Tariq Ramadan urges Muslims to assume responsibility

February 7, 2016

Despite controversy, the ninth Annual Meeting of Northern Muslims (RAMN) was held on February 7. Nearly 3,000 Muslims gathered in Lille at the behest of the Northern Islamic League (LIN), a branch of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF).

The organizers had originally invited three controversial guests to speak: the Saudi Abdallah Salah Sana’an, the Moroccan Abouzaid Al-Mokri and the Syrian Mohammed Rateb al-Nabulsi. On February 1, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan requested the State’s intervention to cancel the event. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve promised “complete vigilance” regarding the speakers’ remarks. The UOIF eventually chose to cancel their talks.

Syrian Islamic theologian Mohammed Rateb Al-Nabulsi, member of the Muslim Brotherhood who promulgates a strict interpretation of shariah, notably against homosexuals and non-Muslims, was denied a visa.

Concerning the invitation extended to Moroccan MP Abouzaid Al-Mokri, “following the controversy, we cancelled his talk,” said Amar Lasfar, rector of the Lille mosque.

“Finally, Abdallah Salah Sana’an, who travels every year to Bourget to proselytize, came for the blessings. But when we encountered pushback, we said ‘stay home’” said Lasfar.

During the conference, president of the Observatory of Secularism of Val-d’Oise, Laurence Marchand-Taillade, who is also national secretary of the PRG, came to protest outside the building, denouncing the UOIF for “double-speak.”

Lille’s mayor Martine Aubry has distanced herself from the organization’s president for several years. “She’s on bad terms with us,” confirmed Amar Lasfar. In 2013 Aubry stated that the presence of sheik Salah Sultan and Tariq Ramadan at the annual gathering shocked her.

“Lille’s mayor accused me of double-speak in her office one day,” said Lasfar. “I told her: just as you, Madame mayor, a public figure, must have several ways of speaking. The discourse I preach at the mosque is not what I tell the cameras. Everyone does that. I can’t speak the same way to every segment of society. But that doesn’t change anything. Believe me, we couldn’t use double-speak for thirty six years.”

It was on this same theme that Tariq Ramadan concluded the conference. Alone on the stage, with a French flag in the background, he insisted on openness and clarification. Denouncing the recent bill that was passed allowing citizenship to be stripped of terrorists, “as if some Frenchmen were more French than others”– he affirmed: “Lawlessness is not where we think it is: we [Muslims of France] are proponents of French values.”

The theologian urged the thousands of Muslims in the room to assume responsibility: “When those people say that we can kill innocent people in the name of Islam, we have the obligation to say that we condemn those remarks and that we will fight against them.”

To conclude, Ramadan confirmed that he would request French citizenship. “It’s not a joke,” he said to thunderous applause. “France is a country I know well. We will see if they deny me citizenship.” What are his future intentions? “France needs to renew its political class,” he told the crowd.

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