Tag: assimilationism

FRANCE AND AMERICA, RACE AND RACISM

July 12, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the different approaches of France and America to issues of race and racism, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 9 July 2023, under the headline “France has been laissez-faire on race, the US proactive. Clearly, neither of them has it right”. Should public policy be “race conscious” or “colour blind”? Should it target the specific inequalities faced by minority groups or treat all citizens equally without any reference to individuals’ racial and cultural backgrounds? The […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties, Race & Immigration • Tags: affirmative action, assimilationism, black middle class, black working class, france, identity politics, inequality, multiculturalism, nahel merzouk, racism, universalism, usa, william julius wilson

THE CHALLENGE OF THE JIHADI STATE OF MIND

May 11, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the Kreisky Forum in Vienna on 11 May 2017. It pulls together many of the themes from previous talks and essays. Last week a 20-year-old Briton called Damon Smith was found guilty of planting a homemade bomb filled with ball bearings on a London Underground train. Police discovered in his flat shredded pages of an article titled ‘Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom’ from Inspire, a magazine published by an al-Qaida affiliate. […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, War on terror • Tags: assimilationism, france, identity politics, islam, islamic state, islamism, jihadism, multiculturalism, racism, radicalization, terrorism

WHY UPDATE FROM FATWA TO JIHAD?

February 9, 2017 by Kenan Malik

My book From Fatwa to Jihad was first published in 2009, on the twentieth anniversary of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie. Eight years on, I have just published an updated version with a new Afterword. Why? In 1989 the fatwa against Salman Rushdie had come as a great shock, both in Britain and globally, and its consequences reverberated through both domestic and international politics in the two decades that followed. Much was written about it. Yet, there had been little […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, Kenan Malik • Tags: assimilationism, charlie hebdo, free speech, From Fatwa to Jihad, islamism, jihadism, kenan malik's books, radicalization, rushdie affair, the satanic verses

LA FRANCE ET L’ANGLETERRE AU BORD DE LA CRISE DE NERFS

January 22, 2017 by Kenan Malik

The French journalist Ilana Navaro has made a superb four-part radio documentary series for France Culture on social policies towards immigration and integration in France and Britain. Entitled La France et L’Angleterre au born de la crise de nerfs (‘France and England on the edge of a nervous breakdown’), the documentary visits a ‘theological cafe’ in Paris and the Cambridge Muslim College, a sharia council in Birmingham, Goutte d’Or, an area in the 18th arrondissement in Paris with a large […]

Categories: International, Multiculturalism • Tags: assimilationism, britain, france, ilana navaro, integration, islam, multiculturalism, sharia

EDITORIAL INTELLIGENCE COMMENT AWARD 2016

November 24, 2016 by Kenan Malik

Yay, I won an award. The Editorial Intelligence 2016 ‘Society and diversity’ comment award. (No, I am not quite sure, either, what ‘Society and diversity comment’ amounts to, but I am immensely pleased to have won it.) The Editorial Intelligence awards have grown over the past decade to become perhaps the most important journalistic comment awards in the UK. Other winners this year included Jonathan Freedland as ‘Commentariat of the Year’, Gary Younge for ‘Comment Piece of the Year’, Sam […]

Categories: Kenan Malik • Tags: assimilationism, awards, editorial intelligence, evil, identity politics, immigration, islam, islamism, jihadism, multiculturalism, ukip

COMING SOON…

September 28, 2016 by Kenan Malik

My 2009 book From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy will be published in a new edition next February. It will have an extended (12,000 word) Afterword to bring it up to date. It will also have a new subtitle – How the World Changed From The Satanic Verses to Charlie Hebdo. I will provide more details closer to the time. In the meantime, here is an extract from the Preface to the new edition: From the […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Kenan Malik • Tags: assimilationism, charlie hebdo, france, free speech, From Fatwa to Jihad, islamic state, jihadism, kenan malik's books, multiculturalism, rushdie affair, the satanic verses

AFTER PARIS

November 15, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Solidarity and anger. Those were my immediate emotions, watching the carnage unfold on the streets of Paris. Solidarity with the people of Paris, anger at the depraved, nihilistic savagery of the terrorists. Those remain my main emotions, even now. But, beyond solidarity and anger, we need also analysis. So here are two articles, thinking through some of the issues. The first looks at, and challenges, two popular explanations for why the carnage was unleashed – Western foreign policy, on the […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International, Politics, War on terror • Tags: anti-imperialism, assimilationism, british politics, france, imperialism, islamic state, islamism, jihadism, multiculturalism, syria, terrorism

ON FENCES AND FRACTURES

September 26, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of my Stephen Lissenburgh Memorial Lecture that I gave on 23 September at the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. It was entitled ‘What’s wrong with multiculturalism?’ It is inevitable that my starting point for this talk will be the refugee crisis that now engulfs Europe. For many, the crisis is a crisis because of the numbers coming to Europe. But large though they may be, the numbers are not unprecedented, either comparatively or historically. […]

Categories: Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-semitism, assimilationism, british politics, britishness, culture, danish cartoons, diversity, fortress europe, france, handsworth riots, immigration, islam, locke, multiculturalism, muslims, racism

THE FAILURE OF MULTICULTURALISM

February 17, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is an essay about multiculturalism in Europe that I wrote for the latest issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, which has a series of features on ‘The Trouble with Race’. 1 Thirty years ago, many Europeans saw multiculturalism – the embrace of an inclusive, diverse society – as an answer to Europe’s social problems. Today, a growing number consider it to be a cause of them. That perception has led some mainstream politicians, including British Prime Minister David Cameron […]

Categories: Britain, International, Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: assimilationism, britain, british asians, europe, france, germany, handsworth riots, identity politics, immigration, islam, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, turkish migrants, working class

BRITAIN AND FRANCE, CENSORSHIP AND IDENTITY

February 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

I took part in a discussion at the Institut Français in London featuring the French film-maker Karim Miské, whose debut novel Arab Jazz, a noirish policier set in a Parisian banlieue, has just been published. The discussion, in the shadow of the Charlie Hebdo killings, focussed on questions of Islam, identity, free speech and the differences between British and French social policy. Also taking part in the discussion were the translator Ben Faccini, Jo Glanville, director of English PEN, and the journalist Suzanne […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, Multiculturalism • Tags: anti-semitism, assimilationism, britain, censorship, charlie hebdo, france, free speech, identity politics, islam, jihadism, multiculturalism, muslims, national identity, racism, secularism

CIVILIZED FRANCE AND SAVAGE FRANCE

January 21, 2015 by Kenan Malik

I wrote in a previous post about the process by which French citizens of North African origin were pushed out to the banlieues, redefined as ‘Muslims’ and cast as the ‘Other’, as not really part of the French nation. What this process revealed, I suggested, were then anxieties of the French elite about the values and identity of the nation. I am publishing here three passages from writers of very different perspectives who speak to those anxieties, from both sides of […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: andrew hussey, assimilationism, banlieues, charlie hebdo, france, islam, islamism, karim miske, michel houellebecq, muslims, national identity, racism, sartre

ASSIMILATIONISM VS MULTICULTURALISM

January 12, 2015 by Kenan Malik

One of the key debates in European social policy has been that between multiculturalism and assimilationism. French ‘assimilationist’ policies are generally seen as the polar opposite of British-style multiculturalism. French politicians pride themselves in having rejected the divisive consequences of multiculturalism. Unlike in the rest of Europe, they insist, in France every individual is treated as a citizen, not as a member of a particular racial or cultural group. The question of French social policy, and of social divisions, has […]

Categories: International, Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: assimilationism, bernard-henri levy, britain, burqa bans, charlie hebdo, enlightenment, france, islam, jihadism, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, universalism

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