Britain should be vigilant in shielding its tradition of free speech from erosion by anxieties over security, a leading European Muslim critic of the Iraq War says, referring to a furore over Islamists on UK campuses.
A report that a Nigerian who allegedly tried to down a US airliner joined al-Qaeda as a student in Britain has triggered charges from some media commentators that militant Islamists are establishing a dangerous presence at British universities.
Yemen has said the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, joined al-Qaeda in Britain before moving to the Arabian country, his home until shortly before Dec. 25. Britain says he was not seen as someone engaged in extremism during his 2005 to 2008 stay.
Tariq Ramadan, professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University, said the US experience under the administration of former US president George W. Bush had shown security fears could result in pressure on academic freedoms, a danger he said the administration of US President Barack Obama was now addressing.
“I think that in times of psychological pressure and fears, anything is possible,” he said. “I think we have to be very vigilant in Britain. It’s a very old tradition of free speech. What President Obama is saying today is, if we want to defeat violent extremist Muslims, we should understand that Muslims that are the mainstream trends are our allies, not our enemies. This is something we have to keep in mind in the UK.”
The US administration said on Wednesday it had lifted a ban on a planned visit by Ramadan, who was barred from the US for several years because of alleged terrorism ties which he denies. Rights groups hailed the move as a victory for civil liberties.
The US State Department said of the move that the government hoped to encourage more interaction with the Muslim world.
Ramadan said: “We should be able to protect the expression of disagreement, of dissent. If not we are all in danger.”
University College London, where Abdulmutallab studied, has set up an independent review of his time at the university. A university lobby group, Universities UK, is examining how all universities can protect academic freedom, while taking “appropriate action” to prevent violent extremism.
The American Civil Liberties Union had championed the case of Ramadan as part of a pattern of academics being excluded because of unwarranted or unspecified US national security grounds.
“You had Sept. 11 and you had an administration for eight years which was able to put such a psychological pressure on the continent it was very difficult to have free speech,” Ramadan said, referring to the attacks on US targets in 2001.
Ramadan said controversial headlines about security issues obscured what he called the positive dimension of Muslims’ presence and achievements in Britain.
Ramadan said he was telling Muslims critical of Western policies that they should be “constructively critical.”
“This is what I call the critical loyalty. So a loyal citizen is not a blind citizen,” he said.
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