You cannot limit the debate to being solely in favour or against. It should be more complex. When you condemn, you need to understand what led to it. In general, if it is our responsibility to condemn terrorist actions after they had happened, we have an even greater responsibility beforehand to make sure they won't happen.
Tariq RamadanTrue Sufism is resistance: spiritual, intellectual, social, cultural, political and economic resistance. It cannot be, for sure, supporting dictators.
Tariq RamadanThings need to be properly named. Political confusion starts with terminology confusion. Islamism implies some sort of political and social plan for Muslim people. In that classification, we find different categories. Legalist ones, traditional ones and revolutionary ones. Some of them are revolutionary but are non-violent, others are extremely violent. There are also the ones we call the literalists, like the Egyptian party Hizb al-Nour that used to be against democracy and now is getting into the political game.
Tariq RamadanI don't like this vision that Turkey is successful because it is as successful as the western powers in economic terms. But I do think they are trying to find a new space in the multi-polar world, and this is what I am advocating. I don't think that Muslims have an alternative model.
Tariq RamadanThe fact that this organisation is called the Islamic State reveals something even deeper. In fact, it implies that every single Islamist party in Egypt, Iraq or Tunisia are not really representing Islam and Muslim people. Nowadays, political Islam is going through a crisis, however this crisis is necessary, for it will lead to a changing way of thinking. In order to make it out of this dead-end, reviewing political Islam becomes mandatory.
Tariq Ramadan