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Professor Tariq Ramadan is a man of no need to introduction. He holds MA in Philosophy and French literature and PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Geneva. In Cairo, Egypt he received one-on-one intensive training in classic Islamic scholarship from Al-Azhar University scholars. Tariq Ramadan is Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University (Oriental Institute, St Antony’s College ). He is also teaching at the Faculty of Theology at Oxford. He is at the same time a Visiting Professor in Qatar (Faculty of Islamic Studies) and in Morocco (Mundiapolis) and a Senior Research Fellow at Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan).[/symple_box]
12 years ago, I wrote a manifesto for a new “We,” an appeal to the western Muslims, and their fellow citizens. We have ample reason to be concerned. The repeated terrorist attacks throughout the world along with the “war against terror” and the increased tensions arising from social problems have combined to portray Islam as a threat to the Western societies. Fear, and its accompanying emotional reactions, has become a part of the public mindset. Such reactions, while often legitimate, are also being exploited with increasing frequency for political ends.
Hardly a Western society has been spared its own searing questions of “identity” or its “integration”-related tensions. Muslims find themselves faced with clear-cut alternatives: they can adopt the attitude of the “victim” or they can face up to their difficulties, become full-fledged subjects of their own History. In the final analysis, their fate is in their hands. Nothing will change until they accept full responsibility for themselves, become constructively critical, and self critical, and respond to the creeping “evolution of fear” with a firmly grounded “revolution of trust”.
Handling fears; facing legitimate questions:
Events of recent years have brought Western populations face to face with new realities. The increasingly visible presence of millions of Muslims in their midst has made them aware that their societies have changed and this has given rise to fears, and to questions that are perfectly legitimate, even though they may be expressed with a certain confusion. Faced with these questions, Muslims must express confidence in themselves, in their ability to live and to communicate with full serenity in Western societies. The revolution of trust for which we appeal will depend on self-confidence, on confidence in one’s convictions: the task is to reappropriate one’s heritage, and to develop toward it a positive yet critical intellectual attitude affirming that the teachings of Islam summon Muslims to spiritual life and to self-reform. They must insist that Muslims are expected to respect the laws of the countries in which they reside.
Faced with legitimate fears, Western Muslims cannot simply minimize the questions. They must develop a critical discourse that rejects the victim’s stance, one that criticizes instead radical, literal and/or cultural readings of the sources. It is also important that they do not endorse the confusion that surrounds the debates related to their societies: social problems are not “religious problems” and have nothing to do with Islam as such.
Exploiting fear:
The arguments that were, yesterday, the sole province of parties of the extreme right have unfortunately found a home within traditional mainstream parties. At a loss for creative ideas for promoting cultural pluralism or for combating social ghettoization, numerous politicians prefer the dangerous rhetoric of protecting “identity”, of defending “Western values”, of imposing strict limitations on “foreigners” with, of course, the whole apparatus of new security laws to fight terrorism. The implicit terms of the debate is often reduced to a distinction between two entities: “We, Westerners” and “They, the Muslims”, even when citizens are Muslims.
Racist speech proliferates; the past is reinterpreted so as to exclude Islam from the slightest participation in the creation of the Western identity, henceforth redefined as purely Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian; individuals are tested at the border to determine their “moral flexibility” of immigrants. In response to these attempts at instrumentalisation, Muslim citizens must behave contrary to what would be a natural reaction : instead of withdrawing into isolation, they must make themselves heard, step out of their religious, social, cultural ghettos and move forward to meet their fellow citizens. The policies of those who exploit fear are intended to create precisely what they claim to combat : by perpetually accusing Muslims of not being integrated and of shutting themselves up in a religious identity, these intellectuals and politicians try to isolate them.
A new “We:”
Time is to reconciliation. Muslims must engage with their fellow citizens in reconciling their societies with their own ideals. What is at stake today is to compare the proclaimed ideals of each society with the concrete practices that can be observed at the social grassroots as to human rights and equality (between men and women, people of different origins, etc.). We must bring constructive criticism to bear on our societies, and measure words against deeds.
Our societies are awaiting the emergence of a new “We”. A “We” that would bring together men and women (of all religion and those without religion) who would undertake to resolve the contradictions of their society. Such a “We” would henceforth represent this coming together of citizens who seek to struggle together for their future.
This future is now being played out at the local level. It is a matter of greatest urgency to set in motion national movements of local initiatives, in which people of different sensitivities can open new horizons of shared commitment: horizons of trust which are going to give birth to the new “We”.
Together they must learn to question educational programs such as History that should be more inclusive : at the risk of touching off a competition for most-wounded victim status, a more objective teaching of “our” History must be made official by integrating the memories building the current community. On the social level, we must commit ourselves to a far more thoroughgoing social mixing in both our schools and our cities.
Western societies will not win the battle against social insecurity through the sole security-based approach. Social institutions, civic education, job-creation are imperative within the cities. Town councils’ commitment can make a difference in order to struggle against suspicion and citizens must not hesitate to knock on their doors, to remind them that in a democratic society the elected representative is at the service of the voter, and not the opposite.
A revolution of trust and confidence, the birth of a new “We” driven by national movement of local initiatives : such are the contours of a responsible commitment by all the citizens. For they lay claim to the benefits of a citizen-based ethic; for they want to promote the western cultural richness; for they know that its survival will depend upon a new sense of political creativity. Citizens must work in the long term, above and beyond the electoral deadlines that paralyze politicians and hinder the formulation of innovative, courageous policies. When the elected official has nowhere to turn, when he no longer can translate his ideas into reality, it falls to the voters, to the citizens, to lay full claim to their ideals, and to make them a reality.
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Professor Tariq Ramadan is a man of no need to introduction. He holds MA in Philosophy and French literature and PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Geneva. In Cairo, Egypt he received one-on-one intensive training in classic Islamic scholarship from Al-Azhar University scholars. Tariq Ramadan is Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University (Oriental Institute, St Antony’s College ). He is also teaching at the Faculty of Theology at Oxford. He is at the same time a Visiting Professor in Qatar (Faculty of Islamic Studies) and in Morocco (Mundiapolis) and a Senior Research Fellow at Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan).[/symple_box]
