Some call him the “Martin Luther of Islam,” while others see him as the “most dangerous man in Europe.” In 2008, Britain’s Prospect and the US Foreign Policy magazines ranked Swiss-born Islamic scholar of Egyptian descent Tariq Ramadan number eight on their list of the world’s top 100 contemporary intellectuals.
TIME Magazine referred to him as one of the most important innovators of the 21st century.
Tariq Ramadan is president of the think tank European Muslim Network (EMN) in Brussels, a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University and a visiting professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Qatar. Grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna and son of Said Ramadan, founder of the group’s Palestinian branch, Tariq Ramadan has contributed to debates surrounding the issues of Muslims in the West and Islamic revival in the Muslim world. He is active at academic and grassroots levels, lecturing extensively throughout the world and is the author of a number of books, most recently “Islam and the Arab Awakening.”
Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, he discussed the ongoing events in the Middle East and explored the challenges ahead for the region in attempting to embrace democracy after generations of authoritarian rule. He called on Muslims to stop blaming the West and to instead come up with a new vision. In addressing the real questions, he said that the Arab world has a historic opportunity to rid itself of its victim status and to create a truly new dynamic. Ramadan also highlighted the distinctiveness of the Turkish model of governance and raised doubts about its potential to inform political discourse in the Middle East.
In your book “Islam and the Arab Awakening,” you particularly focus on the question of whether it’s wrong to consider recent events in the Arab world to be revolutions or whether they are more uprisings that are being manipulated and, to some extent, controlled from all sides, not just from the West. Can you please elaborate on this?
I never used — from the very beginning — the concept of spring or even revolution, because revolution means much more to me than what we are witnessing. … What we are now seeing on the ground in Egypt and Tunisia, expecting that this movement will change everything — it’s not happening. All this perception — that nothing was known by the West and the revolutions came all of a sudden, out of nothing — was not true. We have facts now and they confirm what is now happening in Syria. We know that Freedom House, Albert Einstein Institute, the State Department in the [US] but also many [other] institutions and international institutions … trained people to push towards what they were calling the “uprising” in the Middle East.
So here we have people pushing and states pushing, and we have to ask ourselves why. Because they were controlling the dictators before and even dealing with [the late Col. Muammar] Gaddafi because he came back onto the international scene. And, in fact, the problem that we had from the beginning was that we were thinking in political terms, not in geo-strategically economic terms, because, [as] for the [United] States as well as Europe, they were losing ground in the region in the presence of new actors among them. … As we know, Brazil, Russia, China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Turkey are new players in the region.
So, I think that if we look at the political dimensions, we are misled, and if you look now [at] what is happening in Egypt and what is happening in Tunisia, you can get it. But in fact it is not about the political structures. Tunisia is an assisted economy now. It is impossible for Tunisia to survive without the support of Western countries, especially [the] World Bank and IMF [International Monetary Fund]. [It is] exactly the same with Egypt.
This has to do with strategy, so the whole process is far from being revolutionary. It’s a new positioning; now you can see everything was manipulated and pushed and what we can see is that no one was expecting the Syrian citizens to be so courageous and to take [to] the street. That’s why for eight months the American administration and the European administration were asking [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad to reform and even the Turkish prime minister was hoping it would … reform. After that, they realized it was not going to happen and people were ready to die. So what was not manipulated is the intellectual awakening and the sense [of] the people that you can remove a dictator, and this is irreversible; this is what was gained in the whole process. But this way of romanticiz[ing], in a way of dealing with revolution and the spring — what spring? Which country succeeded today? … Libya is fractured, Egypt is unsettled, Syria is in civil war [and in] Yemen there are tensions.
How has the Arab Spring affected the women of the region? How are activists and politicians seeking progress for women in this uncertain and evolving landscape?
It’s clear that [when] taking to the streets in Midan at-Tahrir [Tahrir Square] in Egypt, there were a great deal of women involved. … I think that there is an awareness here. They were one of the driving forces within the whole process and this is very important. To have a resistance process, as we had, with women being involved was one thing. [It is] another thing to look at what can come afterwards with the presence of women in building the country. … We also have to ask ourselves how the West is portraying this. They are doing now what they did with Turkey after [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan took over, saying, “Oh, the country’s going to be Islamized and you’ll see headscarves everywhere.” So, for them, headscarves mean Islamization, and Islamization means [fewer] rights for women.
My answer to this is completely [the] opposite. You’re not free depending on the way you dress; you are free on two conditions. [The] first is access to education. [Is their access] to education the same as men? … For example, in Turkey, it’s now a reality: Women are now doing better than men [when it comes to being] educated and better educated. In North African and Middle Eastern countries it’s not the case.
What is missing — and this is the second parameter on which we can evaluate if we are dealing with empowering women — is access to the general market, and … access to the general market is essential because this is where you get your recognition, your financial autonomy and something which is your freedom. If you don’t have this, then all that is happening now, after the uprisings, is not enough. We don’t have a policy based on liberating from political oppression and emancipating from male discrimination. So it’s positive as a process, but it’s not achieved as a project.
There exists a fear that the fall of autocratic regimes will result in the takeover of more totalistic, extremist elements. Are these fears well founded?
This is … very old rhetoric, coming from dictators and from Western administrations. … [It’s] rhetoric we’ve had for 40 years. In Egypt, Mubarak said: “If it’s not me it’s going to be the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Muslim Brotherhood are not moderate, because there is nothing like ‘moderate Islamists.’ Moderate Islamist is a contradiction in terms.” And this was what he was selling, and very quickly it was bought by the West and promoted as such. [It was] exactly the same with [Zine El Abidine] Ben Ali in Tunisia. Now what we can see … is that the counter powers coming even from the Islamists are not autocrats and they are not tyrants — they are not dictators. It doesn’t mean because you are not dictators that you are now ready to deal with the democratic process. It’s a long process and you have to take into account the competing forces in society. Look what is happening in Tunisia and Egypt, where you have the Islamists/Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi, and the Salafi are also pushed and you have the jihadists going towards more violence; you have the secularists pushing in one direction and you have the army. The country’s political forces are scattered [but] there is a popular awareness that they do not want dictators again. … They were united against [dictatorship] but they are scattered [in terms of] what they want.
What would be the effect on Israel of the emergence of democracy in the region? Can Israel live with Arab democracy?
The personal adviser to Erdoğan … said the question is not to ask if Muslims are ready for democracy, or are Arabs ready for democracy. The question is to ask [is] if the West is ready for Arab democracy. Do, for example … the great powers of today want democracy? Are they ready for that, because they had been supporting dictators that were protecting their interests? What does it mean if we have true transparent democracies in the Middle East? No one can deny the fact that 80-90 per cent of the people are not happy with the Israeli policy … so there is popular support towards the Palestinians. … True democracy in the region would mean to question the Israeli policy and the way they are dealing with Palestinians. So this is why we have to differentiate between what would be the ideal democratic states and what is the reality today. In fact, in every country they are facing so many problems that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a secondary issue and they are not going to change anything. What you can hear now from the leadership in Egypt [is that] they don’t want to touch the agreement [with Israel]. Tunisia is exactly the same, and even in Turkey we might say it’s good because Erdoğan is taking symbolic positions and [making] very strong statements, but in practical terms this is not changing the reality of the relationship.
Can the Turkish model be relevant for the Arab Spring? Does Turkey represent the path that future Arab democracies should follow?
I have been following the situation in Turkey for the last 20 years. … Erdoğan came, and there is a gap between what he is doing now and what was done before. And then there is a point, which is important, that he has been very successful [in] three fields. The first one is [that] he was able to act against corruption and to try to have more transparent political processes within society. It’s not perfect, and still there is a lot to do in Turkey … but there is a trend here which is important.
The second is the way the current government dealt with the army — in fact, all this discussion with the EU, to integrate [with the] EU, was very smart because this is from where they were able to settle the army … by saying that the [secularism] that is advocated by the EU is not the secular system advocated by the army. … So this is something that happened over the last seven years that is very important because this is where the country is moving toward something important, [and that] is a true democratic process and not a democratic process under the authority of the army as a guardian. When the army is protecting democracy, it’s a problem.
So the third thing is in economic terms, and this is where I think the Turkish model was successful: They are winning the elections because they are successful in current terms and they are [doing] much better even than the great majority, if not all, of the European countries. … [However] what Egypt is experiencing now — or Tunisia — [is that] they don’t have the same assets and they don’t have the same history and they don’t have the same potential.
So what is a model is people saying, “We have an Islamic reference but we have now to open up what is an ‘Islamic reference’.” … Now the choices that are made within the society as to what are the priorities, the choices, to be integrated into the international global economic order, this could be disputable. I would dispute by saying which type of alternative are you proposing, and the Turkish on this are not very much proposing something, except what I saw in the last two years with this shift towards the south and the east. … So I wouldn’t judge too quickly, but I think we still have to remain critical of the Turkish experience in a positive way, not denying that many things have been done right. … But the future of ethics in politics is not to fall into the trap of competing with the global economy as if this is the right thing to do. And the second thing here is not to buy the security measures that are imposed by the West as ours. … And the last point is, beyond the symbolic attitude towards Israel, what is really being done by Turkey to help this conflict to be solved?
Considering the misunderstanding and even conflicts between Islam and the West, is the EU’s refusal to let Turkey in [as a member] more about the clash of cultures, or is it about perceptions?
The fact that the EU is refusing to integrate Turkey reveals lots of things. First, it’s clear that they have an economic concern, by saying that there are millions of Turkish people who [might] come [to the EU]. … The second is the perception that Islam is not a European religion and Turks are mainly Muslims, so it [would be] welcoming an alien element within the European continent. So it’s revealing that the European narrative is not encompassing the Turkish element. … This is where Turkish intellectuals, Turkish politicians and Turkish journalists could be much more assertive as to the European dimension of the Turkish experience. It’s not done enough. It’s done very much in economic terms to integrate [into the] EU. But it’s not presenting the fundamental elements of the EU experience. It’s just structural, which, by the way, is not really democratic.
The Kurdish question, freedom of expression and freedom of religious minorities remain a key challenge for Turkey’s democracy and are said to remain unresolved during the Justice and Development Party’s [AK Party] rule. Do you think the work on the [new] constitution could be a solution to these conflicts?
The situation needs to be tackled and then answered, and I think that beyond the Turkish emotions, there is something in the history and memory of the Turkish nation. … It is dangerous if we keep on tackling it in emotional terms. We should do it in political terms. … If we want to solve the problem we should be clear and consistent with our principles: freedom of expression, freedom of minorities to be accepted and respected within the society. … The current Turkish government should be more consistent when dealing with minorities. The Turkish government is doing very well on many issues … but I keep repeating this, “You should learn to leave.” And I repeat it to the Turkish people; it’s good to be elected, and it’s good to run the country, but history should teach you. And part of your success is to leave at the right time and not to stay too long.
Source : http://www.todayszaman.com/news-304527-tariq-ramadan-the-question-to-ask-is-if-the-west-is-ready-for-arab-democracy.html
