The West's Favorite Muslim Intellectual Rejects "Western" Values

Usually Tariq Ramadan is more cautious about championing the primacy of Islam, but here he is revealing his true colours for all who care to look:

Muslims should help the West to reconcile with their values and not follow in their footsteps, says a prominent scholar.

Should Muslims have a vision, unite for their project as they were united against the dictators during the Arab Spring and respect the rule of law, they will come up with a “civil state that provides justice and dignity for all and adopt democracy for all and not for men only”, Dr Tariq Ramadan, professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, UK, told a gathering at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research.

“I don’t like the idea of the West saying: 'Oh, now you are becoming like us. You’re cherishing the same values as us’. I don’t like that. We need to come up with new ways and alternatives; to not follow in the footsteps of the West; to use new ways,” said Dr Ramadan, the grandson of Hassan Al Banna, who in 1928 founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood historically represents the country’s first well-organised mass movement with political influence to match. For more than 60 years, the Brotherhood has been labelled illegal but tolerated. It has demonstrated a powerful capacity to mobilise the people in each relatively democratic election — for parliament, professional associations and trade unions...

Yeah, gotta love that 'hood. 

Salim Mansur says that the West's values--freedom, democracy, individual rights, etc.--are universal value, but Ramadan, clearly, subscribes to a different sort of "universalism."