Monthly Archives: April 2013
IMMIGRATION AND LOSS
by Kenan Malik
On Saturday I reviewed David Goodhart’s book The British Dream which explores, in the words of its subtitle, the ‘successes and failures of post-war immigration’. Goodhart, I suggested, ‘touches on some of the critical issues that we face today’. But ‘his insistence on seeing contemporary problems primarily through the lens of immigration only obscures those issues and makes it more difficult to formulate adequate responses’. Goodhart responded to that review, suggesting that my attempt to marry a critique of multiculturalism […]
Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, Class, david goodhart, debates, immigration, labour party, multiculturalism, working class
DAVID GOODHART RESPONDS
by Kenan Malik
On Saturday I posted my review of David Goodhart’s book The British Dream. Here is Goodhart’s response to that review. My thanks to David for a generous reply. I will post something later this week in response to the main challenge he raises about immigration, multiculturalism and integration, and about whether I adopt the left version of ‘there is no such thing as society’. I have also added a comment to this post which deals with some of the other […]
Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, david goodhart, debates, immigration, multiculturalism
THE PROBLEM IS NOT IMMIGRATION. IT’S THE OBSESSION WITH IT.
by Kenan Malik
In 2004, David Goodhart wrote an essay called ‘Too Diverse?’ in Prospect magazine, of which he was then editor. Liberals, he suggested, had to face up to a ‘progressive dilemma’. Too much immigration undermined social solidarity, particularly in a welfare state. We had to choose between the two. The essay caused considerable controversy, but became a key point of reference for many communitarian thinkers, both Labour and Conservative. Goodhart, now director of the centre-left think tank Demos, has developed that essay […]
Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, david goodhart, immigration, labour party, multiculturalism, race, racism
ON MACHIAVELLI
by Kenan Malik
My book on the history of moral thought is written. In the process, I had to reduced the ms by some 30,000 words. Much of that is better off left on the cutting room floor. But there are also some portions coherent enough to be worth reading. So, I am running an occasional series publishing some of the more cogent sections that are no longer in the book. This first of the ‘missing pages’ is on Machiavelli. ‘A prince never […]
Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: history of ideas, history of moral thought, machiavelli, morality
DING DONG! WHEN PROTEST SONGS WEREN’T DEAD
by Kenan Malik
So, those who despise Margaret Thatcher for her vindictiveness and spitefulness want to celebrate her death by propelling into the charts a song about the death of a witch. Those who laud Thatcher for her supposed love of freedom want to ban that song. And the BBC settles on a cackhanded ‘compromise’ by censorsing the song while pretending it is doing no such thing. Nothing, perhaps, could better express the inanity of contemporary politics than the crass, puerile controversy around […]
Categories: Britain, Culture & Books • Tags: british politics, margaret thatcher, music, protest songs, protests, thatcherism
FROM THE VAULTS: DISSECTING JOHN GRAY’S ANATOMY
by Kenan Malik
As I am away this week, I am republishing some old material that has not previously appeared on Pandaemonium. This is a review of Gray’s Anatomy, a selection of writing from the philosopher John Gray, It was first published in the Times in April 2009. On the eve of the Iraq war, John Gray published an essay in the New Statesman entitled ‘A Modest Proposal for Preventing Torturers in Liberal Democracy from Being Abused, and for Recognizing their Benefit to the Public (with Apologies […]
Categories: Human • Tags: freedom struggles, human nature, john gray, liberalism, progress, utopianism
FROM THE VAULTS: A DEBATE ON ‘WHO SPEAKS FOR ME?’
by Kenan Malik
I am away for a week, so I thought I would unearth some more old material from the vaults, this time debates in which I have been involved. This first is an exchange of letters with the human rights activist Tanuka Loha, currently the Human Right to Housing Program Director at America’s National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, on questions of race, identity and political representation. It is a debate that touches on many of the themes in the contemporary discussion […]
Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-racism, black, black identity, british politics, democracy, mult, muslims, racism, universalism
MULTICULTURALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS
by Kenan Malik
My big book – on the history of moral thought – will be published by Atlantic next spring. Before that comes a little book. Multiculturalism and its Discontents is an extended essay that pulls together much of my thinking and writing over the years on the subject. It will be published by Seagull this summer (Amazon says June, though it is more likely to be August). And here is the introduction. On 22 July 2011 Anders Behring Breivik planted a car bomb outside government […]
Categories: Kenan Malik, Multiculturalism • Tags: anders breivik, far right, immigration, kenan malik's books, melanie phillips, multiculturalism, racism
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