Interviews of Professor Tariq Ramadan and articles around his visit in USA
Tariq Ramadan: Back in the U.S.A.
SOURCE : WNYC
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Tariq Ramadan Gets the American Debate He Says He Craved
New York
Finally allowed into the United States to discuss his views, the prominent European Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan found himself fielding questions on Thursday that exposed just how difficult it might be for him to fulfill his stated mission of building bridges between the Islamic world and the liberal, democratic societies of the United States and Western Europe.
The forum was a panel discussion on "Secularism, Islam, and Democracy: Muslims in Europe and the West" held in the Cooper…
Source : THE CHRONICLE
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New York
NEWS & FEATURES
Tariq Ramadan: I Would Not Teach in the U.S. Now
Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan is tired of talking about being barred from the United States. In 2004, he was all packed up and ready to move from his home in Switzerland to begin a tenured teaching position at University of Notre Dame when his visa was revoked by the U.S. government under George W. Bush. The stated cause was a donation he made to a Hamas-linked charity, but at the time he made the donation, the U.S. had not officially linked the group to terror. This January, Hillary Clinton issued an order that enabled him to get a visa and return. He’s back in the country for the first time since then, and in New York for one day of his whistle-stop tour. Elegant and refined in a blue pinstriped suit, the professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford talked to Intel over lunch today in a Soho bistro, in the middle of a day of wall-to-wall interviews.
What do you hope to do while you’re here?
I’d like to carry on the work I’ve been doing, to create a collaboration between western countries and Muslim majority countries. Honestly, I’d like to get beyond this story of being banned from the U.S.
Were you ever given a proper explanation for why your U.S. visa was revoked?
No, never. They were trying to find something to keep me out. First they said it was the Patriot Act, that I had links to terrorism. Then it was that I gave money to a group that supported terrorists. But I gave the money before that group was blacklisted. I should have known? They said it was retroactive. It was silly. I condemn violence and terrorism. I never got from them the true reason.
Your grandfather Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Do you recognize the Muslim Brotherhood of today — which some would characterize as separatist and violent — as the organization he started?
As with any group, there are trends and there is historical context. My grandfather started the group as a reaction against colonization in Egypt. The group split in 1949 and became something completely different. I disagree with what it has become.
In recent years do you feel the chasm between the Muslim world and the West growing wider? Or coming together?
Well, I disagree with the characterization of a "Muslim world." I refer to certain countries as Muslim majority countries. There is a great deal of misunderstanding and misperception between them and the West — on both sides. There is a great deal of mistrust on both sides. Obama’s election brought hope — he is intelligent, perceptive — his speech in Cairo showed that he knew how to communicate with Muslims. But there’s been very little change on the Israeli-Palestine conflict. The settlements carry on. Obama has the vision and the words, but does he have the power? This is problematic. It seems he is limited.
What do you find to be the most alarming misconception about Islam?
That it is a violent and expansionist religion, a colonizing force. This puts people on the defensive. It keeps people from listening, in a peaceful way, to what Muslims have to say. And Muslims need to take more responsibility for this misunderstanding — many of them are doing things in the name of Islam that we have to condemn.
How can we, as you say, create a collaboration?
We need to have intellectual empathy for one another. Communicate in a way that people can understand; this is the true bridge. Also we need to increase democratization, but stick to our values. For instance, don’t talk about supporting human rights but forget them when we’re dealing with petrol monarchies with money.
How can New Yorkers act on this?
These misunderstandings will be solved in the streets, in daily life. Far from national controversies, it is our daily life that determines how we feel about people or groups. Open up doors to diversity of cultures, and not just by eating their food or dressing like them. If you want something to change, take action and educate yourself. Be a creative citizen, not a victim. This is how we are effective, and how we will change the world. Look deeply to understand each other. Give meaning to your life and don’t just sink into a consumerist way of life.
Would you ever come back to the U.S. to teach?
No. Maybe as a visiting professor. I’m very happy at Oxford.
By: Cary Barbor
REUTERS
Muslim scholar visits U.S. after travel ban lifted
"I think that people who were expecting him to change everything so quickly were just dreamers," Tariq Ramadan told Reuters in an interview Thursday.
Ramadan, a Swiss citizen of Egyptian origin who was born in Switzerland, has written extensively on Western Muslims and on Islam. He is president of the thinktank European Muslim Network in Brussels and teaches at Britain’s Oxford University.
"I think the vision is there. The words are there," he said of President Barack Obama, whom he faulted for not delivering more quickly on his pledge to shut the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected militants and failing to make progress in the Middle East peace process.
"It’s when he is reelected that he can be more effective."
In 2004, the United States revoked Ramadan’s visa. When he applied for a new visa, the application was denied on grounds he had made donations to the Association de Secours Palestinien, or ASP, from 1998 to 2002.
The Bush administration listed ASP as a banned group in 2003, saying it supported terrorism and contributed funds to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, an organization the United States said had ties to terrorism.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lifted the ban on Ramadan in January.
"I have been in a peaceful mind for the last six years because I knew my record was clear," Ramadan said. "Now this story is over. The Bush administration is over, so is my case."
Ramadan, who said he visited the United States 13 times between 2001 and when his visa was revoked in 2004, will make his first U.S. public appearance since his ban was lifted at the Cooper Union school in New York as part of a literature festival.
"In the United States of America, I’m an academic. I shouldn’t have to say who I am going to speak to and what I am going to speak about," he said.
The American Civil Liberties Union championed Ramadan’s case as part of a pattern of scholars being excluded due to unwarranted or unspecified U.S. national security grounds.
Ramadan said the U.S. policy toward him was contradictory. Just months before being denied a visa on national security grounds, he had been invited to Washington by the State Department to give a lecture on Islam.
"I was introduced as someone who is controversial, who is from the Muslim world," he said. "So they knew exactly who I was."
(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and John O’Callaghan)
SOURCE : REUTERS
