national identity | Pandaemonium

IMMIGRATION AND THE LEFT – A DEBATE

January 5, 2020 by Kenan Malik

I have been involved in a long debate on Twitter with the writer and activist Thomas Fazi, which began with his critique of my article on social conservatism and the working class and ended as a debate about immigration and the left. The debate consisted of very long threads from both of us (the four threads amount to more than 5000 words!), and inevitably was Twitterish in form and tone, peevish and crabby at times, but it got to the […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: blue labour, identity politics, immigration, labour party, left, national identity, nationalism, racism, social conservatism, thomas fazi, working class

FOR COMMON VALUES, AGAINST PATRIOTISM

June 21, 2017 by Kenan Malik

The British think tank Demos published this week as a special issue of its journal a collection of essays on British identity called ‘Renewal Britannia’. This is my contribution to the collection, entitled ‘Proud to be British?‘ It was August 2012. I was sitting in the Olympic stadium in London with my daughter. She had red, white and blue braids in her hair and was enthusiastically waving a Union Jack. I thought about when I was her age. Then, I […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: britishness, edmund burke, identity politics, national identity, patriotism, racism

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

SCOTLAND, CLACTON AND THE POLITICS OF DISAFFECTION

September 26, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is the first part of my latest column for the International New York Times, published under the headline ‘United Kingdom, Divided People’, on the fallout from the Scottish referendum. You can read the complete version in the INYT. Last week, Scotland voted to reject independence and to remain part of the United Kingdom. Yet — oh, the irony! — the greatest impact of the vote may be the fomenting of an English nationalism and the greater fragmentation of the Union. […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: devolution, england, englishness, identity politics, national identity, nationalism, scotland, scottish independence, snp, ukip

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

HOW I’VE COME TO PASS THE CRICKET TEST – BUT NOT TO BE A PATRIOT

July 25, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is my latest column for the New York Times, on ideas of Britishness, belonging and identity. (We had to cut the essay slightly because of the space available; I will publish the full version next month.) 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. […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: britain, british asians, cricket, cricket test, identity politics, national identity, patriotism, racism, sport

WHO DO I THINK I AM?

June 20, 2014 by Kenan Malik

In 2009, London’s Wellcome Collection conducted a series of interviews about the meaning of identity, to coincide with its exhibition Identity: Eight Rooms, Nine Lives, part of an Identity Project season. They were published in a book called Identity and Identification. The interview I gave as part of the project has some bearing on the current debate about British identity and values. So, here is a cut-down and somewhat reworked version of my interview. Who are you? The question ‘Who am […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: britishness, englishness, identity politics, national identity

WHO IS ENGLISH ENOUGH TO PLAY FOR ENGLAND?

February 21, 2014 by Kenan Malik

David Papineau is Professor of Philosophy of Science at King’s College, London. He has also a wonderful new blog about sport, More Important Than That. I am delighted to publish on Pandaemonium his latest essay, on the absurdities of sporting eligibility rules. My thanks to David for contributing here, and do check out his blog. David Papineau Civil society and why Adnan Januzaj should be eligible for England (though he isn’t) Adnan Januzaj is what American sports journalists call a ‘phenom’. […]

Categories: Britain, Sport • Tags: britishness, david papineau, englishness, football, national identity, nationalism, sport