Category Archives: Multiculturalism

LLOYD NEWSON IN DEFENCE OF ‘CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS?’

May 28, 2012 by Kenan Malik

Back in March I published a review of DV8’s extraordinary show Can We Talk About This?. I was both positive and critical of the show. It was I wrote, ‘unmissable theatre’, both ‘thought provoking and gut-wrenching, food for mind and heart’ and ‘the kind of bold, polemical spectacle that the theatre so badly needs’. Its weakness, I suggested, was as a polemic: The ambition of the show, and its willingness to stomp all over the debate, is its great strength; its […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech, Multiculturalism • Tags: dv8, free speech, geert wilders, lloyd newson, multiculturalism, muslims, ray honeyford

‘CONFLICTING CREDOS BUT THE SAME VISION OF THE WORLD’

May 21, 2012 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of the first part of the talk I gave last week as part of the Criticise This! seminar in Ulcinj, Montenegro on ‘Rethinking the Question of Difference’. (The second part of the talk overlaps with the Milton K Wong lecture that I am giving in Vancouver next week; I will publish that in full.) The audience comprised mainly of artists, writers and critics, and the aim was to explore more deeply the philosophical and political underpinnings […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Multiculturalism • Tags: alain benoist, alain finkielkraut, black culture, charles taylor, cultural diversity, enlightenment, france, herder, identity politics, isaiah berlin, multiculturalism, native son, nouvelle droite, racism, richard wright, romanticism, tariq modood, walter benn michaels, will kymlicka, yugoslavia

THREE MYTHS OF IMMIGRATION

May 8, 2012 by Kenan Malik

I am giving the Milton K Wong Lecture in Vancouver in June. Entitled ‘What’s Wrong with Multiculturalism? A European Perspective’, it will try to explain to a Canadian audience, for whom multiculturalism has a very different meaning than it does to a European one, the contours of the European debate, as well as my disagreements with both sides. In particular I want to show why both multiculturalists and many of their critics (particularly their rightwing critics) buy into the same […]

Categories: Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: british asians, british politics, britishness, christopher caldwell, europe, french politics, immigration, islam, multiculturalism, muslims, racial science, racism, secularism, tariq modood

ANDERS BREIVIK AND THE CULTURE OF DELUSION

April 23, 2012 by Kenan Malik

‘We want to create a European version of al-Qaeda’, the ‘most successful revolutionary movement in the world’. So claimed Anders Behring Breivik at his trial in Oslo last week. In his sick, twisted, paranoid fantasy world, Breivik sees himself as warrior defending Christian Europe against a Muslim invasion. Yet, nothing so resembles Breivik’s mindset as that of an Islamist jihadist. Not just because Breivik admires the organizational ability of al-Qaeda, but because both Breivik and jihadists draw upon the same […]

Categories: Multiculturalism, War on terror • Tags: anders breivik, christian europe, christopher caldwell, clash of civilizations, cultural diversity, diversity, eurabia, islam, islamism, islamophobia, jihadism, mark steyn, melanie phillips, multiculturalism, sam harris, samuel huntington, tzvetan todorov

FROM STREETFIGHTERS TO BOOKBURNERS

March 30, 2012 by Kenan Malik

Earlier this week I published an extract from my book From Fatwa to Jihad, that told the story of how the Asian Youth Movements were created in Britain in the 1970s. This second extract explains how the British state and religious conservatives joined forces to marginalise secular radicals in the name of multiculturalism. This is the story of how Bradford came to be painted green. The same story could be told about towns all over Britain. In the summer of […]

Categories: Britain, Multiculturalism • Tags: asian youth movement, black identity, bradford, britain, british asians, From Fatwa to Jihad, identity politics, kenan malik's books, multiculturalism, racism, secularism

HERE TO STAY, HERE TO FIGHT

March 28, 2012 by Kenan Malik

BBC Radio 4 broadcast a documentary this week by Zaiba Malik on the history of the Asian Youth Movements. For many of us who grew up in 1970s and 1980s, the AYMs were a central feature of our lives. Radical and secular, the movements challenged both the vicious racism that defined Britain in that era and many traditional values too, helping to establish an alternative leadership in Asian communities that confronted the conservatives on issues such as the role of […]

Categories: Britain, Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: asian youth movement, black identity, britain, british asians, identity politics, kenan malik's books, racism, secularism

WE SHOULD TALK ABOUT THIS

March 18, 2012 by Kenan Malik

Actually, I seem to have been talking about this for much of the past two decades; ‘this’ being free speech, multiculturalism, Islam, Islamism, the issues at the heart of DV8’s extraordinary new show Can We Talk About This? now playing at London’s National Theatre. Lloyd Newsom’s company has, for more than quarter of a century, blurred the lines between dance and theatre as a way of, in the company’s own words, ‘reinvesting dance with meaning, particularly where this has been […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech, Multiculturalism • Tags: cultural diversity, dance, danish cartoons, dv8, free speech, geert wilders, islamism, martin amis, multiculturalism, muslims, ray honeyford

GETTING OFFENSIVE WITH NIHAL

February 26, 2012 by Kenan Malik

Another video (or rather audio) that I had not realised was online. I had been invited to Nihal’s show on the BBC’s Asian Network for a two-minute spot to promote the Festival of South Asian Literature, at which I was speaking. I ended up staying an hour debating free speech, multiculturalism and the giving of offence.

Categories: Free Speech, Multiculturalism • Tags: british asians, britishness, broadcasts, free speech, identity politics, islamism, multiculturalism, muslims, rushdie affair, salman rushdie

MYTHS OF ASSIMILATIONISM AND MULTICULTURALISM

November 25, 2011 by Kenan Malik

Here is my introduction to the discussion on ‘immigration and citizenship’ at last week’s Trudeau Foundation conference on ‘The Making of Citizenship’, about which I have already written. I was part of a double act with Ruben Zaiotti, whose job it was to talk about the Canadian experience. Mine was just to be provocative. The debate about immigration and citizenship in Europe is often presented as a debate between multiculturalism and assimilation. Not only does this oversimplify the debate, but […]

Categories: Multiculturalism • Tags: assimilationism, british asians, britishness, christopher caldwell, citizenship, france, immigration, islam, multiculturalism, muslims, racism

DOES CANADA HAVE THE ANSWER TO EUROPE’S MULTICULTURAL PROBLEMS?

November 21, 2011 by Kenan Malik

For someone like me, a European in favour of mass immigration but critical of multiculturalism, the Trudeau Foundation conference on ‘The Making of Citizens’ that took place last week in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was both intriguing and fascinating. The Foundation was set up in 2001 in memory of former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, a key architect of Canada’s multicultural policy. Its aim is to promote and fund research in the humanities and social sciences and, while not attached to any political […]

Categories: International, Multiculturalism • Tags: canada, immigration, multiculturalism, trudeau foundation

THE TRAGIC IRONIES OF BREIVIK’S TERROR

July 30, 2011 by Kenan Malik

Three weeks ago London marked the sixth anniversary of the 7/7 tube bombings. Now Oslo will have its own heart-wrenching day of remembrance every year. Even for those who lived through 7/7 – not to mention countless other bombings, from IRA to neo-Nazi, that London has witnessed in the past few decades – there was still something viscerally shocking about Anders Breivik’s murderous rampage through Oslo and Utoya, the mindlessness of the massacre combined with its cold-eyed homicidal brutality. It […]

Categories: Multiculturalism, War on terror • Tags: 7/7, anders breivik, anti-terror laws, christianity, diversity, far right, identity politics, immigration, islamism, jihadism, liberties, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, terrorism, war on terror

MULTICULTURALISM AND THE ROAD TO 7/7

July 7, 2011 by Kenan Malik

This is my debut op-ed essay for the New York Times, a reflection on 7/7, multiculturalism and Islamism, which was published today under the title ‘Assimilation’s Failure, Terrorism’s Rise’. The NYT version is (very) slightly shorter than this. Six years ago today, on July 7, 2005, Islamic suicide bombers attacked London’s transit system. They blew up three subway trains and a bus, leaving 52 people dead and a nation groping for answers. In one sense the meaning of 7/7 is as clear to […]

Categories: Britain, Multiculturalism, War on terror • Tags: 7/7, british politics, immigration, islamism, mcb, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, terrorism

ROMANCING THE TONGUE

April 18, 2011 by Kenan Malik

‘Segovia and Velazquez, elderly keepers of a dying language, have declared it already dead, because, getting to the essence of being human, they don’t have anything they want to say to one another’. So writes Jenni Diski on the LRB blog about the furore over the last two speakers of Ayapaneco, an indigenous Mexican language, who refuse to speak to each other. She is right. The fact that no one wants to speak Ayapaneco means that it is no longer […]

Categories: Language, Multiculturalism • Tags: cultural diversity, herder, language death, multiculturalism, romanticism

JESUS AND MO ON KENAN, DOUGLAS AND TARIQ

February 16, 2011 by Kenan Malik

My little contretemps with Douglas Murray on The Moral Maze seems to have inspired a Jesus and Mo cartoon: The original is here. (Follow the link on the board to see what led to the cartoon.) I’ve always loved Jesus and Mo. I do so even more now :-).

Categories: Kenan Malik, Multiculturalism • Tags: broadcasts, jesus and mo, moral maze, multiculturalism

I’M STILL A CRITIC OF MULTICULTURALISM, HONEST

February 10, 2011 by Kenan Malik

I have long been a critic of multiculturalism. And I have debated the issue with Tariq Modood more times than I care remember, including on Start the Week, Newsnight Review, and at public meetings in London, Bristol, Manchester and countless other places. So when The Moral Maze decided this week to debate multiculturalism, in the wake of David Cameron’s speech, and invited Modood to be one of the witnesses, it seemed inevitable that I would be grilling him. If only life […]

Categories: Kenan Malik, Multiculturalism • Tags: broadcasts, clash of civilizations, douglas murray, immigration, liberties, moral maze, multiculturalism, muslims, salman rushdie, samuel huntington, tariq modood, the satanic verses