Tercera part del tractament sobre la pell de taronja

Over time Clément’s experience of ecumenism and interfaith dialogue develops in awareness that Orthodoxy needs to accompany Catholicism in Europe, and this sensitizes him to the presence of Islam and its two possible ‘faces’ of which Mohamed Talbi and Tariq Ramadan could be representative.

Talbi, an important Muslim modernist thinker of the twentieth century, was born in Tunis in 1921. After a traditional Islamic education he studied in Paris in 1947 for his doctoral studies in Islamic history. The vibrant intellectual culture of Paris made a strong and positive impression; he later expresses gratitude for his

exposure to the thinking of Marx, Freud and the great Islamic scholars who

guided his studies, which he interpreted in the light of his own traditional Tunisian and Sufi influenced background. His interest in other religions and his European experience of different cultures is a crucial part of Talbi’s development as a modernist thinker.732 Talbi considers pluralism to be characteristic of all great religions. He sees modern pluralism as integral to the Qur’an and Islamic

tradition: an intellectual and religious freedom which respects the other and his or her views, a mutual respect that creates a space for dialogue. Rejecting a literal understanding of the Qur’an he argues for an historic reading which speaks of pluralism, freedom – the right of every individual in society, an apolitical Islam

732 _{Ronald L Nettler, ‘Mohamed Talbi on understanding the Qur’an’, Modern Muslim Intellectuals}

and the Qur’an, ed. by Suha Taji-Farouki (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 225-239, p. 226.

and equality status of women;733 he rejects a literal understanding. Democracy in spite of failings is the best system of government for Muslims today. Talbi sees the pluralism he considers to be characteristic of all great religions as more urgently needed now to deal with modern globalisation. Talbi believes that the ethical values of the Qur’an provide a model for contemporary culture and situations; it must be interpreted ‘at this moment and in this place’.734

He would welcome the ‘Islamisation of modernity and the modernisation of Islam;’ in so doing Islam would rediscover ‘its own humane truth in integration with the most humane values of modern culture.’735

Talbi approves of diversity of views, but criticises those who believe their own interpretations are somehow the total truth; ‘knowledge however compelling, is never absolutely certain,’736

he says. He wants to define the Umma as ‘the community of moderation’737 yet predicts a polarisation between ‘totalitarianism and anarchy’738 _{within it.}

Tariq Ramadan’s position on Islamic modernism and tradition is at variance with Talbi’s, and Olivier Clément issues a warning. Ramadan was born in Geneva 42 years ago, studied as an imam in Cairo, attained a degree in French literature, studied the European philosophers and achieved two doctorates in Islamic studies. He teaches philosophy, French literature and Islamic studies at the Universities of Fribourg and Geneva and lectures internationally. He has attracted critical reviews for anti-Semitism and radical views; he sees the West as having innate hostility towards Islam, and predicts its decline and the ascendancy of Islam. His maternal grandfather, Hassan Al-Banna, founded the Muslim Brotherhood movement in 1929, of which his father was an active promoter. His brother Hani, directs an Islamic Centre in Geneva that has been accused of links with the terrorist network of Al-Qaeda, although Ramadan denies contact with it.

Ramadan’s ideology brings Islamic politics into dialogue with earlier radical Western critiques by Nietzsche, Heidegger and neo-Marxist thought. He wants

733 _{Nettler, ‘Mohamed Talbi’, p. 226.} 734 _{Ibid., p. 231.}

735 _{Ibid., p. 237.}

736 _{Ronald L Nettler, ‘Mohamed Talbi: “For Dialogue Between all Religions”’, in Studies in}

Muslim-Jewish Encounter, Muslim-Jewish Encounters, Intellectual Traditions and Modern Politics, ed. by Ronald L Nettler (The Netherlands: Harwood, 1998), pp. 171-199, (p. 178).

737 _{Nettler, ‘Mohamed Talbi: “For Dialogue”’, p. 180.} 738 _Ibid.

Islam to overcome Western modernity in an Islamisation of the West. Yet Western intellectuals applaud Ramadan, because his ideology includes some democratic elements, equal citizenship and free expression. One lone voice of criticism is raised against Ramadan’s model of Islam: Olivier Clément in an article published by him in 2003 in the Catholic University of Milan’s magazine, Vita e Pensiero. He sees a new exploitation of the juridical and mental structures of Western society that signals a new motivation. A problem is the new ideology has a spokesman, Ramadan, who presents himself as a Western intellectual and while affirming his Muslim faith, it would seem he wants to replace the values of Western civilisation, affirm Islamic identity and present it as true universality that will fill the spiritual void left by a diminishing Christian and Jewish religious presence. For him all good people such as Mother Teresa, Helder Camara and Sister Emanuelle are implicitly Muslims, and declares, ‘today the Muslims who live in the West must unite themselves to the revolution of the anti-establishment groups[…]’ Jaques Jomier judges that Ramadan’s project stems from a very different perspective to that of Talbi, who engages and takes interest in European thought and Christianity, while Ramadan it would seem, sees the West as a space for Islam to reassert its old dominance.

Clément has experienced deeply the damage caused by totalitarianism through his critical analysis of Solzhenitsyn’s lived experience and work, while his own experience of atheism and twentieth-century totalitarianism has carved a sacred space in him. He sees some of the same traces of an idolatrous Islamic

totalitarianism appearing in Islam.

2.4.ix Conclusion

France looks to the Mediterranean and looks northwards to Europe and the Atlantic. Constantinople and Antioch are frontier European Christian presences: while 40-45% of the predominately Muslim population in Lebanon is Christian,739 the other Arab nation states of the Mediterranean and Middle East have a

diminishing, or no, Christian presence. The Mediterranean is a place of

conviviality and Christian consciousness, to which Clément has responded over a

739 _{41% population were Christians in 2014: CIA World Factbook, Lebanon [retrieved 7 October}

lifetime; he came to appreciate the context of Antioch as a Christian presence that has endured and has experienced spiritual revival in the twentieth century. His mature ecclesial consciousness has assimilated Constantinople and, over time, he became aware of the special vocation of Antioch and the renewal of Catholicism in Europe; he sees the united cooperation of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as vital to the future of Europe, together with hard-headed dialogue between Islam and Christianity.

Clément judges that Talbi’s call for mutual respect, that creates a space for dialogue, must include the intuition of Louis Massignon: a mutual compassion, that attempts to rejoin the strong transhistoric lines of Islamic philosophical reflection, mysticism and justice for the humiliated ones of the Third World. But Clément also is pointing to a problem. The difference between Talbi and Ramadan is that Talbi engages and takes an interest in other religious traditions, including Christianity, whilst for Ramadan the West is a platform for Islam to reconfirm itself. Clément is aware of this and takes critical note.