Fire Tariq Ramadan!

O.J. is not the worst thing about USC

Robert Spencer at JihadWatch.org reported today that the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at the University of Southern California still has the "conversion" narrative of Adam Yahiye Gadahn, a/k/a Adam Pearlman a/k/a Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki. You read read the ravings of this moron here.

The website of the MSA at USC indicates that Gadahn/Pearlman/Al-Amriki's narrative was taken from "taken from email and newsgroup submissions." Gadahn was not a student at USC. You can read about the MSA here. Just a nice sample:

During an October 2000 anti-Israeli protest, former MSA president Ahmed Shama at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) stood before the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles, shouting "Victory to Islam! Death to the Jews!" MSA West president Sohail Shakr declared at the same rally, "the biggest impediment to peace [in the Middle East] has been the existence of the Zionist entity in the middle of the Muslim world."

For those of you unaware of who Adam Gadahn is, he may be "Azzam the American", the alleged al Qaeda useful idiot who threatened more attacks against the USA. Robert Spencer also has an article on Gadahn here.

Hire this man

Perhaps the Holy Cross fathers at UND should consider hiring Fr. John Pawlikowski:

Father John Pawlikowski, director of Catholic-Jewish studies at Chicago's Catholic Theological Union in Hyde Park, was lecturing in France when Ramadan's appointment was announced. "A group of Catholic moderates raised the issue quite strongly with me," he tells me. "They wanted to know why Notre Dame was so naive as to hire Tariq Ramadan, who they claimed gives quite inflammatory talks to poor Muslims in the poverty-stricken suburbs of Paris."

At least Fr. Pawlikowski listened to the critics of Ramadan, unlike the UND administration.

The article continues with a discussion of the Chicago Tribune's treatment of Daniel Pipes this past summer re: the Ramadan affair.

More from American Thinker article

Even more from the American Thinker article mentioned below:

Elisabeth Schemla from the newsmagazine website proche-orient.info reported that during her recent visit to Notre Dame, she tried, to no avail, to warn the University administrators about the dangers of having Ramadan teach. . . . Schemla also remarked that Indiana is the headquarters location of one of the biggest Islamist organizations in the US: the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Steven Emerson, renowned terrorism expert, has been very vocal in establishing the links between ISNA, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and (surprise!) the Muslim Brotherhood.

Here is the article written by Elisabeth Schemla. Using Google's Language Tools, one can get a rough translation of portions of Schemla's article:

Last week, I was invited to the University Our-Lady, in Indiana in the United States, to give a conference whose title was as follows: "Confronted with Islam, France and the combat for secularity". . . . Of course it is in the name of the tolerance . . . that this fundamentalist will make its entry in this university . . . When I have asked . . . if it were known that he is anti-semite, it answered me that there was no convincing proof; that it is in favour of the disappearance of the State of Israel, I was entitled to an astonishment without continuation; which position Ramadan has on the women, I understood well that the hidjab, here, is regarded as a sizeable cultural practice; when I spoke about his tactic to Islamize the Western companies, one believed nothing of it. And when I told that it is, as by chance, in Indiana which is based the principal organization American islamist, my interlocutors were unaware of all of it.

Obviously Google's Language Tools aren't perfect - but the substance of this verifies the American Thinker allegation.

The American Thinker article also states:

[I]n his book, The Islam in Question, Ramadan clearly writes that he strongly favors the death of Israel, or rather of the “Zionist entity” -- the term used by Islamists who do not want utter the word Israel.

I could not determine whether an English translation of this book is available.

Perhaps Monk was too busy helping Bill Diedrick design the bubble-screen play to hire a translator to look into this allegation. Perhaps he was too busy listening to Athletic Director Kevin White to give Ms. Schemla a chance to present these allegations. If her claims are true, it is the biggest mistake UND has ever made regarding a hire - even worse than the George O'Leary fiasco. Perhaps UND is hoping that Beano Cook will defend this mistake too.

The American Thinker article does list the allegations of Ramadan's links to terrorist organizations (which Daniel Pipes also reiterated). The article, however, does not allege that Ramadan is a terrorist, instead stating:

Even though Ramadan cannot be charged with terrorism, it is clear that his speeches and tapes broadcasted in a lot of European mosques constitute an incitement to terrorism against the West. He supplies moral support for terrorism, and therefore should be viewed as a very dangerous man, because of the numerous terrorists his views foster.

"Free speech for me, none for thee"

The pro-Ramadan chorus focuses on "academic freedom" when arguing in favor of allowing him into the USA.

It would be nice, however, if these supporters would request that Ramadan return the favor regarding dissenting views. According to this May, 2004 article in the American Thinker:

The first visible sign of [Ramadan's] fundamentalist view appeared when, in 1993, he lobbied actively to outlaw a play called Mahomet, which represented the Muslim Prophet in a light that did not fit with Ramadan’s views.

Something about this really bothered me - did the author mean Voltaire's Mahomet?

It appears that the author did indeed mean Voltaire's play. This 1994 archived article from Banned-Books.com indicates that the city of Geneva did indeed ban Voltaire's play that year!

The city of Geneva has once again proven Voltaire's subversiveness-by preventing performance of his play, "Mahomet, ou le Fanatisme." . . . When a plan to restage "Mahomet" in Switzerland was proposed, Muslim "cultural centers" overtly denounced "blasphemy" and covertly hinted at violence. Geneva's authorities yielded to the pressure, and religious fanatics were appeased once again.

So a prime defender of free speech is silenced yet again. As the Banned-Books.com article relates:

Voltaire wasn't actually attacking Mohammed. His main targets, thinly disguised, were religious fanaticism in general, and Christian fanatics in particular. . . . Rejecting the cruel, terrorizing, vindictive Jehovah portrayed by most Christian clergy in his time, he turned to the remote mild God of the British deists. And, in "Mahomet," he attacked fraudulent and persecuting priests.

I suppose Tariq relied on literary deconstruction to get at the subtext of Mahomet in order to complain that it was "bigoted." Edward Said's Orientalism thesis matched with covert [hints] at violence." Sums up Islamism nicely.

He sounds like Oswald Spengler

Mole or Savior?, written by Arnaud de Borchgrave, was published in the Washington Times in September. According to de Borchgrave,

In a televised debate with France's then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy late last year, Mr. Ramadan declined to condemn "lapidation" -- the stoning of adulterous wives as mandated by a strict interpretation of the Koran. Instead, Mr. Ramadan said he favored a "moratorium" in the practice.

Another interesting piece of the article:

The 21st century, [Ramadan] says, will see a second role reversal between Islam and the West: "The West will begin its new decline, and the Arab-Islamic world its renewal" and ascent to seven centuries of world domination after seven centuries of decline.

The fully European Islam, he predicts, presupposes a violent upheaval against the Western values Mr. Ramadan rejects. But he quickly cushions the supposition with hosannas to democracy and free expression. He is a past master of dissimulation and disinformation.

Shades of Oswald Spengler! Ramadan's assertions sure remind one of Spengler's "Decline of the West" thesis. Of course, one main difference is that Spengler didn't exactly support the Nazis, whereas Islamist nuts think old Adolph was just swell. Mein Kampf in Arabic, anyone?

This disturbing view is nearly equivalent to the historicism that Karl Popper refuted in the Poverty of Historicism. Obviously the two are not equivalent; Ramadan/Islamist historicism doesn't really need human beings to discern the rhythms and "laws" of history or civilizational development. No need to discuss this further as the Cornell Review has already done it for me.

Even more claptrap as per M. de Borchgrave:

Mr. Ramadan speaks the language of Europe's intellectual left. A frequent lecturer in U.S. universities, his brilliantly articulate perorations mesmerize his liberal fans. "Only Islam can achieve the synthesis between Christianity and humanism, and fill the spiritual void that afflicts the West." All good people are implicitly Muslims, he maintains, "because true humanism is founded in Koranic revelations."

Not exactly a strong argument in favor of religious pluralism. I suppose his dissertation didn't include any required readings on Christian humanists like Erasmus or Thomas Aquinas.

Wow! Even more:

"Today the Muslims who live in the West must unite themselves to the revolution of the anti-establishment groups from the moment when the neoliberal capitalist system becomes, for Islam, a theater of war," is another thunderclap [by Ramadan] that says "jihad" to his detractors and sweet reasonableness to his fans.

Workers, er, Islamists of the world unite! Wonder how well they'll get along with the women proletariat who would rather keep the chador at home?

And finally this gem:

Muslim identity is the only true source of universality, proclaims Tariq Ramadan. "It will fill the spiritual void that afflicts the West."

Hmm - not much room for religious plurality there. Wonder if Monk Malloy knows about that one. Doesn't seem to jibe with the University of Notre Dhimmi's Mission Statement. And wait - it is the only true source of universality? Where is George Soros with his love of Karl Popper's Open Society and Its Enemies on that? Isn't Ramadan essentially positing a statement as the "truth" and forbidding any dissent? Why isn't it in a falsifiable framework? I'll let the Cornell Review handle this point too as the Bloviator Soros hasn't got a clue about Popper.

Tariq's PoMo jargon

Look's like Tariq knows his PoMo (postmodernist) jargon well.  What the heck does "contextually explicable" mean anyway???

As Pipes pointed out in an article in September, Ramadan was interviewed by the Italian magazine Panorama and later claimed that the magazine "misquoted" him in the published interview.  The magazine, which recorded the interview, replied to this allegation as follows:

After the publication of the last issue with his interview, Ramadan sent this letter: "Panorama attributes me unacceptable sentences that I never pronounced and that would lead people to believe that ‘it is comprehensible to kill children.' Nothing can justify the killing of children and the innocent and these acts are in contradiction with the principles of Islam. My condemnation is clear."

The interview with Ramadan was recorded. Here is the full transcript of his answer to the question of whether it is right to kill children and Israeli civilians because they are considered soldiers.

I don't believe that an eight year old child is a soldier. These acts are condemnable; therefore one has to condemn them in themselves. But I say to the international community that they are contextually explicable, and not justifiable. What does this mean? It means that the international community today has placed the Palestinians in a situation where they are delivered political oppression, which explains (not justifying it) that at a certain point people say: we don't have arms, we don't have anything, and so we cannot do anything other than this. It is contextually explicable but morally condemnable.

Saying that killing Israeli children is "contextually explicable" is tantamount to a "clear condemnation"? Justifying that there is no choice but to kill is a "clear condemnation" of the culture of death? Is it a "clear" position to say that an Israeli eight year old child is not a soldier, but his parents who ride the bus and get blown-up are soldiers? Who then are the "innocent" in Ramadan's eyes? Why did he not reply to this question, as did Magdi Allam [a prominent Italian journalist of Egyptian Muslim origins], that "human life is sacred"?

Well, there's that darn "contextually explicable"!  Wow, maybe Tariq does have a lot to teach the U of Notre Dhimmi:

Angry Alumnus: Kevin White, why does Bill Deidrick's coaching stink???
AD Kevin White: Well, his coaching is contextually explicable . . .

Angry Residence Hall Rector: Hey! Why are you students breaking parietals!?!
Students: Well, the University's student codebook, du Lac, is constextually explicable . . .

What a load of hermeneutical nonsense.  How postmodern.  So Yasir Arafat has "no choice" but to send other people's children on suicide missions. What, nonviolent resistance won't work in the West Bank?!?  It's all contextually explicable!  And THIS is the kind of guy that the Kroc Institute wants teaching UND's students?

I'll leave the final word on this matter to Daniel Pipes:

It's case closed on the matter of both Ramadan's being moderate or truthful. He is neither one nor the other.

Back to the issue

Well, I had better get back to the issue on which this blog was created: that the University of Notre Dame is making a serious error in hiring Tariq Ramadan, professor at the College de Saussure, Geneva, Switzerland, grandson of Hasan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), and a "moderate" Muslim anointed by media outlets such as Time magazine as one of the most important thinkers in the world.  UND hired him - to a tenured position - as the Henry Luce professor of religion at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.  Rather ironic that Henry Luce was a co-founder of Time magazine.

This "moderate" was denied entry into the USA this past summer, although DhimmiWatch reported earlier this month that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will likely cave and allow him to enter the country and begin teaching (at what I will now refer to as the University of Notre Dhimmi). 

And why, pray tell, was this "moderate" denied entry into the US?  Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum,  one of the few who actually tried to raise red-flags on the topic of Islamism prior to 9/11/2001, lists the following in an article published last August:

• [Ramadan] has praised the brutal Islamist policies of the Sudanese politician Hassan Al-Turabi. Mr. Turabi in turn called Mr. Ramadan the "future of Islam."
• Mr. Ramadan was banned from entering France in 1996 on suspicion of having links with an Algerian Islamist who had recently initiated a terrorist campaign in Paris.
• Ahmed Brahim, an Algerian indicted for Al-Qaeda activities, had "routine contacts" with Mr. Ramadan, according to a Spanish judge (Baltasar Garzón) in 1999.
• Djamel Beghal, leader of a group accused of planning to attack the American embassy in Paris, stated in his 2001 trial that he had studied with Mr. Ramadan.
• Along with nearly all Islamists, Mr. Ramadan has denied that there is "any certain proof" that Bin Laden was behind 9/11.
• He publicly refers to the Islamist atrocities of 9/11, Bali, and Madrid as "interventions," minimizing them to the point of near-endorsement.

The article includes links to the sources, primarily French media outlets.

Predictably, Ramadan's exclusion led to a series of articles by the media, such as this article by Paul Donnelly,  which continued to portray Ramadan as a "moderate" Muslim whose academic career focused on the issue of modernity and Islam.  Ramadan even alleged Pipes was involved in the revoking of the visa, an allegation which Pipes refuted days later in a response to a series of Chicago Tribune articles in Ramadan's favor.

In this response, Pipes stated that:

Once again we see that the leftward leaning academy and in particular the Kroc Institute [at Notre Dame] has a soft spot for militant Islamic figures. Given what we are now learning about him, it would appear like others, he is playing a double game of hiding an Islamist agenda.

The deceived of this "double game" also included Pipes, who had given an extremely positive review of Ramadan's book To Be a European Muslim in the year 2000.  As Pipes had pointed out in his weblog cataloging his responses to the Tribune, he had been pro-Ramadan until the "revelations about Ramadan came out in late 2003." It is extremely doubtful that Pipes - who has been calling for the support of moderate Muslim voices for years - would be so against approval of Ramadan's entry into the USA unless there truly were valid concerns regarding Ramadan's alleged links to, or implicit support of, radical Islamist groups.

The Observer, the student newspaper of the U. of Notre Dhimmi, described the reaction of Fr. Edward "Monk" Malloy, President of the U., as follows:

And while Malloy made clear that "the last thing we want to do is favor somebody who would be a threat to the well-being of the country," he said proof of such accusations had yet to emerge.

Figures.  Monk's staff fails to do the research on George O'Leary and they don't do the research on Tariq Ramadan.

And what would they have found had they done the proper due diligence?  Let's see . . .

Jacques Derrida - kaput

Scott Ott's site, ScrappleFace, had an obit for Jacques Derrida here. Monsieur Derrida was an Algerian-born Frenchman and the "father" of deconstruction. No need to even try to top Ott's obit.

No Doubt Monsieur Derrida is having a nice chat with Edward Said and Michel Foucault in the afterlife.

Sufi Stephen Schwartz re: Colubus Day

Yet another good article from Stephen Schwartz, a Sufi convert who is making a career out of standing up to the Islamofascists, such as through his Two Faces of Islam book. Titled Columbus Day Dreams, his new article discusses some BS re: Columbus spouted by the Council on Islamic Education, a group Schwartz ID's as having links to the "Wahhabi lobby."

Schwartz saw firsthand what the Wahabbis were doing in the Balkans during the 1990s (gotta dig up that interview he gave on the subject).

No Doubt that Monk'll hear from Tariq on this matter. Looks like U of ND will have to fix the paintings of Columbus in the Main Building to reflect these new "facts" on Columbus' voyage.

New pic of the Golden Dome!

Just got my pictures back from my trip to the Michigan game on Sept. 11, 2004.

Wow, I still can't believe what Monk Malloy has done to the Golden Dome on top of the Main Building at the U of Notre Dame! He really outdid himself in trying to make Professor Tariq Ramadan welcome. Oops - Tariq wasn't on campus and missed the game. What a shame - those big meanies from the State Department not letting him onto campus!

The students were denied an education too. Tariq could've learned 'em good that the statue of Maryam had to come down. He could've pointed to the statue of Jes- er, Isa - in front of the Main Building and informed us that Allah does not beget, nor is he begotten, and we had better not forget it. Yes, State sure had a lot of nerve stopping Monk's quest to transform the U of Our Lady into the U of Notre Dhimmi, the University of the Protected People of the Book.