"Brother" Tariq

The French magazine L'Express has reported that French journalist Caroline Fourest has written a book titled Frere Tariq: Discours, stratégie et méthode de Tariq Ramadan. Translated to English, the title is Brother Tariq: Discourse, Strategy and Method of Tariq Ramadan. Using the Google translation tool, the L'Express article states that Ms. Fourest has concluded that "Tariq Ramadan is well (sic) the islamist that some feared." Ms. Fourest relied not only on published interviews with Ramadan, but also on audiotaped speeches and lectures of Ramadan.

In another L'Express article, titled Ramadan est un chef de guerre, Ms. Fourest states (again, Google translation):

Tariq Ramadan is not a bomb planter, but a layer of particularly harmful ideas for public freedoms. [A]fter having listened to his cassettes . . . [o]ne discovers there [that] Ramadan . . . delivers its political objectives: to modify secularity and to make evolve things to "more Islam". Unfortunately, it is a question of diffusing an enlightened and modern Islam not, but, quite to the contrary, a fundamentalist Islam and reactionary, integrist, that Tariq Ramadan wishes to see growing with the detriment of liberal Islam . . . .

From Ms. Fourest's analysis, it appearst that, much like Yasir Arafat, Ramadan uses "double-speak" - telling one thing to his Western audience, and telling another to his Muslim audience. Ms. Fourest also alleges that Ramadan uses the legacy of his grandfather to introduce European Muslims to modern day Islamists:

[Ramadan] radicalizes the Moslems under his influence by initiating them with the thought of Hassan Al-Banna . . . then [] puts them in liaison with the current ideologists of the Moslem Brothers: Youssef Al-Qaradhawi, one of the rare Moslem theologists to openly approve the attacks of the kamikazes, or Fayçal Mawlawi, which is not only one Moslem Brother, but also the principal head of a Lebanese terrorist organization.

Ms. Fourest also asserts this regarding the notion that Ramadan is a "moderate":

Why aren't liberal Moslem truths heard, which really wish to modernize Islam? Because Tariq Ramadan speaks in their place . . . [In] the eyes of Ramadan, the Moslems who []themselves [] want to reform their religion in the direction of the progress and the modernity, or which quite simply wish to evolve to an individual faith, more cultural than political, are false Moslems, shown to have sold their heart in the Occident. . . . For Ramadan, to re-examine a principle of Koran in the name of the humans right, for example to give up the port of the veil, amounts betraying Islam.

Let's hope somebody translates her book for Fr. Monk Malloy.

L'Express also irked the writers at IslamOnline.net in another expose of Ramadan. From the IslamOnline.net article:

L’Express further published excerpts from Ramadan’s lectures and seminars recorded on audio tapes, branding them as an outspoken call for Islamizing French society. It also quoted Ramadan as encouraging Muslims to respect European constitutions so long as they were in line with Islam. “It means that Ramadan has no respect for European constitutions,” the magazine said.