Tag: islam

INTRODUCING… JESUS AND MO

September 30, 2015 by Kenan Malik

It is perhaps appropriate that a new Danish collection of Jesus and Mo cartoons should be published this week, the tenth anniversary of publication of the original Danish cartoons. This is the foreword that I have written for the new collection. Satire can be a deadly business these days. Especially for those satirists who see it as their business to mock religion. And most especially for those who dare to mock Islam. The murderous assault on the Paris office of […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Free Speech • Tags: free speech, islam, jesus and mo

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

FROM THE ARCHIVES: KAUFMANN ON RELIGION

August 25, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Continuing my series of old book reviews that I am publishing while I am away in South Africa, here is my review of Eric Kaufmann’s Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, originally published in the Observer, 1 May 2010. Review of Eric Kaufmann, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the 21st Century Observer, 1 May 2010 Europe, 2020. The Islamists have stormed to power right across the continent. No English pub can sell alcohol. Every French woman […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books • Tags: demography, eric kaufmann, islam, mark steyn, religion, secularism

EVIL AND THE ISLAMIC STATE

July 16, 2015 by Kenan Malik

‘The problem of evil’, Hannah Arendt wrote in 1945, ‘will be the fundamental question of postwar intellectual life in Europe.’ The historical and moral significance of contemporary jihadism is miniscule when compared to that of the Holocaust and the Final Solution. And yet jihadism has raised again the question of evil. Not evil in the sense of genocide but as expressed through acts of barbarity so inhuman that they are difficult to comprehend. The barbarism of Islamic State, in particular, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: anti-humanism, anti-imperialism, evil, freedom struggles, hannah arendt, identity politics, islam, islamic state, islamism, jihadism, left, marc sageman, morality

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

BACK TO BRADFORD FOR AN OLD DEBATE

June 21, 2015 by Kenan Malik

A Dutch TV company, VPRO, is making a documentary about the Rushdie affair, partly using my book From Fatwa to Jihad as a template. And as part of the documentary it wanted a ‘renunion’ between myself and Sher Azam, the president of the Bradford Council of Mosques in the 1980s and the man who organized the torching of The Satanic Verses at the end of the famous demonstration in January 1989. I was not at the demonstration, but shortly afterwards went […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Free Speech • Tags: bradford, equality, free speech, gay marriage, islam, liberalism, liberties, religious freedom, rushdie affair, sher azam, the satanic verses

I BELIEVE IN FREE SPEECH, BUT…

June 3, 2015 by Kenan Malik

My talk at the Oslo Freedom Forum last week. For more videos of talks from the conference, many of which were moving and inspiring, visit the OFF website.

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: censorship, free speech, islam, liberalism, liberties, oslo freedom forum, racism, talks

A CATHEDRAL, A MOSQUE, A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS

May 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels on 10 May 2015 on ‘The many roots of Christian Europe, the many sources of the Islamic world’. It was part of a series of talks to accompany an exhibition of ‘The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Art’ entitled ‘L’Empire du Sultan’. I want to begin this talk in two cities at opposite ends of Europe – Córdoba and Istanbul. Córdoba’s Mosque-Cathedral is one of […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History • Tags: christianity, clash of civilizations, cordoba, enlightenment, europe, greek philosophy, hagia sophia, ibn rushd, islam, istanbul, jonathan israel, monotheism, muslim philosophy, muslim rationalism, ottoman empire, radical enlightenment, religion, socrates

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

THIS IS NOT A POST ABOUT FREE SPEECH

April 14, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This Barney & Clyde cartoon was published in Washington Post in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings. At the heart of the cartoon, suggested Gene Weingarten, one of the creators of the strip, was ‘the epistemological question asked by Magritte in his famous Ceci n’est pas une pipe painting: Is a representation of a pipe actually a pipe? Who is to define truth? The artists? The viewer? Who is in charge of reality?’ Weingarten saw the questions as directed […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: censorship, charlie hebdo, free speech, garry trudeau, hate speech, islam, liberties, mazen kerbaj

TO SEE BEYOND THE STEREOTYPES

April 5, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This essay was published in the Observer, 5 April 2015, under the headline ‘Diversity and immigration are not the problem. Political courage is…’ Two events this week, some 2000 miles apart, captured the fraught character of the current debate about multicultural Britain. On Wednesday, nine Britons from Rochdale were arrested in Turkey, apparently as they tried to cross the border into Syria. One was the son of a local Labour councilor Shakil Ahmed, who said he was ‘shocked’ to hear […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, diversity, identity politics, immigration, islam, islamism, multiculturalism, muslims, ukip, working class

ON MULTITUDES

March 28, 2015 by Kenan Malik

We are in Bradford, shortly after a fractious general election, and with the country about to go to war in the Middle East. The Conservatives are holding their party conference in the city. Protestors gather in an Occupy-like camp outside the conference hall. Kash, a liberal Muslim, local councillor, and wannabe MP, is preparing to address the Tory conference about the need to build trust between communities. His white partner Natalie secretly converts to Islam, much to Kash’s shock. Natalie’s […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Multiculturalism • Tags: british politics, islam, islamism, john hollingworth, multiculturalism, racism, theatre, tricycle tehatre

THE MAKING OF WANNABE JIHADIS IN THE WEST

March 1, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This essay was published in the Observer, 1 March 2015, under the headline ‘The search for identity draws jihadis to the horrors of Isis’. First it was Shamima Begum, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, three schoolgirls from Tower Hamlets who smuggled themselves to Syria during their half term holiday. Then it was ‘Jihadi John’, the IS executioner who was unmasked by the Washington Post this week as the Kuwaiti-born Londoner Mohammed Emwazi. The stories of the three schoolgirls and of […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, War on terror • Tags: identity politics, islam, islamic state, islamism, jihadi john, jihadism, left, radicalisation, western policy

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