends universalist points of view which are therefore necessarily secular in their political expression,” says José Bové. “That there should be people of different cultures and religions is only natural. The whole effort is to escape such determinisms,” he says.
Caroline Monnot and Xavier Ternisien
[Posted 2003/10/14]
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