Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the US used to be a place where guilt was not held to automatically pass from father to son.

Of what guilt is Hasan Al Banna being accused of? He had helped establish the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 as a resistance movement against British Colonialism. From then to 1949, when Al Banna was assasinated, the Brotherhoods activities did not constitute what can be described as terrorism. Is he being accused of the political direction and violence undertaken by the brotherhood a few decades after his death?

do a little ?find? & ?replace? with all the abrahamic religions and you can find the same tensions with pluralism when they are interpreted in a certain way.

Yes, indeed. In other words, the problem is monotheistic religions themselves – ALL of them (especially Christianity and Islam). Sorry if that’s offensive to some (FWIW, I was raised a Protestant Christian), but I don’t see how you can reduce the problem further than that. I know Mr Ramadan doesn’t like the idea of ‘tolerance’, implying as it does indifference; but that’s what I think is called for for all monotheisms, no more and no less. I don’t mean to imply that great ethical traditions shouldn’t be respected, even admired, but only as such. I don’t trust these religions qua religions. They will always eventually cause problems, because they are each the One True.

If we can’t have Mr Ramadan in the country, we should also expel Pat Robertson and his ilk, along with some members of AIPAC. Otherwise: by all means, tolerate – but en garde

a defensible point of view, but i think it is easy to dispute. from what i have heard/read of ramadan he occupies a place similar to a conservative christians, in other words, probably not a person who should be lumped with islamists, but not someone that who is as acceptable as one can get if you are a left-liberal secularist.

see lee smith in the american prospect:

That Ramadan believes Islam will replace Judaism and Christianity may come as a surprise to those who thought he was just saying Islam is compatible with liberal values (it will certainly surprise the fathers at Notre Dame). Rather, Ramadan is a cold-blooded Islamist who believes that Islam is the cure for the malaise wrought by liberal values. His revision of the jihadist paradigm — peaceful but total — is brilliant in its way, and he may well turn out to be a major Islamist intellectual, far surpassing even his grandfather’s influence. His cry of death to the West is a quieter and gentler jihad, but it’s still jihad. There’s no reason for Western liberals to try to understand that point of view.

do a little “find” & “replace” with all the abrahamic religions and you can find the same tensions with pluralism when they are interpreted in a certain way. i say interpreted because a small fringe of muslim scholars is more “radical” in their acceptance of modernity and religious pluralism than ramadan.

ramadan isn’t a radical or extremist, but assuming he’s a paragon of distestablishmentarianism is overdoing it.

The 911 terrorists were fanatical muslims, and not one of them was “poor” by your definition. Most were actually fairly well educated. These muslim terrorists are “extremists”, and have an archane ideology that does not fit in a modern society. They lash out, because they do not know how to adapt to living with “the sons of apes and dogs”.

As far as the supposed “cia-supported” regimes, well, some did turn out to be bad apples, but is the cia really to be held to blame? If so, then the numbers of dead would number into the tens of thousands.

Meanwhile, back in Euroland and parts east, communist governments with leaders like Mao, Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, and Jung have murdered more than 100 million people. And people like you lefty-libs just dismiss their crimes with a shrug.

I can’t. I won’t. Never forget that the reason most of you can blather away like idiots today is that our friends across the pond, where I happen to be living today, never forgot about us.

I am eternally grateful, as you should be. If the yanks make mistakes, we should counsel them rather than condemn them.

I am looking forward to a Kerry presidency. I believe it is really possible. The reason I like Kerry is because his foreign policy *will be about the same*, just presented differently.

Regards.

This is a standard that is of course completely hypocritical. It is true that Muslims have a tendency to be apologetic about some Muslim atrocities. This is a tendency that needs to be addressed. But it is nearly universal. How many Christians condemn their own religion for the burning of the Library of Alexandria and the mutilation and murder of Hypatia?

Leftists often apologize for communism. Stalin wasn’t a true communist, Lenin and Trotsky were great men, Ho Chi Min was a great democrat, Cuba is the freest country in the world, and other BS. By the same token, rightists often apologize for fascism – Pinochet was better than Allende, Hitler was a leftist, Synghman Rhee was a great leader, and so on. For an example of the latter, just read Sebastian Holsclaw’s blog, and search for “Pinochet” to find the post where he basically said “fascism was bad, but it was better than communism.”

Or, look at American patriotism. How many Americans know of all the people CIA-supported regimes in Latin America killed? How many Americans know and condemn all the evil that the colonists did in the War of Independence, the true interests of the Founding Fathers, and so on? The few who do are people like Howard Zinn who then refuse to acknowledge the good things the USA’s done and the evils that radical leftist regimes have done.

In a world where almost everyone is either a fanatic or, much more commonly, an apologetic for some fanatics, it’s hypocritical to view just one brand of apologists as pro-terrorism. If you want to restrict Muslim intellectuals from entering the USA on the grounds that they don’t condemn terrorism sufficiently, then apply the same standard to Christians, Hindus, leftists, and rightists. If the whole package includes deportation then the USA will have to deport almost all of its people and every single national politician.

By the way, Traveller, you’re being a bit hysterical with your better-safe-than-sorry argument. In the year with the highest number of civilian deaths from terrorism in the USA, 2001, 3,000 people were killed, vs. 100,000 from hospital-related infections, 11,000 from gun violence, god knows how many from traffic accidents… Terrorism is a problem that should be solved, but it doesn’t justify getting hysterical about it. I’d rather the government spend its resources on solving the problem of world hunger, which kills 3,000 people every 3 hours, and is also related to two of the causes of terrorism (namely, poverty and dependence on extremist welfare organizations).

No real basis for either conclusion has been put forward.

In Ramadan’s case specifically, I was refering to accusations by a private investigator after 9/11 that some European intelligence services were investigating Ramadan, claiming that he had met with a know terrorist figure in 1991. Ramadan denies this, no European intelligence service has commented, and in all this time no further witnesses or claims have come forward.

Traveller, Americans didn’t make this decision. The Department of Homeland Security did. Americans have traditionally understood themselves to have the right to hear whoever they want to hear speak, and to individually invite other people to America to say what they want, barring only actual threats to public security or probable immigration law violations. I can not see how Ramadan fits either category.

I see that you seem to wish for the US to err on the side of caution and just ban all Muslim from entering the US regardless of probable cause or actual claims or status. If you would prefer to live in a country where Muslims have to register their religion and are restricted in their civil liberties in the name of public security, there is a place for you. Of course, it has a lot more terrorism than the US, so one has to ask how much good such measures really do.

“If one doesn’t learn from history, one is forced to repeat it.”

How many times have countries differentiated between individuals on the basis of race, religion, family or some other totally irrelevant factor instead of treating all individuals equally and on their own merits? Many countries still do. And, it is almost always to the detriment of the country doing the differentiating and to the benefit of those that don’t.

I agree that the country that gave Einstein and thousands of others a home now has the perogative to discriminate against individuals on the basis of their culture rather than their actions. But, it might not be in the long-term interest of the country.

Michael D
(as I notice we now have two different Michaels on the blog)