Conversations with History - Tariq Ramadan

[Music] welcome to a conversation with history I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies our guest today is tariq ramadhan who is professor of Islamic studies on the Faculty of theology and Oxford University he is also president of the European Muslim Network he has many publications including in the foots of the Prophet lessons from the life of Muhammad the quest for meaning developing a philosophy of pluralism and his most recent book what I believe tarik welcome to Berkeley thank you for your invitation where were you born and raised I was born in Geneva and I was raised there so I studied all my life was I beginning I started and till the the PhD in Geneva and looking back how do you think your parents shaped your thinking about the world no I think it was very important it's the this legacy was important because then they left the country as political in political exiles right in that country wise was yes and and everything was about you know the country of origin and dreaming of going back there so all these shaped my understanding and I saw my mother being involved in all the struggle of my and my father dreaming of going back and at the same time having his body in Switzerland and his heart in Egypt and and your your grandfather tell us about your grandfather because he is an important figure in the history of the region yes he's the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood that he founded in late 20s in 28 and he was involved in resisting the British presence and the British colonization and he was assassinated in 1949 in fact he is the father of my mother but he was the spiritual teacher of my father so the the married after he passed away after he was killed but he was involved in in what is known as you know is the first Islamist movement in in contemporary history and reading about him he was really a political activist who created a really extraordinary movement in what would with very great roots both in Egypt and in the Islamic world yes I think that very often the people don't know about him because you know 95% of what he wrote and said is still in Arabic it's not translated and then in fact yes at the beginning it was resisting the British colonialism and coming back to the Islamic rules and it was a non-violent movement a legalist movement after word after the repression after Nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser become became the president and started this his repression against them he was one of them by the way but then he started the repression we had trends that started to be more violent and and and the process of radicalization started afterward but during the first 20 years when he was the leader of this movement it was mainly anti colonization coming back to the route and then as you said it was everywhere in the the first Arab countries and the most emeriti countries so what was it like for you growing up as a Muslim in Geneva in other words I assumed he was a very cosmopolitan setting but did you experience discrimination and/or was that not the problem it was not the problem as it is now but I experienced it was not easy because you know it was the first generation we were a few Muslims in Geneva at that time the great majority of the people who are Muslims in in Geneva where you know international civil servants and they were coming for a few years so four years still I he was 24 I was thinking of coming back home and for for me home was Egypt when I started to go back to Egypt because as we were ban its political exile I was unable to cook before I was 17 and then I realized that really my culture was a European culture and was not so much an Egyptian of course the language you know speaking Arabic at home and and the sense of humor all this was me but still the the roots and the deep belonging was mainly to Europe and to this other night that I had so difficult on that in that way but at the same times also the same time the feeling that you know I was perceived as a foreigner and harm and racism was there sometimes not in the way that we are talking today about Islam and Islamic presence and this Muslim presence which is problematic way out here the trajectory of your education you did your undergraduate college work where in Geneva and what did you what was your undergraduate major I was the studying philosophy and French literature and then when did you pursue I know you did graduate work in philosophy in the West when did you pursue your Islamic education you returned to Egypt was that after you had your PhD in philosophy yes yes exactly I went through the whole process and the PhD was on Nietzsche's philosophy okay let's talk about that for a minute first what so how does how did you come to philosophy was it just kind of a a natural movement because whatever religious studies you were doing or was it the teachers no not at all in fact you know I'm the youngest of six and my eldest brothers went to philosophy so I started to have debates at home you know against all with with them I was very much interested in in literature and philosophy and and this was the atmosphere my father was pushing me to go for low and to be a lawyer but I decided to go for philosophy and then by reading philosophy I was very very interested by the Greek philosophy and you know the the classical philosophy and then I went through all the process and and I have a very good teacher a very good professor at the University of Geneva who was a specialist on Kant and the German philosophy and then I just started to read Nietzsche and my perception was first he himself was interesting around everything that he was saying about arts and as Hydra was saying that he's the last but a physician and the concept of suffering and then by reading him I got the impression that he was saying things about other philosophers what was problematic and interesting at the same time and this is why I went writing on Nietzsche as a historian of philosophy because he he had this vision so I had to read both in fact the philosophers themselves and what he was saying about them and to go to a comparative study and as a result of that you became very well-informed about Western philosophy because I actually read parts of your book which I don't I don't think has been published yet in the United States but I'll show it the quest for meaning developing a philosophy of pluralism which I guess will be coming out soon in the United States so so you really acquired a philosopher sense of the Western tradition yes you know for me it was important because I was born and raised in in in the West and in fact I understood it as my universe of reference as much as you know I was a Muslim I was also part of this as my culture and as my understanding so very often the people are surprised by the fact that you know it's it's my world so it's as if you know because I am a Muslim intellectual I should be the other not knowing exactly what is the West in fact it's not that it's not this at all and really by reading all the philosophers and then to compare what they were saying was what Nietzsche was saying about that I have to read everything and I have a professor filling anko and when he was to start reading a philosopher he was to read everything and he pushed me to go to that direction so I was trying to read as much as possible from all the philosophers of course I get this the the substance of the Western philosophy from within I read an interview somewhere with you and can I believe I recall you're saying that in your study of Nietzsche you got a sense in addition to how religious identity is built is that fair yes statement yes yes true I think that first you know he the point for me was really something which is quite important is now do you believe in God oh you can you you might believe in God without nurturing the sense of guilt so how do you how do you speak about morality and this universe and something which is very important in all the the the the the Nietzsche's philosophy is the concept of suffering tell me what you do is your suffering I will tell you who you are is it for you something which is an experience that is helping you to go beyond your human capacities is it as justice the result of a sense of girl that you did something which was wrong and he was in tension between this and that and this is why he went from philosophy to art and the artistic affirmation of the self and I think that all this pushed me to come back to the spiritual journey is it's all about you know the meaning the quest for meaning and the very meaning of things so he helped me him the one who said God is dead to understand why for me God is close and and then you pursued an education in higher Islamic studies you returned to Egypt tell us a little about that and what was the result of that education how did it and to what you you've just described yes there is another dimension which is also important is all what I studied in in French literature because I was also reading poetry and it was something which is echoing what I was doing and philosophy and I was coming as we said from a religious family as you know it was political exile but because of religious reasons that they left the country so it was somewhere and I never rejected completely but I was not really committed and when I with one while was studying I was dealing was you know solidarity work and I have a family I had a family my mother and my father were pushing me too good was social justice I went to South America I met with the nel de cámara and the Liberation Theology this is important many people are don't know about these experiences at the ground and I went to Africa I went to India I met the Dalai Lama so these were you know universes that I was encountering while I was studying philosophy and working for more solidarity and all these send me back to the sources of my the meaning of my religion as a Muslim and I said I should do something with that so I went back to Egypt and I went through a whole curriculum but a traditional one it means want one with a share with a Muslim scholar he's giving you a teaching and at the end he gives you the authority to be able to teach and to carry on so I went through all this in seven disciplines because for me it was important to get this dis knowledge and and and to have so to speak to feed them to be able to walk as if I were to summarize this background it seems to be one of on the one hand resistance this liberation theory and in your background but on the other hand a kind of a spirituality and so is that a fair statement once again it's completely that it's it's it's exactly the way I'm trying to translate this spiritual journey in fact it's yes it's you know I I was studying philosophy I was studying religion but I was very much involved in anything which has to do with justice and human dignity and and the people that I met you know Christians and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists helped me to be better myself and to be to get the sense of dignity and at the same time to to to care for the people around me and in fact the two words that you are using exactly the words that I'm using in French to define the concept of jihad jihad it's very often translated by you know holy war and it's not this at all or we come to the literal understanding of jihad which is effort you know it's in fact resistance is you have in yourself that temptations and an aggressive 'ti and violence you know attitude you have to master this violence in yourself and to produce an attitude of peace with the better good dimension of who you are with generosity transparency love so this resistance and reform it's exactly this and this is the very meaning of a spiritual journey you write in your new book I am Swiss by nationality Egyptian by memory Muslim by religion European by culture univer list universalistic by principle Moroccan and Mauritian adoption so so it's a it's a it's a balancing act yes and I think that it's also to respond to some of the people who are just coming to you and especially these days thank you who are you first tell me your identity and if you say you are Muslim oh it means that you are not really an American or you're not an a Canadian and if you say I am a Canadian the Muslims are going to say oh but you are not a good Muslim if you don't put Islam first and say this is first it's a very silly question what are you first I am many things so this is what this is the way of putting it is I have there are multiple dimension to my identity and depending on what I'm doing I'm first a Swiss when I go to vote but I am first a Muslim when I pray and when I'm facing my own death this is it this we have multiple identities it's it's a response to the people who want very simple answer to silly questions looking at preparing for the interview and studying your background I want to touch on the different roles and positions that you've had because you were a high school principal an educator you you seem to have been something of an organizer before you became a philosopher and then also a religious scholar and so I am curious and there maybe there was something else but the issue is how did these different roles inform each other in other words it seems to have been a journey in which you're learning something in these different settings and and they they interact with so I always like to ask my guests well what are the skills required for what it is you do and and so I I I think we can't separate that from the different roles that you've had and in the way they've informed what you do yes I think if I would have liked to get at that point without having this passed and this journey in my life it would have been difficult if yeah because that's true that I started as a teacher for me teaching was something which was not a job it was something that I liked you know pedagogy listening helping when I was you know I got my baccalaureate so so it's the high school very young and I started to to teach while I was just finishing because I wanted to give and this is something that I liked and then I was a teacher in a secondary school and then in high school so teaching was but all this give me a sense of you know the skills that you need to be able to listen and to go along there is something also that I'm saying in the book I'm calling a story with someone who just you know I wrote a series of articles about these students who taught me so much one of them passed away he was 18 and because he was it what he went through drug addiction and and and he theory passed away and he sent me this message of you know learn to listen learn to be here don't disappear and teaching is not only transmitting knowledge is going along going along it's to be present so this is one dimension add to this the point that I needed this intellectual culture and international intellectual understanding and this is worth while why I went to philosophy and so philosophy to ask the questions religion was the way to get an answer and education was the way to share and and you've you you know as I went through the book listening patients non-judgmental determination and especially empathy and you say empathy allows us to understand so then you can be critical and reach for change thank you yes because I think that you know after September 11th when I came here you know I I condemn not happen but we were in a stage where people were telling us you are with us or against us and if you try to explain what was happening it's as if you are justifying it and empathy is exactly this is to understand without justifying I understand why this is happening but I'm I disagree I I can't accept it and I think that this is the way you are avoiding being too quick too quickly judgmental but without avoiding being critical because you need this critical thinking so I think that empathy and all the you know the concepts and and the attitude the intellectual and personal attitudes that you are mentioning are for me important and I would say I spent 25 years of my life in dialog and and and sharing views and I end up repeating that if you come with an intellectual attitude which is not based on humility meaning that you can take from the other and consistency in India try trying to best to be at you know consistent with your own that is and respect you mean that you accept that the other could have other answers than yours if you don't have respect consistency and humility the dialogue is just exchanging words because you're such a cosmopolitan and have such a flex background I want to ask you what do you see as your primary audience for what you're trying to do now before we go into your mission statement which is in the book in other words are you are you primarily speaking to second generation Muslims or are they just one audience that make you focus on no I think it's just one audience among audiences that I have no the main audience I would say it's human beings and it could be you know I'm just coming back from Africa talking to to African people and being able to exchange with them views on on culture on roots on it has nothing to do with the second generation in fact all these business about the second generation is coming from French sociology saying oh this is the people who are fine and you know patronizing a bit with this after four generation they are still young Muslims they will never be mature and never as I hope they have the same age as me and and you're always talking about them as young and it says much more about you way of looking at them so I would say no it's one audience among others but because there are so many audiences it really puts you in sort of you're getting shot at from all directions metaphorically yes and and and and and and not only this it you know there is one point which is important having many audiences but the same discourse the same the substance should be the same of course you are going to speed depending on you know the level of you know the length language is going to change the even the language itself you speak Arabic English or French that's fine but the substance should be the same and once again if you are critical towards some of the the attitudes that you have among Muslims are going to be critical we are criticised by Muslims the same with the west and once again you know I was in in the Muslim majority countries and I'm just being critical and coming and I am am perceived as problematic because by being critical it's as if I am playing the game of the West but in the West and perceived as too much Muslim but the point for me is really this is to be able within our society to remove the bridges by saying you and me we are in the same society so there is no bridges between you and me there there are common values and thus common future and society and between the two worlds so to speak between the universe of reference in Islamic majorem Islamic majority countries and here this is where we need more pictures so this is what I'm trying to do mainly and you say actually in the book you your mission that's might be my word but building bridges explaining Islam and making it better understood and and it would seem that your philosophy background helps you build the bridges to sort of connect and deconstruct you know to come up with new meanings and new ways of seeing is exactly it I think not only it's interesting and important for the Western audience but all what I have been you know doing and studying in philosophy it's also helping me to come back to the very essence of the Islamic concepts and to propose new understanding and new definitions for Muslims as well because very often we repeat the traditional teachings without understanding you know for example Oh Islam is surrender as I know it might be completely different is is much more and Turing in God's peace because in Islam there is Salon and there is something which is a relationship which is getting that peace which is the objective of your life because you are in tension so changing all this you know terminology and getting a better sense of what it could be in at the same time of course to talk to the West and to speak about Islam and to translate some of the concepts as I was talking about jihad and other concepts but with time now I'm reaching a point where I realized that there is something that I have to add to this is not only explaining Islam you know after the the Pope's controversy when he spoke in Germany about the roots of Europe saying there are Greek and Christian and in his argument was that faith and reason to go together and that's the Western tradition and it was seen as a as a implicit attack on Islam and its contribution to the West exactly or even not acknowledging that it happened in history so my answer to this is was it might be that Europe does not mean a dialogue with the Muslim majority countries and the other but with itself not to neglect its own roots and this was man and now as a European as a Western I have the feeling that it might be that we need to work on the new narrative so the book the quest for meaning is really to start a process of being explaining Islam let us explain what are the common universal values and and and all this discussion that we need to have on terilyn tolerance can education respect and all that and and my next book would be exactly this in your narrative speaking about our West and how Europe towards a new narrative which is reconstructing something which is without in fact neglecting part of this legacy and heritage before we talk about that which relates to your ideas about universalism I want to understand your role within the Islamic community is it fair to say that you perceive yourself as a reformer and then what is the work of reform in the Islamic faith yes I think first that I'm not representing all the Islamic trends you know Islam and the Muslims within the Muslim communities complex Christianity when you speak about Protestant and Christian Catholic and then within everything of a tradition you have trans we have exactly the same um from the reformist strand meaning made us that I believe that the Koran is the very word of God I am a believer and they were practicing Muslim at the same time I think that we need to contextualize the text and we have to understand it as a text and eternal text into history there are things that are beyond history the way we pray the way we fast is not going to change paths there are other dimensions that we have to connect to to the historical process in culture and in in time in space and time and and this has to be done so one of my books is called radical reform Islamic ethics and liberation by saying that it might be by that by focusing too much on laws we are forgetting the objectives and the objectives in contemporary philosophy but also in the Islamic tradition are based on applied ethics what do we want to achieve and I would say that this is what I want to realize from within and I'm working from within the Islamic tradition to promote this understanding that let us get a very deep sense of what do we want to achieve and contribute in the contemporary debates with an Islamic ethics in different field so this is why for example I completely reject the notion of Islamic economy or Islamic finance I would say there is an Islamic ethics in economy the economy is the same for you is the same for me but we are coming with our ethics and this is why we need a debate now as you as you speak to these different audiences there are there is is the very great possibility that on the one hand you say things that you'll regret or that people attack you for so you know one of the the items is your debate with Sarkozy where a question about the stoning of women came up and your answer was seen as less than satisfactory help us work through an understanding of what you were trying to say and and how as a reformer you want to move Islam in a direction that brings the insights of the liberal democracy that you're familiar with because of your Western education and training I think that once again it's a very good example to see where I stand in the whole process because in fact the president Sarkozy was trying to put me in a trap by just dragging me into oh we have to condemn this speaking about stoning and my answer if I would you know have for example I see but as it was said a double discourse I would have said oh I condemn and that's it no I I stayed and remain in what are my principles that yes we have Quranic text dealing with stoning and corporal punishment and death penalty I cannot deny this these are texts what can we do to to go beyond a literal understanding and this is exactly what I was saying just before about performance is to put things into context understand the conditions and then I call for moratorium the point is that for the last 15 years I have been calling for this as something which is the essence of my work stop it now and let us have a critical discussion from within I'm not here to please you know Sarkozy or even to win the next election in France it's a pedagogical process and it takes effort and time and this is what I wanted to do and I still want to do recently last year we heard with this discussion in Iran about Sakina the president Sarkozy asking for moratorium death penalty that's fine this is exactly I said seven years ago and now he's coming with the same argument because for me it's a really a process within the Muslim majority countries to be able to help the Muslims never to betray their principles but in the light of the objectives to ask themselves is it try to run what we are doing one today in the Muslim majority countries you have people who are facing corporal punishment death penalty and stony because they are poor because they are and in majority women and that the whole legal system is corrupt or there is a lack of transparency I would say it has be consistent yes the texts are here but stop it and the dynamic is coming from within so this is something which is not always easy and this is what I'm talking about intellectual empathy it's to be able to look at the process from where I am in order to move the thoughts to be critical from within and not only to please for two minutes and audience which is happy with condemning not understanding that your own condemnation from the West will have a counter effect on the Muslim a terrific answer say if you condemn it means that we are going for it so so in in a way because of these multi multi multiple audiences you-you-you were arguing that you have to be concerned with moving in the right direction while maintaining your legitimacy as an authoritative voice within that community and we this gets very complicated so I'm trying to help our audience understand you know that that when you're when you're dealing with these multiplicity of worlds and you you're really working toward reconciliation this is kind of the problem set that you have to deal with yes it's it's it's the the point is really this one as we said is to be consistent as to the substance now you need to listen and to look at the people the way they are because at the end of the day if you speak it means that you want to be heard so try to try to find a way to be heard by the people that you are talking to so if I talk to Muslims I want to be heard so I have to start with the Islamic references and and by being clear on the fact that I am not undermining the whole Islamic system I say no this is I believe in this but in the name of my faith it's important for me to go through this critical process but it's exactly the same with the West is that if you want to be heard by Muslims with the West don't come and lecture the people and pattern be patronizing is understanding where they are and be critical self-critical is something which is important for all of us so I would say it's not an easy process but as we were saying my own experience my own life is helping me to be in between these universes of reference and to try to be consistent clear and cautious because at the end words matter and we have to be very cautious with words it's you you say let me see if I find the quote in this in the request for meaning you say well let me read one quote two quotes from you one is in in the I believe book you say my aim is to show in theory and practice that one can be both fully Muslim and Western and beyond our different affiliations we share many common principles and values through which it is possible to live together within contemporary multicultural societies where various religions coexist and then in the quest for meaning in your chapter on universalism you say the point is not to integrate systems values and cultures with other systems values and customs but to determine in human terms in spaces of intersections where we can meet on equal terms so so that that's your project yes so help us understand its meaning in the sense that there are places where this interface seems contradictory where the the the universalism is hard to find so hi how do we dig for the universal isms that are recognized in both places I think that the the starting point is really to acknowledge the fact that there are many routes to the same place the same main place for all of us as human beings is the quest for truth that what we want is truth and answering the question why we are here but in our societies we all you know you come to the Islamic communities around around the world you will see that they talk about justice equal rights exactly the same with Christianity exactly the same with Judaism exactly what's the same with atheists and agnostics so we have a common word here but we should acknowledge the fact that there are different truths so for me it's not to say there is only one way to be a Universalist or for example once I was talking to a journalist he was saying or the Western universal value I say it's a contradiction in terms Western universal values it means that what is coming from the West is universal and what about the others no I would say there is only one me one way to be universal is shared Universal but shared Universal means acknowledging the roots that are different and for the Muslims also to be able to do that so at one point it means for every one of us you can believe whatever you want but tell me what is the place of the other in your system of belief where should they be are they acknowledged and respected for who they are yes no and in our liberal democracies this is something which is in fact the the fundamental principle sometimes we tend to forget that that it's you know it's not here and there is another point which is in the two quotations that you are making here which for me is also to be addressed is the question of power is the question of power because if you are in a position of majority and having power you know this the universal belongs to you in a way which is a natural way to speak about it and within our society we speak about equal citizenship but when you have less economic power you face discriminations so I wouldn't come with an idealistic you know discourse on identity and let us all be together and having no in our of respective rules it depends also has to be equal it depends on on who you are what you have a new status within the society we need we need to deal with power we need to deal with this power struggle and there will be new understanding of this justice if we are not speaking about equality in the way we were treated my limited understanding of Islam suggests to me that that in in that tradition there was a universalism that empowered it to disperse all over the world and being accepted but there was an adaptability with the various cultures a kind of interface between whatever the cultural setting was and and and the fact that so and and I what I want to ask you now about is what you see as the feelings and thoughts of one situated between the west and the Islamic faith we've talked about your experience but you're obviously speaking to audiences in Europe and you know both in in the various locations you've had so so help us for Western audience understand what a Muslim might be experiencing both in in feeling and thought in this interface yes I think it's important to understand the trajectory of many of these young generations in the States or in Canada or in Europe because the starting point is really this difficulty between religion and culture which is for the first generation they came as Moroccan Pakistani are coming from Middle Eastern societies and they were experiencing Islam they wait while in the countries of origin for the second third and oh no generations is what is Islamic and what is coming from the cultural origin and with this question is I'm asking the question of the cultures of origin meaning that the same time I'm asking the question about the culture within which I live meaning the American the Canadian and all the Western cultures as a whole and this is a very difficult question because as I'm putting it you know religion there is no religion without culture there is no culture without religion that religion is not culture it's different so you need to know how you are going to deal with this and and this is something which is very difficult because it's within the family you look at your father you do it and your mother it's the same religion that you end up understanding is not the same culture it was obvious for me that my father and my mother were Egyptian by culture but I had another culture it was the European and for but I was able to articulate this in in theory while the great majority of the Muslims they just experienced this and tried to find their way so this it's a very important discussion by telling them know what are the Islamic principles and in the name of the Islamic principles be able to be critical towards your cultures of origin not everything which is Arabic or Asian or Pakistani or Turkish is good according to your principles so you have why am I saying this because very often in the cultures of origin we have discriminations towards women its patriarchy all cultures this is a very deep problem so and by doing this you turn your face towards the new culture in which you live and you take from it this is the universality of your religion helping you to navigate between the culture of origin and the new culture and to be able to say yes I have no problem being an American by culture no problem because I'm taking from this culture I'm experiencing this critical attitude which is whatever is good is mine and I think that what you're suggesting in the book is that in in the context of these tensions there is a search for identity there is a lot of anxiety and you really feel that instilling self-confidence is is very important for navigating this dynamic yes this is you know we are talking about very you know theoretical discussion about this but at the end of the day really what I'm experiencing by talking to Muslims in the West and by the way not only in the West I would say just in Africa is the same is there is a crisis of identity it's it's something which is a lack of confidence the image of Islam today around the world is quite negative so there is a pressure so the Muslims are on the defensive it's as if they don't have the skills or they don't have the the means to to go beyond or overcome the whole the whole the whole process so you need to give them this sense of confidence and to be assertive this is your rights this is your dignity be who you want to be and and in the process of in the book I'm talking about seven seas that are so important for the Muslims to get the first one is confidence is and it's not arrogance its confidence is know who you are and be and be knowledgeable about your principles and try to find your way in this world you know and let's take one final case we're running out of time but bringing all together you described about yourself you recently on the moths controversy took the position tell us about your position of the mosque controversy and and what you had to say in Washington Post yes it surprised many many Americans and many Muslims at the same time because my position is this one there are rights in this country and you should not give up our rights in the States as well as in the Muslim in the in other European countries now you have to look at the whole picture from an angle of your rights but the collective sensitivity and the priorities you know some people are telling me oh is it right then would it be would have it be right for Rosa Park for example when she was in the bus as an african-american to move from the seat because she was black as now we are asked to move the mass because this was what I was saying if possible remove it or move it from there but my position here is not only to speak about where she was sitting is to speak about the whole bus and who is driving the bus who is creating this all this fuss against this so my position is there are more than 20 masks in this country that are prevented from being built because people are saying oh the mosque I would say we are not going to give up this is American this is freedom of conscience and freedom of religion now for this but what is happening here in New York in New York City the community center I would say I can understand that there is a sensitivity that they are victims and they are saying it's right it's your right but sometimes you have to think about the way you use your rights this is decency so I'm not saying you give up our rights we may find other solutions I have people saying oh you may go for an Abrahamic Centro but I don't have a problem to say on that I get the sense of the collective sensitivity I'm not going to put all my energy on this because I think that there are other struggles that we have to to be indulging in and to understand so the people just took one sentence oh he's saying remove the Sentra I'm not only saying this is don't lose confidence struggle for your rights and sometimes know that you should not be obsessed with rights you should also take into account the collective psychology and to come with a comprehensive approach and I think that this is what I have been saying in Europe and in the States and in Canada for years even just to go quite quickly on this when we got this controversy on on the cartoons and the people are saying it's my rights - yes it's from rats it's not always it's silly but it's your rights I'm not going to tell you don't do it and I - I told that I said to the Muslim sticker critical distance don't react too much to this and say we don't like it and do it so sometimes this obsession with my rights without having a vision and a comprehensive vision of the whole discussion may be problematic so my position is the Muslims have the right to build this community center in New York I am Not sure that they have to go for it the wait years they may think about something an alternative acknowledging the symbol of this place but at the same time saying to all the Americans if this is because of the symbol there are other symbols in which you have to be with us by saying we can't accept that a mass cannot be built in this country because of some people creating and instrumentalizing fear in this country and i think that these people are very dangerous not only for Muslims that dangerous for the future of America many of the students who might watch this video probably have similar backgrounds whether they're Muslims but they might be you know second generation and so what what do you think are the lessons of your life as we have discussed it the who would relate to their preparation for their own futures you know I this this is a I got response to this question by many young and not so young Muslims coming to me and say I just find myself in what UI you were saying because it's the same experience so the first is really there is no contradiction but being both as you quoted this is something which is you can be both the second is really a question of confidence as we said and the third one is a question of knowledge it's really a knowledge and then there is a last point for me which is important which is I'm always saying to the Muslims try to normalize your presence without realizing it so you should contribute you should be someone who is giving something to his or her society in one way and another not only in sports not only in culture or in entertainment in all the fields and the dirty environment justice schools education so I would say that if anything coming out of what I have been trying to do is critical thinking deep faith accepting this journey that contribution and contribution is exactly what your translated by saying you have many audiences and you are trying to share this view with many people so I get that understanding by many young Muslim men and women telling me this is this is what we are getting from your experience and that's true this is what I want them to understand one of the things that stands out as one reads some of your books and your background is the enormous self-confidence you have in moving between these two worlds what do you see as the source of that was it your family your religion your education or all of them all of them I think it's my life it's really that I was going from one you know environment to the other and always I I learned to listen a lot I learned to listen a lot maybe because I was the youngest so I listen to the elders and and really I was listening a lot and and this listening and being able to discern and to go from one universe of reference to the other helped me a great deal and and I would say that at the end of the day if you want to communicate start by listening to the people around you well on that note tarik I want to show your book again to our audience it's a it's a it's a good read and it's very lucid in helping us understand what you're trying to do both in your your advocacy and in your writings and thank you so very much for joining us and thank you very much for joining us for this conversation with history [Music]

Channel: UC Berkeley Events

Views: 57,861

Rating: 4.8295083 out of 5

Keywords: uc, berkeley, ucberkeley, Conversations, with, History, Harry, Kreisler, Tariq, Ramadan, Islamic, Studies, Oxford, University, What, Believe

Id: hWB0zw_02O0

Length: 53min 25sec (3205 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 14 2010