Tag: muslims

RETHINKING THE CHALLENGE OF ANTI-MUSLIM BIGOTRY

November 15, 2017 by Kenan Malik

In 1997 the British anti-racist organisation the Runnymede Trust published its highly influential report Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All. The report both brought to public consciousness the reality of anti-Muslim bigotry and framed it in terms of ‘Islamophobia’ – indeed, it played a significant role in establishing the term as legitimate and important. Twenty years on, the Runnymede Trust has brought out a follow-up report Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, which is a stock-take on current views, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-racism, british politics, diversity, free speech, gill valentine, hate speech, iqbal sacranie, islam, islamophobia, multiculturalism, muslims, offence, racism, runnymede trust

THE HUMAN LENS OF MEL ROSENTHAL

November 12, 2017 by Kenan Malik

‘Times change and they change in difficult ways. Not knowing what to do about it, I go back to simple stuff — which is, I hope, to make photographs thinking about truth and justice’. So said Mel Rosenthal, the New York photographer who died last week. ‘To make photographs thinking about truth and justice.’ That may sound crass and tacky. Rosenthal’s photographs were anything but. They were not shouty or strident or agitprop. But they were infused with warmth and […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Photos • Tags: bronx, mel rosenthal, muslims, new york, photography, usa

FROM THE SATANIC VERSES TO CHARLIE HEBDO

October 19, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is a talk I gave to the Integrity 20 conference in Brisbane, on 19 October 2017. On 14 February 1989, Valentine’s Day, the Ayotollah Khomeini issued his infamous fatwa against Salman Rushdie. It was a brutally shocking act that forced Salman Rushdie into hiding for almost a decade. 26 years later, on 7 January 2015, came an even more viscerally shocking act, when two gunmen forced their way into the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, sprayed […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, Free Speech, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: censorship, charlie hebdo, free speech, identity politics, islamism, left, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, salman rushdie, the satanic verses

WORDS STILL FAIL US WHEN WE TALK ABOUT MUSLIMS

September 3, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This essay was published in the Observer, 3 September 2017, under the headline ‘Fostering row exposes how words fail us when we talk about Muslims in Britain’. Court cases involving children being taken into care are inevitably messy. There are deep emotions involved and conflicting viewpoints. Parents are often angry, children confused and fearful. Those outside the process can find it difficult to discern the facts, as much of the decision-making takes place behind closed doors. Given all this, it […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Politics • Tags: adoption, andrew norfolk, british politics, culture, fostering, identity politics, islam, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, rotherham abuse scandal, tower hamlets

HOW CULTURE CAME TO APPROPRIATE RACE

July 2, 2017 by Kenan Malik

A slightly shorter version of this essay was published in the Observer, 2 July 2017, under the headline ‘We need to rethink the way we imagine race and culture’. Last week, Sandeep and Reena Mander were denied the chance to adopt a child. It was not because their local council, Windsor and Maidenhead, thought that they would not have provided a loving family home. Nor because there were no children to adopt. It is rather that the Manders are of […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: adoption, cultural appropriation, culture, dana schutz, identity politics, immigration, katie perry, left, muslims, new right, paul gilroy, racism, rape, stolen generations, transracial adoption

FROM LEFT RADICALISM TO RADICAL ISLAMISM

May 28, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This essay was published in the Observer, 28 May 2017, under the headline ‘How did the left radicalism of my Manchester youth give way to Islamism?’ Were I 20 today, would I be attracted to Islamism or desire to become a soldier of Islamic State? It seems shocking, even insulting, especially to those who lost their lives in the Manchester Arena on Monday night, just to ask that question. It seems more shocking still not simply to give a resounding ‘No’ as an answer, […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: asian youth movement, britain, british asians, british politics, france, grunwick, islamism, jihadism, left, muslims, working class

THOU SHALT NOT GIVE OFFENCE

March 23, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is an extract from the Afterword to the new edition of my book From Fatwa to Jihad: How the World Changed From The Satanic Verses to Charlie Hebdo. This extract looks at the free speech debates around the Danish cartoons and Charlie Hebdo. You can buy the book from most bookshops, or from Amazon or from the Book Depository. In December 2009, about nine months after From Fatwa to Jihad was first published, Index on Censorship, one of the world’s foremost […]

Categories: Free Speech, International • Tags: charlie hebdo, danish cartoons, france, free speech, index on censorship, islam, jytte klausen, liberal hypocrisy, liberalism, muslims, racism, salman rushdie, the satanic verses

THE PROBLEM IS MORE THAN INTEGRATION

December 18, 2016 by Kenan Malik

A shorter version of this article was published in Al Jazeera English. ‘Drawing on what we have seen and heard during the review, we suggest integration is the extent to which people from all backgrounds can get on.’ So suggests the Casey Review, the latest British government study of the problems of immigration and integration. Last year civil servant Louise Casey was asked by the then prime minister David Cameron ‘to consider what could be done to boost opportunity and integration in […]

Categories: Britain, Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, casey report, casey review, immigration, integration, islam, multiculturalism, muslims, social cohesion, working class

ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE LEFT

May 29, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of the article I wrote last month for the International New York Times on the controversy about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. (I cannot publish my INYT articles on Pandaemonium until a month after it is published in the newspaper.) It was originally published under the headline ‘The British Left’s Jewish Problem’. I have slightly edited it to take account of the fact that the original was published before the London Mayoral election. It has, admitted […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: anti-semitism, conspiracy theories, identity politics, jeremy corbyn, ken livingstone, labour party, left, muslims, naz shah

BEYOND FEAR AND INDIFFERENCE

May 15, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This essay on Sadiq Khan’s London Mayoral victory, Trevor Philips’new pamphlet on diversity and the public discourse on Islam was published in the Observer, under the headline ‘Muslims are not a ‘different’ class of Briton: we’re as messy as the rest’. ‘It shows it is possible to be Muslim and a Westerner. Western values are compatible with Islam.’ So said Sadiq Khan after his victory as London mayor. Trevor Phillips, former chief of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, takes […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Multiculturalism • Tags: britain, british asians, free speech, identity politics, islam, muslims, sadiq khan, trevor phillips

THE VIEW FROM NORTH AFRICA

May 11, 2016 by Kenan Malik

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation has published a fascinating poll on attitudes to religion and politics in five North African countries (Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco). It reveals wide differences between the countries in political and religious attitudes – Tunisia being by far the least religious and most liberal, and Libya the most religious and conservative. There are also some depressingly familiar commonalities – particularly conspiracy theories about the creation Daech/IS. Tunisia is, of course, the only democracy among these states, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International • Tags: algeria, egypt, islam, libya, morocco, muslims, north africa, tunisia

TALKING ABOUT RADICALIZATION

April 20, 2016 by Kenan Malik

I took part last month in a discussion about ‘Contemporary Understandings of Radicalization’ at King’s College, London. Organised by the King’s College War Studies Society and the Remote Control Project, the other speakers were Shiraz Maher and Claire Lauterbach of Privacy International. Here is my introduction. One of the problems with discussing the concept of radicalization is that it can mean all things to all people. In one sense it simply means ‘the process by which terrorists become terrorists’. But, radicalization, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, War on terror • Tags: islam, islamism, jihadism, left, muslims, olivier roy, radicalization

SO, WHAT DO BRITISH MUSLIMS REALLY THINK?

April 12, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This Wednesday, Channel 4 in Britain will broadcast a Trevor Phillips documentary on ‘What British Muslims really think’. On Sunday, the Sunday Times published details of an ICM poll about Muslim attitudes commissioned for the programme and ran an essay by Phillips on Muslim integration. The headlines generated by the poll – ‘Half of British Muslims want gay sex banned says poll’; ‘Most Muslims would not give terror tip-offs’, etc – and Phillip’s argument (‘the integration of Muslims will probably […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain • Tags: british asians, britishness, islam, islamophobia, muslims, religion, trevor phillips

AFTER BRUSSELS: ONCE AGAIN THINKING THROUGH TERROR

March 23, 2016 by Kenan Malik

‘Solidarity and anger. Those were my immediate emotions’. So I wrote last November after the Paris attacks: ‘Solidarity with the people of Paris, anger at the depraved, nihilistic savagery of the terrorists.’ My emotions are much the same after the savage attacks in Brussels this week. ‘But, beyond solidarity and anger,’, I observed in November, ‘we need also analysis.’ I have written much over the past few years about why conventional views about radicalization and the making of European jihadis […]

Categories: International, War on terror • Tags: anti-imperialism, identity politics, islam, islamism, jihadism, left, migration crisis, muslims, radicalization, terrorism

TALKING MIGRATION, MUSLIMS AND MORALITY

March 17, 2016 by Kenan Malik

I recently gave an interview to Bread and Roses, the TV magazine hosted by Maryam Namazie and Fariborz Pooya, on Europe’s migration crisis, Muslim immigration, the open borders debate and the question of profiling. (The interview begins about 7 minutes in). There were a few errors in what I said, so before anyone else points them out, let me do so myself: The EU-Libya migration deal was concluded in 2010; the new EU-Turkey deal proposes that all irregular migrants crossing from Turkey […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Kenan Malik, Race & Immigration • Tags: european union, immigration, islam, islamism, migrant crisis, muslims, open borders, populism, profiling, racism