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The Flight of the Intellectuals book reviews The Flight of the Intellectuals of the Left, who, apparently in the both the Nazi war machine and By Paul Berman name of a distorted and morally the Nazi’s ‘final solution’ for Scribe Publications, simplistic multicultural ethic, the Jews, and a close intimate Melbourne, 2010 feel the need to downplay the of al-Banna and the Muslim $29.95, 304 pages utter illiberality of the Islamist Brotherhood. ISBN 9781921640773 movement and its thinkers, All of this is essential background including Ramadan. to looking in detail at Ramadan’s aul Berman is a left-liberal As Berman recently told an published writings and speeches PAmerican intellectual who interviewer, this book was the and where he places himself in the has done as much as anybody in product of his own annoyance at Muslim Brotherhood tradition. the English-speaking ‘the refusal or inability Over 100 or so pages of often witty, world to grapple with of intellectuals and always fair-minded, and carefully the implications and journalists in the US researched argument, Berman problems of the violent and the West to come demonstrates convincingly many Islamist ideological to grips with the kinds devastating points about Ramadan. movement responsible of doctrines that are These include: for September 11 and cropping up.’ Instead, • Despite his ability to say most other subsequent he said, they prefer to what Western liberals want to hear, international terrorism. ‘project fantasies onto and the portrayal of Ramadan His book Terror and what they’re reading.’ by himself and others as a free- Liberalism was one of Berman begins with thinking reformer, he is nothing the most penetrating and original a review of Ramadan’s Islamist of the sort. He is an intellectual treatises on the real nature of the forebears, particularly his famous imprisoned ‘in a cage made of his Islamist ideological movement. grandfather Hassan al-Banna, doctrine’ by his worshipful attitude Now, when many Western the founder of the Muslim toward his grandfather’s legacy. commentators and writers seem Brotherhood—the well spring, As Berman concludes crushingly, to be losing interest in even either directly or schismatically, ‘He does not believe in thinking talking about terrorism and its of almost all subsequent Islamist for himself.’ ideological inspiration, Berman’s terror groups. • Ramadan deals with the back with another bite at the Berman provides some useful pro-fascist statements and actions cherry. And this time, it’s his fellow history of the brotherhood and (including the acceptance of Nazi intellectuals who are the primary its role in sprouting terrorist and money) of his famous ancestor, target for his pointed, penetrating other anti-liberal intellectual Hassan al-Banna, through a simple prose. offshoots. In particular, he offers expedient. He simply treats it The main subject of the book some effective discussion of the as if it never occurred. He never is the controversial but highly Brotherhood’s clear affinities and mentions it in his extensive writings public Swiss Muslim intellectual links with European fascism. about al-Banna. Even the latter’s Tariq Ramadan, with a supporting Drawing on Jeffrey Herf’s recent close relationship with al-Husseni, role for Ramadan’s favourite study of Nazi propaganda in the essentially an unindicted Nazi Muslim cleric, Sheikh Youseff Middle East, other recent research, war criminal, is downplayed and al-Qaradawi. and his own careful readings of mentioned only in passing, with However, the real target the seminal works of al-Banna al-Husseini’s Nazi associations of this book is not Ramadan and other Muslim Brotherhood simply expunged from the record. himself—despite Berman’s ideologues, his sketch is brief • Ramadan also provides careful, fair-minded yet relentless and incomplete, yet convincing. some pretty bizarre and untenable and ultimately damning look into An important player in the story interpretations of his grandfather’s Ramadan’s real agenda, intellectual he tells is the Mufti of Jerusalem, thought, such as claiming background, and worldview. Haj Amin al-Husseini, an active he favoured a ‘British-style It is Berman’s fellow intellectuals and important collaborator with parliamentary system,’ something POLICY • Vol. 26 No. 4 • Summer 2010–11 57 book reviews which actually existed in Egypt ‘colonises minds’ in Ramadan’s essentially, with militating for in his time and which al-Banna phraseology. narrow Jewish interest by calling demanded be replaced by a single • Both Qutb and Ramadan attention to anti-Semitism and national council which would be seek to overcome this by backing the Iraq war (which a theocratic ‘single phalanx.’ reconstructing the modern age Ramadan argues served Israel’s • Ramadan makes a distinction along Salafist lines, and ‘grab hold interests). Not only were some of between the followers of his of modern political vocabulary, these individuals not Jewish but grandfather and followers of Sayid which they treat as empty glasses, most of them had not even backed Qutb, a later Egyptian Muslim and fill the modern vocabularies the war, and Berman picks apart Brotherhood figure who is the with Koranic meaning.’ The the assumption that went into direct inspiration for al-Qaeda vocabulary is different—Qutb Ramadan’s claims—and they are and other similar groups. used revolutionary, apocalyptic not complimentary to Ramadan’s However, this distinction is vocabulary common in the 1950s approach to Jews. exaggerated and based in part on and 1960s; Ramadan’s Islamic On this last point and others, very incomplete history. For counter-culture uses the language Berman contrasts Ramadan with instance, Ramadan makes the of globalisation, multiculturalism, other leading Muslim intellectuals point that al-Banna and Qutb and third worldism. Nonetheless, as diverse as German academic ‘did not even know each other.’ there are close parallels in their Bassem Tibi, Algerian writer This is strictly true but also intellectual projects. Bousalem Sansal, Tunisian writer deliberately misleading, as • Ramadan does publicly Abedewahab Meddeb, Moroccan- Berman shows. Not only did condemn terrorism, but not born novelist Tehar Ben Jalloun, al-Banna, prior to his assassination against Israel. He approvingly and others. He shows that in 1949, actively work to woo quotes his grandfather as saying more sincere condemnations of Qutb into the Brotherhood but ‘armed resistance’ against Israel anti-Semitism are in fact common al-Banna’s close collaborator, Said was ‘incumbent’—meaning among Muslim intellectuals of Ramadan, worked closely with obligatory—against ‘all Zionist a more liberal bent than Qutb and launched Qutb’s career colonisers,’ i.e. all Israelis. Moreover, Ramadan. as a Koranic commentator and he remains dedicated to and Moreover, Berman traces the rise inspirer of violent jihad. Said worshipful of Sheikh Qaradawi, of Muslim liberalism in France, Ramadan was Tariq Ramadan’s who has issued fatwas authorising especially the rise of the ‘March father. suicide bombings against Israel of the Beurs’ in the 1980s leading • Tariq Ramadan and Qutb and in Iraq and Afghanistan, who to the multi-ethnic liberal can rightly be seen as ‘stars in a publicly backs Hamas and opposes movement ‘SOS Racisme.’ And single constellation’ according peace with Israel, who indeed calls he recounts the destruction of to Berman. He demonstrates himself the ‘Mufti of martyrdom European Muslim liberalism as that what Ramadan calls ‘Salafi operations.’ While Ramadan a political force in the 1990s by reformism’ to describe his own himself condemns attacks against the rise of Islamism in European philosophy, incorporates both. It civilians in principle, in practice communities, something that is, as Berman explains particularly he argues that Israeli policy is Ramadan contributed to. And he aptly, a form of ‘Rousseauism the cause of such acts, and the further explains the bizarre alliance Islamised,’ a belief that there is a ‘only recourse’ Palestinians have is that developed between the global pure and authentic way of living, to attack civilians. left generally and the Islamist yet those who are born free are • On Jews, Ramadan does movement, mediated largely by ‘everywhere in chains.’ But in their condemn anti-Semitism as Trotskyite groups. version, the pure and authentic such. However, Berman explores Most of the book is not at all ways of living is found in seventh Ramadan’s scattershot polemical in tone, but Berman hits century Islamic documents, while condemnation of six French some polemical heights in the final the ‘chains’ are supplied by the intellectuals with Jewish sounding two chapters. These contrast how ‘western cultural invasion’ which names in 2003 whom he charged, otherwise good writers broadly of 58 POLICY • Vol. 26 No. 4 • Summer 2010–11 book reviews the Left, especially Ian Buruma Hawke: The Prime Minister from the float strengthened, but and Timothy Garton Ash, treat By Blanche d’Alpuget for d’Alpuget only Hawke can Ramadan highly positively, yet Melbourne University Press, take credit. denigrate more liberal Muslim 2010 d’Alpuget barely covers the figures—especially the Somali-born $44.95, 401 pages deregulation of the banking sector Dutch citizen Ayaan Hirsi Ali. ISBN 9780522856705 or Keating’s role in putting together Berman’s outrage and anger begins the detail of the policy together, to burn through as he demonstrates awke: The Prime Minister underplaying his contribution to their subtle condescension, their Hhas been written to confirm the government from the start. arguable sexism, their dismissal the ‘great man’ view of history, Hawke’s great contribution as a of her ideas, and their absurd which is not surprising given Labor leader, aside from winning efforts to paint Hirsi Ali as an Blanche d’Alpuget is Bob Hawke’s four elections, was the Accord. In ‘enlightenment fundamentalist.’ current wife. The result this landmark change In the end, this final burst of is that Hawke’s judgment for labour relations in white heat is illuminating.
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