Just as Tariq Ramadan was preparing to take up a professorial post at the University of Notre Dame in August 2004, the United States government revoked his visa, denying him entry on ideological grounds.
The US State Department lifted the ban in January, and the Swiss scholar is set to arrive on American soil later this week for a series of speaking engagements – his first visit since losing his visa.
“It was a mistake by the Bush administration, to prevent intellectuals from being critical,” Ramadan said during a recent interview in Doha. “The main thing is for me to go there and build bridges.”
It can sometimes be difficult to tell if Ramadan – rigorous scholar, champion of Islam and outspoken advocate for the rights and assertiveness of Muslims in the West – is building bridges or burning them.
Born and raised in Switzerland, the 47-year-old is a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University and the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
He is often named among the world’s most influential public intellectuals yet regularly excoriated in both Muslim and Western media for a seeming lack of commitment to their respective values: he regularly denounces global capitalism, for instance, and says women should decide for themselves whether to wear the veil.
Last week he lectured in Doha at the request of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, where he will teach a course on contemporary Islam later this year. Before delivering his speech he considered the tensions within Gulf societies.
“You have some people that are very reactive to anything that has to do with the West, saying ‘this is the end of Islam,’” he said. “And you have some others saying, ‘No, we have to follow in the footsteps of the West because this is the way to be developed and modern,’ and in between you have people trying to find their way.”
In his next book, to be titled The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy for Pluralism, Ramadan writes about the shared values between Islam and the West.
“My understanding of Islam makes it clear that there is no contradiction in the Islamic values and the Western values,” he said. “To deal with modernity doesn’t mean that you lose your Islamic background.”
Yet since Al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington, DC, in September 2001, signs of a clash have been near-constant. After a unanimous parliamentary vote last week, Belgium inched closer to becoming the first nation in the world to ban the full Islamic veil in public. Ramadan's home country, Switzerland, recently voted to prohibit the construction of minarets.
And in the wake of Farouk Abdulmattalab's attempt to blow up an Amsterdam to Detroit flight on Christmas Day, the United States has increased background checks on visa applicants from Muslim majority countries.
But in US President Barack Obama, Ramadan sees a leader with a considerable grasp of the situation. Though impressed by Obama's speech to the Muslim World in Cairo last June, he thought the time for words had passed.
He pointed to Iraq, where despite elections terrorist attacks, such as Saturday's massacre of two dozen members of a single family in Baghdad, are still common and society remains fragmented along sectarian lines. He cited the lack of progress with Israel, which has continued to announce settlements in East Jerusalem despite the Obama Administration's repeated calls for a freeze.
“Netanyahu is sending a very strong message: 'we don’t care,'” said Ramadan.
Despite what he sees as Palestinians' continued suffering and the marginalization of many Muslim communities in the West, Ramadan believes Muslims must look forward, not back. “We need to stop nurturing the victim mentality,” he said.
This is among the key points of Ramadan's 2009 book, What I Believe, that Muslims living in the West need to engage positively and work to become full partners in Western democracy.
“As citizens it is our Islamic duty to abide by the law of the country as long it does not contradict with our religious beliefs,” he said during the Doha lecture. “We must criticise the government while remaining loyal to the law – this is critical loyalty.”
Dr Basma Abdelgafar, a professor of public policy at the Faculty of Islamic Studies who has read several of Ramadan’s books, attended the lecture and came away impressed.
“It’s a very useful type of contribution to our understanding of Muslims in the West,” said Abdelgafar, a Canadian of Egyptian heritage who was looking forward to having Ramadan as a colleague. “It has nothing to do with a person’s creed or belief, it’s that they are representing something that’s right.”
Ramadan's critics, however, see him as a dangerous radical. “I don't see anyone today who is as effective as Tariq Ramadan in furthering fundamentalism in France,” French journalist Caroline Fourest, the author of an anti-Ramadan book, said last year. She accuses him of double-speak – saying one thing to Muslims and another to Western audiences.
Paul Berman, a journalism professor at New York University, goes further. “The problem lies in the terrible fact,” he wrote in a lengthy 2007 article, “that Ramadan's personal milieu -- his grandfather, his family history, his family contacts, his intellectual tradition -- is precisely the milieu that bears the principal responsibility for generating the modern theoretical justification for religious suicide.”
That may be going too far. Ramadan has distanced himself from Al-Banna's political opinions and denounced radical violence. His website prominently displays a large banner ad supporting non-violent resistance in Palestine.
Still, he does have some views unlikely to sit well with some Westerners.
“The neo-liberal economy, the way it’s now impacting lives and killing people every day because of the injustices of the economy, this is a'anam al harb (the world of war),” Ramadan said during the interview in Doha. “This economic order is killing people, and this is why we need ethics in our economy, and this recent global crisis is telling us exactly this.”
Taking an anti-capitalist, even socialist, stance is neither illegal nor in opposition to the West. But his position on certain huddud punishments may be more problematic.
Ramadan was asked if he saw any contradiction between his stated commitment to Western values and his calling, on French TV in 2003, for a moratorium on the stoning of adulterers in order to debate the merits of the punishment.
“As long as we don’t have answers to these questions we have to open a debate,” he said last week in Doha. “It’s not a contradiction, because Amnesty International, a Western organization, is calling for the same thing on the death penalty. So why is it not a contradiction for them and it is for me?”
In truth, the New York-based rights advocate takes a rather less equivocal stance on legal executions. “Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases and under all circumstances,” according to their website. “The organization works for an end to executions and the abolition of the death penalty everywhere.”
-----
an edited version appeared in 5 April 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae
Showing posts with label Amnesty International. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amnesty International. Show all posts
1.17.2010
Is the Karzai government worth Western blood and treasure?
Doha// “The Bush administration is guilty of a dereliction of duty,” said Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan Administration, referring to the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
“It was criminal, what the United States did,” Korb explained. “A lot of the problems we're seeing today are a result of the fact that we went in there, created a vacuum and then walked away...President Bush promised a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, and then never followed up.”
A full house packed the Education City studio of the BBC's Doha Debates this week as an accomplished panel took up the motion: “This House does not believe that this Afghan government is worth fighting for.” More than eight years after the US-led invasion, international forces are bogged down in guerrilla warfare with a resurgent Taliban while the President Hamid Karzai-led government is charged with election fraud, corruption and ineffectiveness.
Assisted by their host, BBC presenter Tim Sebastian, the panelists engaged in verbal battle on the legitimacy of the Karzai government, the need for international forces and the components of democracy, before a slim majority of the audience – 51 percent to 49 percent – voted to carry the motion.
“Afghanistan never wanted to be host for long to foreign troops – this is the history of Afghanistan, this is our nature,” said Shukria Barakzai, Mr Korb's co-panelist and a member of the Afghan parliament.
She was responding to a question from the audience about why the Afghan people do not protest against the continued presence of US-led forces. “But right now, we are a little baby,” she said, “and until we can stand on our own feet, we need it.”
Mr Korb pointed to the example of Iraq, where US forces had begun pulling out and would be out completely by the end of next year. “I'm very happy that President Obama, in announcing a troop increase in Afghanistan, also talked about a deadline,” he said. “The message is that this government has to clean up its act.”
Mirwais Yasini, deputy speaker of the Lower House of the Afghan parliament who briefly ran for Afghan president last year, did not see that happening anytime soon. “There is no security, there is corruption, there's no reconciliation, there are no services for Afghan citizens,” he said. “Democracy is just a slogan...we are establishing a very dirty precedent.”
Yasini's co-panelist, former US Ambassador Peter Galbraith, was fired last year from his post as a United Nations envoy to Afghanistan for accusing his boss of concealing election fraud. He said the government could not provide the security, rule of law and services necessary to support the US-led war.
“A government that is ineffective and in office by fraud cannot win the support of the population,” said Mr Galbraith. “It cannot do what it needs to make a counter-insurgency strategy work.”
Standing up from his seat in the audience, the Afghan Ambassador to Qatar, Wali Monawar, asked what sort of alternatives Mr Galbraith might offer to the current government. Mr Galbraith suggested a new election or a power-sharing political system.
Mr Sebastian pressed the point. “There is no other government,” he said. “This is the Afghan government, however ineffective or corrupt, however it fails to meet your expectations.”
Mr Galbraith pointed to the one million phoney votes estimated by European Union monitors. “Tim,” he said, “you cannot say that a govt that is in office by massive fraud is a legitimate government.”
“What do you expect?” responded Mr Sebastian. “It's hard enough to get a fair election in the United States.”
Ms Barakzai pointed out that President Karzai had received the support of the Afghan people three times – in a 2002 loya jirga, or meeting of elders, in the first presidential election, in 2004, and again last year. “Democracy is not a product,” she said. “It's always a process and this process takes decades and generations.”
“But why must it take decades and generations?” asked Mr Sebastian.
Ms Barakzia responded, “How long did it take your country to establish democracy?”
A BBC/ABC poll released this week found 68 per cent of Afghans saw the government as heading in the right direction. And Mr Korb viewed the Afghan Parliament's recent rejection of 17 of Mr Karzai's 24 proposed cabinet members as a “great step forward” for democracy. “We tend to confuse elections with democracy,” he said. “It's civil society that you have to build, that's the key thing.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty International, a rights group, said the Karzai government shows “blatant impunity” for human rights, and has released at least five major drug leaders. Further, Mr Galbraith said last year's election fraud “disenfranchised every Afghan who cast an honest vote.”
Yet more than 500 international troops died in Afghanistan in 2009.
“They're dying for the chance to give Afghans a chance to choose their own destiny,” he said. “We're interested in helping the Afghan people make their own choices, and they have a limited amount of time..after a few years we will have done all that we can.”
“It was criminal, what the United States did,” Korb explained. “A lot of the problems we're seeing today are a result of the fact that we went in there, created a vacuum and then walked away...President Bush promised a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, and then never followed up.”
A full house packed the Education City studio of the BBC's Doha Debates this week as an accomplished panel took up the motion: “This House does not believe that this Afghan government is worth fighting for.” More than eight years after the US-led invasion, international forces are bogged down in guerrilla warfare with a resurgent Taliban while the President Hamid Karzai-led government is charged with election fraud, corruption and ineffectiveness.
Assisted by their host, BBC presenter Tim Sebastian, the panelists engaged in verbal battle on the legitimacy of the Karzai government, the need for international forces and the components of democracy, before a slim majority of the audience – 51 percent to 49 percent – voted to carry the motion.
“Afghanistan never wanted to be host for long to foreign troops – this is the history of Afghanistan, this is our nature,” said Shukria Barakzai, Mr Korb's co-panelist and a member of the Afghan parliament.
She was responding to a question from the audience about why the Afghan people do not protest against the continued presence of US-led forces. “But right now, we are a little baby,” she said, “and until we can stand on our own feet, we need it.”
Mr Korb pointed to the example of Iraq, where US forces had begun pulling out and would be out completely by the end of next year. “I'm very happy that President Obama, in announcing a troop increase in Afghanistan, also talked about a deadline,” he said. “The message is that this government has to clean up its act.”
Mirwais Yasini, deputy speaker of the Lower House of the Afghan parliament who briefly ran for Afghan president last year, did not see that happening anytime soon. “There is no security, there is corruption, there's no reconciliation, there are no services for Afghan citizens,” he said. “Democracy is just a slogan...we are establishing a very dirty precedent.”
Yasini's co-panelist, former US Ambassador Peter Galbraith, was fired last year from his post as a United Nations envoy to Afghanistan for accusing his boss of concealing election fraud. He said the government could not provide the security, rule of law and services necessary to support the US-led war.
“A government that is ineffective and in office by fraud cannot win the support of the population,” said Mr Galbraith. “It cannot do what it needs to make a counter-insurgency strategy work.”
Standing up from his seat in the audience, the Afghan Ambassador to Qatar, Wali Monawar, asked what sort of alternatives Mr Galbraith might offer to the current government. Mr Galbraith suggested a new election or a power-sharing political system.
Mr Sebastian pressed the point. “There is no other government,” he said. “This is the Afghan government, however ineffective or corrupt, however it fails to meet your expectations.”
Mr Galbraith pointed to the one million phoney votes estimated by European Union monitors. “Tim,” he said, “you cannot say that a govt that is in office by massive fraud is a legitimate government.”
“What do you expect?” responded Mr Sebastian. “It's hard enough to get a fair election in the United States.”
Ms Barakzai pointed out that President Karzai had received the support of the Afghan people three times – in a 2002 loya jirga, or meeting of elders, in the first presidential election, in 2004, and again last year. “Democracy is not a product,” she said. “It's always a process and this process takes decades and generations.”
“But why must it take decades and generations?” asked Mr Sebastian.
Ms Barakzia responded, “How long did it take your country to establish democracy?”
A BBC/ABC poll released this week found 68 per cent of Afghans saw the government as heading in the right direction. And Mr Korb viewed the Afghan Parliament's recent rejection of 17 of Mr Karzai's 24 proposed cabinet members as a “great step forward” for democracy. “We tend to confuse elections with democracy,” he said. “It's civil society that you have to build, that's the key thing.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty International, a rights group, said the Karzai government shows “blatant impunity” for human rights, and has released at least five major drug leaders. Further, Mr Galbraith said last year's election fraud “disenfranchised every Afghan who cast an honest vote.”
Yet more than 500 international troops died in Afghanistan in 2009.
“They're dying for the chance to give Afghans a chance to choose their own destiny,” he said. “We're interested in helping the Afghan people make their own choices, and they have a limited amount of time..after a few years we will have done all that we can.”
2.27.2009
China, Poverty and the UN’s Curious Stance on Human Rights
The United Nations' Human Rights Council kicked off a special session to discuss the impact of the financial crisis on the poor Friday. That same day, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in China, which recently received a rather friendly review from the world's leading rights body.
Why is the HRC addressing the concerns of the poor when it apparently fails to handle its own purview?
The council replaced the beleaguered Commission on Human Rights nearly three years ago. After its most recent 16-country review, the HRC has now reviewed one-third of the U.N.'s 192 member states. Among those reviews, that of China stands out.
Amnesty International has called China the "world's leading executioner," and the authoritarian government is known for jailing its citizens without trial, censoring its people and harshly quelling rebellious sentiment in Tibet and among the Muslim Uighurs.
Yet during the review, many developing countries commended China as an example of progress and criticized Western countries for "politicizing" the issues. Egypt lauded the Hu Jintao regime and Iran championed Beijing's "strong commitment to human rights." Cuba urged China to remain firm against "self-styled human rights defenders." Gabon, Sudan and Zimbabwe praised China for giving them financial aid, and failed to mention human rights.
"What we saw during the China review was a wide range of views expressed on several human rights issues - economic, social and cultural rights and civil and political rights," Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, Nigerian ambassador to the U.N. and current president of the HRC, told Devex. "This is significant!"
Like the HRC, Hilary Clinton pushed human rights to the sidelines during her visit to Beijing over the weekend, saying human rights issues "should not be allowed to interfere" with common interests. She could have capitalized on the buzz surrounding "Charter 08," an online petition denouncing the Chinese government for its human rights abuses that has been signed by more than 8,000 Chinese citizens. But Clinton instead focused on climate change and financial crisis cooperation.
Perhaps it's understandable for the U.S. secretary of state to go soft on China - she has a relationship to manage. The HRC, on the other hand, has a job to do. Despite human rights abuses all around, the council issued a draft resolution Monday calling on nations to protect those put most at risk during the ongoing financial downturn.
"The hope of this session is to send out a strong message that human rights should not be overlooked or drowned out by the current financial crisis," said Uhomoibhi. "The international community must take into account the human rights dimension of the economic crises when implementing measures to address its effects."
Coming two days after the Hu Jintao government gagged dozens of human rights advocates to keep them quiet during Clinton's visit, the real message is that human rights-abusing governments can act with impunity.
--
Posted to Devex.com on 23 February 2009
Why is the HRC addressing the concerns of the poor when it apparently fails to handle its own purview?
The council replaced the beleaguered Commission on Human Rights nearly three years ago. After its most recent 16-country review, the HRC has now reviewed one-third of the U.N.'s 192 member states. Among those reviews, that of China stands out.
Amnesty International has called China the "world's leading executioner," and the authoritarian government is known for jailing its citizens without trial, censoring its people and harshly quelling rebellious sentiment in Tibet and among the Muslim Uighurs.
Yet during the review, many developing countries commended China as an example of progress and criticized Western countries for "politicizing" the issues. Egypt lauded the Hu Jintao regime and Iran championed Beijing's "strong commitment to human rights." Cuba urged China to remain firm against "self-styled human rights defenders." Gabon, Sudan and Zimbabwe praised China for giving them financial aid, and failed to mention human rights.
"What we saw during the China review was a wide range of views expressed on several human rights issues - economic, social and cultural rights and civil and political rights," Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, Nigerian ambassador to the U.N. and current president of the HRC, told Devex. "This is significant!"
Like the HRC, Hilary Clinton pushed human rights to the sidelines during her visit to Beijing over the weekend, saying human rights issues "should not be allowed to interfere" with common interests. She could have capitalized on the buzz surrounding "Charter 08," an online petition denouncing the Chinese government for its human rights abuses that has been signed by more than 8,000 Chinese citizens. But Clinton instead focused on climate change and financial crisis cooperation.
Perhaps it's understandable for the U.S. secretary of state to go soft on China - she has a relationship to manage. The HRC, on the other hand, has a job to do. Despite human rights abuses all around, the council issued a draft resolution Monday calling on nations to protect those put most at risk during the ongoing financial downturn.
"The hope of this session is to send out a strong message that human rights should not be overlooked or drowned out by the current financial crisis," said Uhomoibhi. "The international community must take into account the human rights dimension of the economic crises when implementing measures to address its effects."
Coming two days after the Hu Jintao government gagged dozens of human rights advocates to keep them quiet during Clinton's visit, the real message is that human rights-abusing governments can act with impunity.
--
Posted to Devex.com on 23 February 2009
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