Tag: immigration

LONDON IS SPECIAL, BUT NOT THAT SPECIAL

September 29, 2013 by Kenan Malik

Next month the International Herald Tribune is reborn as the International New York Times. I will be writing a monthly column for the new paper. But, it seems, I write columns faster than the New York Times launches new brands. So my first essay, on the debate about London and immigration, is published this weekend in the New York Times and in the unreconstructed IHT. I cannot contractually publish the full essay on Pandaemonium until next month, but in the meantime here are […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, british politics, immigration, london

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY ‘INTEGRATION’?

June 12, 2013 by Kenan Malik

Last month, 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’. In his response to the review, Goodhart raised three main issues. First, he suggested that […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, britishness, david goodhart, identity politics, immigration, integration, multiculturalism, racism

REFLECTIONS ON UKIP – AND ON REFLECTIONS ABOUT UKIP

May 9, 2013 by Kenan Malik

A week on from the local elections, and there seems to be no end to the debate about UKIP’s success. Explanations fall into two broad categories. Some insist that UKIP garnered merely a temporary midterm protest vote. Others see Nigel Farage’s outfit as a lasting threat to which the main parties must respond by adopting more hardline policies, especially on Europe, immigration and welfare. Both views are right. And both are wrong. UKIP does draw the protest vote. But the […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, conservative party, european union, immigration, labour party, racism, ukip, working class

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A COMMUNITY

May 6, 2013 by Kenan Malik

David Goodhart, in his response to my review of his book The British Dream, raised three major issues. First, he suggested, mass immigration undermines stability and continuity. Second, he claimed that I ignored the fact that immigrants come not as individuals but as members of communities and cultures. And third, he challenged me to set out my concept of integration. I dealt with the question of stability and change in a pervious post. I will write about the meaning of […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, david goodhart, immigration, liberalism, multiculturalism, working class movements

IMMIGRATION AND LOSS

April 26, 2013 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

April 22, 2013 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.

April 20, 2013 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

MULTICULTURALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS

April 3, 2013 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

THE FACTS, THE MYTHS AND THE FRAMING OF IMMIGRATION

March 30, 2013 by Kenan Malik

At the heart of the current debate about immigration are two issues: the first is about the facts of immigration, the second about public perception of immigration. The facts are relatively straightforward. Immigration is a good and the idea that immigrants come to Britain to live off benefits laughable. Immigrants put more money into the economy than they take out and have negligible impact on jobs or wages. An independent report on the impact of immigration commissioned by the Home Office […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-semitism, british politics, david goodhart, immigration, muslims, racism

FROM THE VAULTS: ISLAM, IMMIGRATION AND INVASION

March 13, 2013 by Kenan Malik

My book on the history of moral thought is all but complete (yay!). Hopefully, blogging will be back to normal next week. In the meantime, here is another old book review plucked from the vaults, this one of Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on a Revolution in Europe. It was first published in New Humanist in July 2009. For more discussion of the myths about immigration, multiculturalism and Islam, see my Milton K Wong lecture, which is in two parts. In his classic […]

Categories: Race & Immigration • Tags: christopher caldwell, humanism, immigration, islamism, islamophobia, racism

MULTICULTURALISM – THE BROADCAST

June 24, 2012 by Kenan Malik

My Milton K Wong lecture, ‘What’s wrong with multiculturalism?’, that I gave in Vancouver earlier this month, was broadcast on CBC on Friday. I have already posted the transcript of the talk, in two parts, here and here. (The broadcast has been slightly edited to fit the CBC schedule; the transcript is in full.) There is a Milton K Wong website dedicated to discussion and debate around the themes of the talk.

Categories: Multiculturalism • Tags: anders breivik, british asians, british politics, broadcasts, clash of civilizations, cultural diversity, danish cartoons, europe, far right, french politics, germany, guest workers, immigration, islam, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, riots, rushdie affair, turkish migrants

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MULTICULTURALISM? [PART 1]

June 4, 2012 by Kenan Malik

I gave the Milton K Wong lecture in Vancouver on Sunday. I very much enjoyed the event- it was a stunning venue, a superb audience and a good discussion of the issues. My thanks to the Laurier Institution, University of British Columbia and CBC for inviting me. Entitled ‘What is Wrong with Multiculturalism? A European Perpective’, the lecture pulled together many of the themes about immigration, identity, diversity and multiculturalism of which I have been talking and writing recently. It was […]

Categories: Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: british asians, british politics, britishness, christopher caldwell, europe, french politics, germany, guest workers, immigration, islam, multiculturalism, muslims, parekh report, racism, turkish migrants

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

THE SPECTRE OF LE PEN AND THE SHAME OF THE LEFT

May 1, 2012 by Kenan Malik

The incumbent candidate falters badly. His main opponent fares barely any better. The candidates from so-called ‘fringe’ parties garner more votes than either of the mainstream ones. The far right gains its biggest success. The only thing striking about the first round of the French elections was that there was nothing striking about it. It followed the pattern of almost every election across Europe over the past few years. This Sunday Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande will slug it out […]

Categories: Race & Immigration • Tags: austerity, communist party, democracy, euro crisis, european union, francois hollande, french politics, front national, geert wilders, immigration, jean-luc melenchon, marine le pen, nikolas sarkozy, pcf, racism

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