Democracy, Islam and the politics of belonging

Rosemary Bechler

In January, two prominent – and rival – thinkers on Europe and Islam, Tariq Ramadan and Dyab Abou Jahjah, met in Rotterdam for an eagerly attended debate. Rosemary Bechler pursues and examines their views on democracy. (more…)

The magazine for free thinkers

 Volume 121 Issue 2 March/April 2006

Rosemary Bechler

The first ever encounter between Dyab Abou Jahjah, president of the Arab European League, and Tariq Ramadan, ‘the preacher of the banlieues’. was a gladiatorial but good-humoured affair. In front of a surprisingly mixed audience at Erasmus University, two possible futures for Muslim politics in Europe came face to face. But do they represent the twin unacceptable faces of European Islam – the clerical and the radical – best avoided? Or are they, to invoke a comparison made on the night, like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, people with constituencies and convictions, with whom we should be allying ourselves in the fight against religious extremism and political violence? Both figures can claim to have headed off rather more religious fanaticism in Europe than most of us: Ramadan in taking on the anti-Semites, Salafis and literalists in the Muslim world, and Abou Jahjah for preventing young people in places like Borgerhout, the Moroccan district of Antwerp, from falling prey to extremist networks. So could they be friends? Our friends? And which would be the better ally? (more…)

Between fire and sword: Antwerp’s choice

Nick Ryan

Belgium’s historic, multicultural port city of Antwerp is the site of a bitter political contest involving the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Blok and the militant Arab European League supported by young people of Moroccan descent – with the city’s ancient Jewish community targeted by both. As European elections approach, Nick Ryan reports from Dyab Abou Jahjah’s backyard.

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