Via DSTPFW, here’s Christopher Hitchens on Tariq Ramadan and the mainstreaming of Islamic imperialism.

“French author Caroline Fourest has made an intensive study of Ramadan’s discrepant appearances in Europe and in the Muslim world, and has concluded that he speaks with a forked tongue and deliberately gives different impressions to different audiences. Having listened to him, I would say that the problem is not quite that. He possesses a command of postmodern and sociological jargon (of the sort that you may easily recognize by its repetitive use of the terms space and discourse to delineate the arena of thinkable debate), and he has a smooth way with euphemism.

Thus, he tells Egyptian television that the destruction of the Israeli state is for the moment ‘impossible’ and in Mantua described the idea of stoning adulterous women as ‘unimplementable’. This is something less than a full condemnation, but he is quick to say that simple condemnation of such things would reduce his own ‘credibility’ in the eyes of a Muslim audience that, or so he claims, he wants to modernize by stealth.”

More on Mr Ramadan’s “discrepant” pronouncements, and those who squint at him optimistically, here.