English liberal, fundamentalist Islamist, French republican
Agnes Poirier -- writing in, yes, The Guardian -- is simply marvelous. She outlines why she opted out of Ken Levingtone's conference on World Civilisation or Clash of Civilisations?
''I agreed to participate alongside 30 or so other speakers. I was to debate "the right to religious dress" and "Multicultural London, does it work?" I asked who else was going to be on the panels, and was given two names but assured there would be more....''
''For the closing debate, they had perhaps thought it better to look fair. The multicultural London motion at that point included Jonathan Freedland, Tariq Ramadan and myself, and therefore offered three different points of view: in a nutshell, English liberal, fundamentalist Islamist and French republican.''
''Are you surprised that I define Tariq Ramadan as a fundamentalist Islamist? Perhaps you thought that, as an adviser to Tony Blair on multiculturalism and a visiting senior research fellow at Oxford, he represented the face of moderate Islam? Forget his reassuring manner. Read Caroline Fourest's remarkable study of his speeches and audio cassettes in which he asks young Muslims not to mix or marry outside their religion. Or note that he thoughtfully proposed "a moratorium on the lapidation of adulterous women". Yes, a "moratorium".''
Read her classic exposition of British multiculturalism.
