Coming Soon: Tariq Telling It Like It Is.

Soooo.. I was tootling around the blogosphere, and one link led to another and I find out that Tariq Ramadan is giving a lecture at a Catholic University about islam. This is quite interesting, given that islam is pretty much mutually exclusive to christianity – especially catholicism. The catholic writer Belloc considered islam to be a great heresy and devoted a chapter to it in his book called, appropriately enough, The Great Heresies.

Seeing as I’m in Australia and not in Canada, perhaps one of the regular readers here from Waterloo might like to mosey along in March as I can’t attend. That weekend we’ve our own dawafest (facebook page) here in Melbournistan.

It appears that SJU is rather liberal in its catholicism, and Ramadan is a past master at dawah and taqiyya, so I expect there will be quite a few attendees who will go weak at the knees. Unlike Barry Obama, he really is and excellent orator.

For your education and perhaps enjoyment, here is his debate with the late great Christopher Hitchens on whether Islam Is A Religion Of Peace. Hitch scores some nice points, but it’s also worth watching to see how Ramadan works his way around things.

14 Replies to “Coming Soon: Tariq Telling It Like It Is.”

  1. “Frere Tariq” by Catherine Fourest, now in english “Brother Ramadan”

    France’s Sarkozy v. Tariq Ramadan, video debate segment with english subtitles

    David Aaronvitch haunts Ramadan on TV by repeating Ramadan’s words from the above debate
    There is so much more . . .but one needs to translate from French to open these debates to wider audience . . .consider also “Tariq Ramadan vs Alain Finkielkraut”.

    Stop characterizing Tariq Ramadan as some ‘gifted’ orator. He says a lot of flowing flowery words but when filtered down to it’s actual meaning – Ramadan comes up convicting his faith and himself, providing absolutely nothing ‘moderate’ about past, present or future Islam, sharia an certainly nothing moderate about historic jihad. Rather, characterize Tariq Ramadan more accurately, perhaps as one who sells moderate Islam as well as your local used car dealer is at selling a lemon.

    • If you would care to send me the relevant documents/videos I will look into having them translated into English. Please indicate where, in the case of a video for example, the relevant bits are. Such as “from minute 12:30 to 16:45” or like that, or indicate that the whole thing is worth while. Happy New year!

  2. But, wtd2, that’s what makes Tariq so “gifted”. I know educated liberals who think that Tariq Ramadan is the second-coming – the road to peace and understanding. They hear him speak, he tells them what they want to hear while twisting the truth to the point that you can’t follow it any more, and they fall for it – hook, line, and sinker. It would be extremely difficult to argue with Tariq Ramadan about anything. He is a brilliant liar.

  3. The grandson of the notorious fascist Hasan Al-Banna (that’s how the NY Times described him on his death), is one of a bunch of islamist speakers at a week-long brainwashing programme at the School for Oriental and African Studies in London. There is barely 1 speaker among them who is a) not a muslim, or b) not employed by a centre supported by Wahhabi petro-dollars. http://4freedoms.ning.com/group/uk/forum/topics/soas-promoting-islamic-fascism

    The entire programme is aimed at journalists and business leaders (it costs about £2000) to attend. It is clearly designed to set the agenda, rather than to challenge the morality or wisdom of islamic theocracy.

  4. Wtd2, you know too much. You can see through the distortions, the weasel words. There really aren’t that many (comparatively speaking) who can do that, let alone counter them as Hitchens does. He doesn’t need a teleprompter, and he can think on his feet.

    That’s what I mean.

  5. Tariq Ramadan is the 3rd generation of a family who’s patriarch dedicated himself to disguising the fascism of islam. You should expect “professor” Ramadan to be well-versed in dissimulation. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brother-Tariq-The-Doublespeak-Ramadan/dp/1458779165

    I am grateful for Ms. Fourest’s work. But it hardly seems to matter. In this debate with Douglas Murray, Ramadan makes all the right noises, and Ramadan’s opponents miss many knockout punches.

    The opponents of islamo-fascism fail to inform the audience that Mohammed was responsible for mass murder, torture and assassination; they fail to point out that the koran says muslims must dominate not integrate; they fail to point out that any “tolerant” verses of the Koran are wiped out by later violent commands. Nevertheless, by the end of the debate, most of those who were undecided, have gone over to the anti-islamic side. And that is with the audience not having their media indoctrination challenged in any way (“islam is a religion of peace and there are just a few bad apples”) . If any of the freedom fighthers had actually read out from “The Life of Mohammed”, or “The Reliance of the Traveller”, I’m sure 100% of the “don’t knows” would have gone to the anti-islam side. If that debate had not had its audience packed out with tanned muslims, the conclusion would have been a rout for Ramadan.

    The only westerners who Ramadan fools are those who want to be fooled – the academics who have failed in their jobs, the journalists who are too scared to believe that muslims will kill them for criticising islam. They are the people who talk him up.

    The upcoming “conference” of journalists and academics at SOAS cannot permit any critical voice to be present. So, Prof. Ramadan of Oxford University will be able to portray sharia law to these doe-eyed journalists as good and wholesome without anyone pointing out that under sharia law the slave trade is legal.

  6. Wow to think that brainwashed fools have thousands of pounds to attand meetings like this. Figures. Marxist Leninist have billions at their disposal. Champagne Socialists exept when they are guests of their masters the muslims and then they must wait to have a drink after the meeting. The whites will be marxist leninist haters of the west. The browns will be Islam’s finest who could not quite make it to the Taliban but are sent with lots of money and a silver tongue to preach to the useful idiot brigade of western marxist leninists. Plenty of money and plenty of deals float around in this kind of atmosphere. A bubble world which has plenty of power. Watch the glowing write ups a day later in the press.

  7. Peace? The late, Mr Hitchens was a supporter of such things as a war in Iraq to promote “democracy”. Meantime, Mr Ramadan, is a promoter by trade of the Islamization of Europe but in a “peaceful” manner. These anti-democratic, Marxists, Fascist totalitarian mindsets if not the same, have much in common. They all claim to have the answers in all matters pertaining to human affairs while ignoring the limitations which are so much a part of the human condition. Everyone knows that Islam, in particular with its apocalyptic worldview is not about Peace, never was and never will be. It is not even about power but SUPER power and in pursuit of the same they are prepared to oust the very Gods above. Let them drink and be merry for it is so written: “What does it avail a man if he wins the earth and loses his soul”

  8. Ramadan is simply superb. It is incredible how he manages to pin down his opponents and expose their fallacies. And he does it in such a non-arrogant way which I find incredible. Hitchens is one of his easier adversaries. I have seen Ramadan take on much more strident ones like Caroline Fourest for example. When he is talking in French his delivery is even more effective, but even when he speaks in English it is hard to imagine he started learning the language only a few years ago. Hitchens was found waffling a few times and I think the points he got was for his sense of humour. His arguments were weak and several times he ended up accepting Ramadan’s point of view at first and then proceeded to show where he differed. I thought it was a lightweight performance on his part.

    I felt that it was a mismatch because Ramadan is such a well read person – in religion, philosophy, ethics, history, politics, and languages, that it would be hard to unsettle him with media headlines and sensational anecdotes.

  9. ‘De problem is not de book, de problem is de readerr…’

    Sound a little weak at the knees there, Terrence. Is it the accent that works for you?

  10. Ze problem is not ze knowledge; zer is plenty zer for free; you only ‘ave to bring your own container.

    And that may be your problem. You close your head because of prejudices and are thus unable to recognize a potent argument when you hear one. Then you end up mocking the accent and even that you represent incorrectly.

    I don’t mind accents at all. This is the nature of our increasingly multi-cultural world that we will increasingly come across multiple accents in our day to day life. Having said that, Ramadan’s accent is not abrasive at all when he speaks english. It does not affect his clarity of speech. The language only affects his speed of delivery but you would have hardly noticed it unless you listened to his French presentations/debates. Even then he was speaking far more fluently compared to Hitchens. After all, the man is a professor at Oxford University and does this regularly.

    I thought it was a simple point he was making. Controversies and contradictory interpretations are common with all texts, of all religions and ideologies. It is not unique to Islam and it is not absent in Islam either. The point he was trying to put across is to recognize that different people have the potential of behaving differently and it is too simplistic to attribute it to one text. Also, pointing out that we don’t do the same for every other problem created by human beings in this world. We focus on the person and rightly so. In the case of Islam, some of us want to make an exception.

    Related to the above was another valid point he made that; we put so much effort to understand philosophy for instance (Ramadan’s PhD was on German philosopher Nietzsche who predicted the death of God) but we want to understand religion (particularly Islam) in very simplistic terms: Is Islam a religion of peace? Such questions do not serve a useful purpose. It is a loaded question. A more sincere question could have been “What can Islam do for the promotion of peace?”

    I can understand if you have issues with Islam and that is fair enough. I just hope it does not cloud your ability to understand the finer points and weaknesses of arguments made by all sides.

  11. I didn’t suggest you minded the accent, Terrence, quite the opposite, hanging as you plainly have not only on every word but on every consonant. Yes, Ramadan is glib, and I’m sure the gig at Oxford helps with that. The question whether Islam is a religion of peace is laughable as a debate topic, and a sign of our debased intellectual culture that in venue after venue it is taken seriously. It’s not prejudice, it’s postjudice, long, long after the facts were in.

    Are you familiar with the biography of the Pirate Mohammed? What can Islam ever do for peace so long as it takes a sex-slaving child-rapist (to name two of his attributes) as a perfect model of behaviour for all men for all time? What’s your nuanced interpretation of legally-sanctioned rape?

    • You have now left the topic entirely. You have changed the subject.

      I don’t mind talking about Islam or any other religion for that matter, or any other ideology for that matter.

      However, you have now descended into abuse, and that to me is the cue to end the conversation. That is also a sign to others on this forum that you have lost the argument.

      As abuse can be countered only with abuse and I am not inclined to go down that path, I have to say that is the end of our conversation. If you had asked me a question I wouldn’t mind responding to it. But I am simply not going to respond to abuse except to expose it for what it is.

      A parting comment: such an abusive approach has done the least damage to Islam. This was how Europeans first reacted when the caravans first started rolling out from the desert. Today’s figures demonstrate that it did not succeed. If you really want to go against Islam get yourself educated first, in theology, history, politics, philosophy. Maybe you might be able to do better than, because certainly abuses won’t get you far. Abuses are the tools of bigots which they use to cover up for their ignorance.

      Goodbye!

  12. That’s way below Ramadan levels of casuistry and evasion, Terrence. Keep studying the master.