By Ian Hamel (Brussels)
Clearly, the false nose of Tariq Ramadan has become an empty shell…
On his website, Tariq Ramadan still recalls today that he is president of the European Muslim Network (EMN) in Brussels, a think tank and action group created in October 2009. This group of experts affirms that it “Ensures a substantial contribution through the interaction between Europe and Muslim organizations in the field of the constantly evolving debates concerning Islam in Europe”, and that it is designed to “provide spaces for meeting and of dialogues to all Muslim and non-Muslim organizations, NGOs, active groups and decision-makers ”.
Clearly, the EMN would be the privileged interlocutor of the European Union, for all that touches Islam and the Muslims. But in reality, this structure, far from having a militant action on the ground, has never been more than a false nose of the Swiss preacher, gathering around him only his close guard. In particular the sociologist Malika Hamidi, specialist in “Muslim feminism”! Director of EMN from its inception, at the end of August 2017, she published the book Un féminisme musulman, et pourquoi pas ?, Prefaced by Alain Gresh, former editor-in-chief of Le Monde Diplomatique, with Éditions de l’Aube.
In this book, she emotionally thanks “Professor Tariq Ramadan”. Bad luck for her, the ardent defender of women was indicted a few weeks later for two rapes. These complaints immediately sparked major upheaval within the European Muslim Network. The association is organizing in disaster, on November 24, 2017, an Extraordinary General Assembly to organize the election of a new board of directors, the transfer of the registered office and the modification of the statutes.
Tariq Ramadan manages to get re-elected. But it brings about the end of the mandate of the administrator and general manager Malika Hamidi (in office since 2009), the end of the mandate of Vice-President Nazar Mahmoud and the end of the mandate of the treasurer, Vaux Sarah. Terminations that are more akin to resignations. Especially since the EMN decides to no longer appoint a managing director and “no longer include the appointment of a treasurer in the statutes”. Lack of candidates? Clearly, the false nose of Tariq Ramadan has become an empty shell, which has since had the sole occupation of shouting at the innocence of the preacher and denouncing the plot fomented against him by a necessarily “Islamophobic” France!
Article first published on Global Watch Analysis.
