An employee of Reverend Moon warns of a religious fanatic entering the USA with evil intent, as Washington Times and UPI “editor at large” Arnaud de Borchgrave uses Moon’s organ to weigh in on the Tariq Ramadan affair (link snagged from Christianity Today):
Tariq Ramadan is radioactive. Speak to any Christian in the Arab world, and “roadkill” is the nicest thing you’ll hear about him…
Any chance of an actual quote, or explanation of why they would say this?
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.
A transcription of the interview is available here, from a French secularist website with anti-Ramadan footnotes added. Here’s some of what Ramadan said:
T.R.: Monsieur Sarkozy, Monsieur Sarkozy, Monsieur Sarkozy, écoutez bien ce que je dit. Ce que je dis, c’est que ma position à moi, c’est qu’elle n’est pas applicable, c’est clair ? Mais aujourd’hui je parle à des musulmans du monde entier et je collabore, que ce soit aux Etats-Unis, dans le monde musulman. Vous devez avoir une posture pédagogique qui fasse discuter les gens. Vous ne pouvez pas décider tout seul d’être progressiste sans les communautés, c’est trop facile. Aujourd’hui, ma position c’est de dire nous devons cesser… Ma position, elle est extrêmement claire, la violence conjugale et la violence à l’endroit d’une femme, est inacceptable islamiquement.
His argument seems to be that stoning can never be applicable in practice, and as a Muslim progressive debating within the Muslim community that is the best position to hold. In other words, rather than reject part of his sacred texts, he has looked for a way to interpret around them. For those of us who prefer secularists like Tariq Ali on the subject of Islam, this might appear a bit weak (fatal, even), but it’s hardly evidence of a secret fundamentalism. Judaism has been doing exactly the same thing with its sacred texts for centuries. I also recall that when Jesus rejected lapidation, he did not condemn the Torah but stated that stoning could not be applied because only someone without sin should do it (John 8, whether or not historical). Clearly Jesus was really a Pharisee fanatic packaging his message of Jewish extremism for credulous liberal gentiles…
But de Borchgrave has more:
The author of a dozen books, Mr. Ramadan lets fly staccato-style, at the speed of an AK-47 on full automatic, quotations from Nietzsche, Heidegger and the Koran, to prove a central point: Decadent Europe will give way to an Islamized Europe.
The 21st century, he 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.
My God, a triple whammy of Nietzsche, Heidegger and the Koran! And, in his own words, we have his belief that the west in decline but that his religion might improve things in his part of the world! Of course, the experts know what that really means: “Kill the Jews and Crusaders!”
De Borchgrave was first introduced to me by Dark Window Pete at Sadly No! back in July. Pete explored de Borchgrave’s article for NewsMax “Daily Terror Diet“, in which de Borchgrave used the case of the French woman supposedly attacked on a Paris train to show that virulent anti-Semitism is overtaking France. This was AFTER the woman had been arrested, tried and sentenced for making the whole thing up, but de Borchgrave shrugged all that off:
True or not, the woman’s story was all too believable.
More links on the Ramadan affair are available from the latest Christianity Today weblog.
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