Category Archives: Britain

THE BRITISH LEFT’S ‘JEWISH PROBLEM’

May 4, 2016 by Kenan Malik

A excerpt from my latest column for the International New York Times, on the controversy over anti-Semitism in the British Labour party: Anti-Semitism used to be a problem primarily of the right. It wasn’t that the left had a totally clean bill of health — there is a history of left-wing anti-Semitism — but its firm foundation of universal values and egalitarian principles established a proud tradition of fighting bigotry against Jews. . In recent decades, however, much of the […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-semitism, british politics, identity politics, labour party, racism

SO, WHAT DO BRITISH MUSLIMS REALLY THINK?

April 12, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This Wednesday, Channel 4 in Britain will broadcast a Trevor Phillips documentary on ‘What British Muslims really think’. On Sunday, the Sunday Times published details of an ICM poll about Muslim attitudes commissioned for the programme and ran an essay by Phillips on Muslim integration. The headlines generated by the poll – ‘Half of British Muslims want gay sex banned says poll’; ‘Most Muslims would not give terror tip-offs’, etc – and Phillip’s argument (‘the integration of Muslims will probably […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain • Tags: british asians, britishness, islam, islamophobia, muslims, religion, trevor phillips

WHY ABORTION SHOULD BE DECRIMINALIZED

April 6, 2016 by Kenan Malik

Last week Donald Trump caused outrage by suggesting that women who had illegal abortions should be punished; so much outrage, in fact, that he was forced to backtrack. This week a Belfast woman was convicted under the 1861 Offences Against the Persons Act after she took pills to induce an abortion. Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland (the province is exempted from the provisions of the 1967 Abortion Act, which applies to the rest of the UK). Northern Irish women […]

Categories: Britain, Women • Tags: 1967 abortion act, abortion, northern ireland, women's rights

RECOLONIZED BY THE PAST

January 13, 2016 by Kenan Malik

My latest column for Al Jazeera English is about the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ in Oxford. It began as a campaign at the University of Cape Town to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes that stood on the campus. For the protestors, the statue represented everything that Rhodes himself stood for: racism, colonialism, plunder, white supremacy, and the oppression of black people. Last April, a month after the protests began, the university authorities removed the statue. By then, the protests had moved […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties • Tags: anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, cecil rhodes, imperialism, racism

RADICALIZATION AND EUROPEAN SOCIAL POLICY

December 17, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is an essay I have written for Foreign Affairs. It draws upon, and interweaves, the themes of my lecture at the University of Michigan on ‘The Making of European Jihadis’, which provides an extended critique of the radicalisation thesis, and my previous essay for Foreign Affairs on ‘The Failure of Multiculturalism’, which explored at length the problems of both multicultural and assimilationist social policies. That essay is now in the 2015 anthology of the best articles in Foreign Affairs. This […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, International, Philosophy & Ethics, War on terror • Tags: belgium, france, french politics, identity politics, jihadism, left, molenbeek, multiculturalism, radicalization

KURDISH LESSONS FOR THE FIGHT AGAINST IS

December 6, 2015 by Kenan Malik

My latest column for Al Jazeera English is about the British decision to extend airstrikes into Syria. It was published under the headline ‘Dropping more bombs on ISIL will not save Syria’. Last week, the British Parliament voted to extend airstrikes against so-called Islamic State into Syria. The debate over whether British bombers should operate in Syria has been ferocious. One side condemns their opponents as ‘warmongers’ with blood on their hands; the other side smears critics of airstrikes as […]

Categories: Britain, International, War on terror • Tags: british politics, islamic state, kurds, syria, terrorism, war on terror, western policy, freedom struggles

CAN SOCIAL COHESION BE IMPOSED?

November 7, 2015 by Kenan Malik

These are my introductory comments to a debate on ‘Can Social Cohesion be Imposed?’, part of the ‘Diverse or Divided?’ conference organised by the IPPR and Canada House, London. Other speakers in the debate were Julian Baginni, Marina Jimenez and Catherine Fieschi. Let me begin with a newspaper account of life in East London: The Bethnal Green poor are a caste apart, a race of whom we know nothing, whose lives are of quite different complexion from ours, persons with […]

Categories: Britain, Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, britishness, diversity, identity politics, immigration, multiculturalism, social cohesion, working class

DAVID CAMERON AND THE CENTRE GROUND

October 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

The Observer asked a number of commentators whether David Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Party conference last week, in which he staked a claim to the centre ground of politics, will reshape the political landscape. Here’s my response. All the responses (including ones from Michael Heseltine, Shirley Williams, Rob Ford and Stefan Collini) are in the Observer. There is nothing new in ideological clothes-swapping. Under Tony Blair, New Labour won three successive elections with the help of “triangulation” – stealing […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, centre ground, conservative party, david cameron, new labour, tony blair

THE POLITICS OF DISENCHANTMENT

September 22, 2015 by Kenan Malik

I will be writing a regular column for Aljazeera English. My first column is about Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. Guardian journalist Seamus Milne hailed it as ‘a political eruption of historic proportions’. The Prime Minister David Cameron claimed it represented a threat to Britain’s national security. Whatever else it may achieve, Jeremy Corbyn’s success in gaining the leadership of the Labour Party, has certainly unleashed the surreal in British politics. To understand more soberly what the leftwing maverick’s […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, jeremy corbyn, labour party, left, tony blair

LEADING THE LABOUR PARTY – TO DO WHAT?

September 9, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This weekend, the British Labour Party will choose a new leader. Below is the full version of my article on Labour Party and the leadership election published last month in the International New York Times. The Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon may be as baffling for those who follow British politics as the Donald J Trump phenomenon is to those who keep an eye on American politics. Both are running for the leadership of parties that have suffered traumatic electoral defeat. Both […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, jeremy corbyn, labour party, left, tony blair

WHAT IS THE LABOUR PARTY FOR?

August 22, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is an extract from my latest column in the International New York Times about the Labour Party leadership contest in Britain. Read the full article in the INYT. In truth, Mr. Blair is neither saint nor sinner. His election victories were as much the product of the exhaustion of the Conservative Party after 18 years in power as they were of his political acumen. And he did not so much rob Labour of its soul as recognize that it […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, labour party

FROM THE ARCHIVES: TONY BLAIR’S JOURNEY

August 10, 2015 by Kenan Malik

I am in South Africa for the next three weeks, to give the TB Davie Memorial Lecture, and hopefully to do a bit more besides. While I am away, I will be raiding the archives for articles – mainly book reviews – not published before on Pandaemonium. This first ‘From the archives’ review is of Tony Blair’s memoirs, My Journey, memoirs that, in the context of the current Labour leadership contest, have renewed currency. The review was first published in he Norwegian […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Politics • Tags: british politics, iraq, labour party, tony blair

TRIBALISM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

August 5, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of the article I wrote for the New York Times last month reflecting on the tenth anniversary of the 7/7 bombings in London (I cannot publish my New York Times articles in full on Pandaemonium until a month later). On July 7, 2005, 52 people were killed when four suicide bombers detonated explosive devices on subways and buses. There were commemorations across the nation to honor the victims, including a ceremony of remembrance at the […]

Categories: Britain, War on terror • Tags: 7/7, british politics, british values, islamism, islamophobia, jihadism, muslims, racism

BEYOND THE CLICHES ABOUT RADICALISATION

July 22, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Another week, another major speech about the threat of radical Islam and of jihadism, another set of policies to deal with the problem. On Monday, David Cameron gave his latest high profile speech about what he called ‘the struggle of our generation’.The trouble with most of these speeches is that they are rooted in false perceptions of the problem. And the trouble with most of these initiatives is that their real impact is not so much in combating jihadism as […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, War on terror • Tags: british politics, david cameron, identity politics, islamic state, islamism, jihadism, muslims, radicalisation

BRITAIN’S DANGEROUS TRIBALISM

July 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

From ‘Britain’s Dangerous New Tribalism’, my latest column for the International New York Times: This exodus to Syria has led non-Muslims to point an accusing finger at Muslim communities. Last month, the prime minister, David Cameron, condemned those who, though not violent, ‘buy into’ the prejudices of Islamism and ‘quietly condone’ the actions of the Islamic State. A poll published last week found that 56 percent of Britons thought that Islam posed a threat to Western liberal democracy, a figure […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, War on terror • Tags: 7/7, british politics, identity politics, islam, islamism, multiculturalism, war on terror