Tag: britain

FROM THE ARCHIVES: MY FIRST ARTICLE FOR THE INDEPENDENT

February 14, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This week the Independent announced that it would cease its print edition next month and will be appear purely in digital form. Dozens of redundancies are expected. The Independent was born in an era of great transformation, political, social, and technological. It came to life just as the postwar order was unraveling; three years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and at a time when the old ideological politics were being unpicked, and the meaning of ‘right’ and ‘left’ […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, germany, immigration, migration crisis, nazism, racism, refugees

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

IS EASTERN EUROPE MORE RACIST THAN THE WEST?

November 3, 2015 by Kenan Malik

An extract from my latest column for the International New York Times on the migrant crisis and the supposed ‘cultural gap’ between Eastern and Western Europe: Judging by the newspapers lately, one might be forgiven for thinking that until Hungary started putting up fences, the European Union had open borders and welcomed migrants with kindness and gentleness. In fact, over the past 25 years, the union has constructed what many justly call ‘Fortress Europe’, keeping out migrants not with fences […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, eastern europe, european union, fortress europe, hungary, immigration, racism, xenophobia

LIVING IN DIVERSITY

May 4, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at a conference last month in Oslo on diversity, faith and extremism. How should we live in a diverse society? It is a question that has been asked with increasing urgency in recent years as the question of immigration, and in particular of Islamic immigration, has taken centre stage in public debate. At the heart of this question lies the dilemma of how Western societies should respond to the influx of […]

Categories: Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: assimilation, britain, civil society, cultural diversity, europe, france, free speech, immigration, integration, islam, islamism, jihadism, karim miske, multiculturalism, racism

THE AGE OF ADOLESCENCE

April 17, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of my article on the Jeremy Clarkson debate, published last month in the International New York Times. (I cannot contractually publish the full article on Pandaemonium until a month after it is published on the NYT.) The middle-aged presenter of a British TV show about cars has been suspended by the BBC for allegedly hitting his producer during a ‘fracas’. Big deal, you might think; hardly global news. Except that, for many people, the suspension last week […]

Categories: Britain, Free Speech • Tags: bbc, britain, free speech, jeremy clarkson, racism, top gear

BIGOT OR REBEL?

March 18, 2015 by Kenan Malik

My latest column for the International New York Times is on the furore over Jeremy Clarkson’s suspension from Top Gear, published in the INYT under the headline ‘Top Gear hits rock bottom’. Here are the opening paragraphs. You can read the full article in the INYT. The middle-aged presenter of a British TV show about cars has been suspended by the BBC for allegedly hitting his producer during a ‘fracas’. Big deal, you might think; hardly global news. Except that, for many […]

Categories: Britain, Free Speech • Tags: bbc, britain, free speech, jeremy clarkson, top gear

WHAT’S IMMORAL ABOUT ALLEVIATING SUFFERING?

February 23, 2015 by Kenan Malik

My latest column for the New York Times is on the debate about ‘three parent babies’, published in the NYT under the headline ‘The Three-Parent Baby’s First Step’. Here are the opening paragraphs. You can read the full article in the NYT. The British Parliament can be an archaic, backward-looking institution, wedded to tradition, and not known for taking a revolutionary stance. Yet its members have just made a groundbreaking decision, one that no other legislature has so far been willing to […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: biotechnology, britain, ethics, mitochondrial transfer, playing god, three parent baby

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

UNITED AGAINST ABORTION

February 4, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This week the High Court in Belfast granted a judicial review of Northern Ireland’s abortion law. The 1967 Abortion Act, which legalised abortion in England, Scotland and Wales – or, to be more precise, provided a legal defence for those carrying out the operation in certain circumstances – specifically excluded Northern Ireland from its provisions. Today, abortion is legal in Northern Ireland only if a woman’s life is at risk or if pregnancy would have an adverse effect on her […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Women • Tags: 1967 abortion act, abortion, britain, ireland, northern ireland, religion, women's rights

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

GERMANY, BRITAIN AND THE ANGEL OF HISTORY

November 22, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of my essay on British perceptions of German history published last month in the International New York Times under the headline ‘Germany’s History Lesson for Britain’. Ernst Barlach was one of Germany’s great Expressionist artists of the early 20th century. A virulent nationalist in the run-up to World War I, Barlach found that his experience of the Western Front stripped him of his jingoism. Much of his subsequent work explored the sorrow and suffering […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, History, International • Tags: britain, britishness, ernst barlach, germany, neil Macgregor

GERMANY AND BRITAIN, MEMORY AND MYOPIA

October 24, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is my latest column for the International New York Times, published under the headline ‘Germany’s history lesson for Britain’. You can read the full version in in INYT. Ernst Barlach was one of Germany’s great expressionist artists of the early twentieth century. A virulent nationalist in the run-up to the First World War, Barlach found that his experience of the Western Front stripped him of his jingoism. Much of his subsequent work explored the sorrow and suffering that he saw […]

Categories: Britain, History, International • Tags: britain, british museum, britishness, ernst barlach, first world war, germany, holocaust, imperialism, second world war

TIME TO UNFENCE OUR VIEW OF MIGRATION

October 6, 2014 by Kenan Malik

Ruben Andersson is an anthropologist at LSE’s Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, and the author of Illegality, Inc: Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe. He recently published a post on the LSE politics blog which described how immigration border fences feed the very problem they supposedly address. I am delighted to be able to republish it on Pandaemonium. Ruben Andersson It is time to unfence our view of migration Migration panic is upon Calais yet again. Amid […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Race & Immigration • Tags: borders, britain, european union, fortress europe, immigration, immigration controls, refugees, ruben andersson, spain, use

THE MANY MYTHS OF IDENTITY, THE MANY WAYS OF BEING ME

August 28, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of the essay on Britishness, patriotism and identity, published last month in the New York Times under the headline ‘On Britishness and Belonging’. How times change. Last week I was at the Lord’s cricket ground in London – the ‘home of cricket’ as England cricket administrators like to boast – to see England play India. I was born in India. Yet, I was cheering on England. Thirty years ago I certainly would not have been. […]

Categories: Britain, Kenan Malik, Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: britain, britishness, cricket, englishness, identity politics, national identity, patriotism, racism, sport