Kirill Popov, exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Problems in the relationship between people who consider themselves to belong to a European, Christian civilization, and people that relate themselves to the Arab, Islamic civilization, have become a common place for both sides of the dialogue. In the public mind, they bring new interpretations of social contradictions, which were primarily the base for the conflict between the ideals of capitalism and socialism and the conflict between the world powers and the countries of the third world, culminating in the past in the struggle against colonialism.
Many ideas about how to resolve these problems and eliminate the causes that generate them have already been expressed. This topic is on the minds of both professional politicians, intellectuals and cultural figures, and various adventurers and amateurs who want to satisfy their vanity, to increase their importance in the society, to make political capital, and if lucky, to gain power. The presence of persons who broke out of the darkness of obscurity into the bright light of public attention only due to this conflict between the participants of the controversy makes it difficult to find answers to pressing questions, but we cannot do without it, as we see in the modern history.
One of the people from the camp of intellectuals and academics in this matter is Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss theologian of Egyptian origin, whose ideas can do a good job in building a dialogue between Muslims, on the one hand, and secularists and Christians, on the other hand. At the same time, the same ideas can destroy any possibility of dialogue. It all depends on how they are understood and interpreted.
Russia actively talked about T. Ramadan last summer of last year, when he gave a lecture dedicated to the so-called "Arab Spring" in Higher School of Economics. During the lecture, Professor of Islam at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) talked a lot about networking technologies in the Tunisian, Libyan, Egyptian, and Syrian events, and also noted a link between the organizers and the U.S. and some European countries. This line of thought is popular in Russia. At the same time, Ramadan spoke of his cautious optimism with respect to these events. However, considering his views only in connection with the "Arab Spring" would not be enough, because the main place in the ideas of Professor is taken by the concept of "European" Islam. According to it, people who practice Islam can seamlessly integrate into European society, if they rethink their faith in terms of the cultural reality in which they find themselves. Tariq Ramadan shows by his own example that it is possible to be both modern European and Muslim. The contradiction between these two identities occurs only when Islam as a religion begins to be confused with cultural traits common to the followers of the religion. These features, however, are by their nature not Islamic, but Arab, and therefore they can hardly be used in the European environment. Therefore, remaining faithful to Islam, they can replace this cultural element to the European one, becoming more understandable to Christian civilization and entering the number of those religions and denominations that have long come to peaceful coexistence in Europe (Christianity and Judaism; Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy within Christianity). As part of a break with the Arab tradition Ramadan, in particular, supports the use of local languages, publishing a lot of religious and philosophical literature in them and delivering sermons. This would help, first, to convey the essence of Islam to ordinary believers who are not the first generation to live in Europe (e. g., in France), and second, to make the world of Islamic thought more accessible and understandable to the casual observer. Problems arise where there is no awareness of each other, according to the professor.
Such an approach also gives us hope because that will narrow the impact of the imams who come from Arab countries, badly speak local languages and do not understand the local situation on European Muslims. Of course, at this point in Europe too few Islamic clerics are being prepared to meet the needs of the faithful. However, if this kind of religious education is properly organized, the EU will get a layer of "domestic" Islamic spiritual leaders, well versed in the local environment, understandable for the people and independent from the influence of the Arab Umma with all its possible anti-European prejudices.
At the same time, it is impossible to say that Ramadan was able to find a universal formula for the resolution of the latent conflict between European society and Muslims. Even if we do not consider the difficulties that will be caused by the implementation of the project, we have to admit that the professor and his ideas are already generating a lot of mistrust and dispute, and there are a lot of dissatisfied people from both parties.
A number of the representatives of European society recalls the origin of Ramadan (his grandfather on his mother professor is Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the "Muslim Brotherhood"), and accuses him of playing to the public (in other words, people believe that the professor says not so much what he really thinks, but what the audience wants to hear from him.) From the Islamic side there is criticism of two types. Official leaders of the Muslim community in Europe find it unacceptable to reject the Arabic language in sermons and to adopt liberties with tradition. Radical Sunni leaders also consider the ideas of Ramadan to be the way of hiding the faith, akin to that of which they accuse the Shiites. Will the views of Professor Tariq Ramadan find enough supporters, and where will they eventually lead? Only time will give us answers to these questions.
