Tag: racism

POPULISM: WHAT, WHY, HOW?

November 5, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is my preface to a new book on European Populism and Winning the Immigration Debate. Edited by Clara Sandelind, and published by the European Liberal Forum and Fores, the book brings together many contributors including Matthew Goodwin, Mikael Hjerm, Andrea Bohman, Jamie Bartlet, Meindert Fennema, Sjoerdje van Heerden and Sarah de Lange. It is launched today at a roundtable discussion at the European Parliament and available free online from the ELF or Fores. Preface to European Populism and Winning the Immigration […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: europe, front national, identity politics, immigration, left, populism, racism, ukip, working class

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH MULTICULTURALISM?

October 16, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of my talk about multiculturalism that I gave to the Secularism 2014 conference in London last week. For a more detailed discussion of multiculturalism, see my Milton K Wong lecture ‘What is wrong with multiculturalism?’ or my extended essay Multiculturalism and its Discontents. Before we can discuss multiculturalism, we need to distinguish between two processes or phenomena that all too often get confused. On the one hand, the lived experience of diversity; and, on the other, […]

Categories: Multiculturalism • Tags: anti-racism, cultural diversity, equality, identity politics, multiculturalism, muslims, racism

LIFE, IDENTITY, MORALITY, GOD AND EVERYTHING…

October 13, 2014 by Kenan Malik

I was a guest this weekend on Richard Holloway’s Sunday Morning show on Radio Scotland talking about life, childhood, racism, identity, morality, religion, politics, multiculturalism, the Rushdie affair, the Euthyphro dilemma… The full version is available on iPlayer – but only for the next 4 weeks (the conversation starts about 8.30 mins in). If you have missed that 4-week cut off, or cannot access the iPlayer for any reason, here is an extended extract embedded as an AudioBoom track (the third section of the […]

Categories: Kenan Malik, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: broadcasts, From Fatwa to Jihad, interviews, left, morality, multiculturalism, racism, religion, richard holloway, rushdie affair, the quest for a moral compass

AS I WAS SAYING ABOUT UKIP…

October 11, 2014 by Kenan Malik

The debate abound UKIP swirls unabated after its success in winning the Clacton by-election from the Conervatives, and in almost winning Heywood and Middleton from Labour. There remains considerable confusion about the nature of the UKIP phenomenon (the clarifying work of academics such as Matthew Goodwin and Rob Ford has been useful here). There is even greater confusion over how to challenge it. I have been writing about UKIP and immigration for a while now. So I thought I would pull together […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, immigration, populism, racism, ukip, working class

EXHIBIT B AND THINKING FOR ONESELF

September 28, 2014 by Kenan Malik

Rushdie’s critics lost the battle – they failed to prevent the publication of The Satanic Verses. But they won the war. Policy makers and arts administrators came broadly to accept the argument that it was morally unacceptable to cause offence to other cultures, and that every community possessed the right to be consulted over how it may be depicted. So I wrote in ‘Arts for whose sake?’, the keynote essay in Beyond Belief – Theatre Freedom of Expression and Public […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech, Race & Immigration • Tags: behzti, exhibit b, free speech, index on censorship, offence, racism, rushdie affair

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

FROM THE ARCHIVES: BETWEEN CAMPS

August 21, 2014 by Kenan Malik

Continuing to plunder the archives while I am away, this is the third in my series of old book reviews on the theme of race, identity and difference. It is a review of Paul Gilroy’s Between Camps and Yasmin Alibhai Brown’s Who Do We Think We Are?, first published in the Independent on Sunday, 11 June 2000. . Review of Paul Gilroy, Between Camps: Nations, Culture and the Allure of Race (Allen Lane, 2000) and Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Who Do […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: black identity, britishness, diaspora, englishness, frantz fanon, humanism, identity politics, paul gilroy, racism, yasmin alibhai brown

FROM THE ARCHIVES: ORNAMENTALISM

August 15, 2014 by Kenan Malik

I am away for a couple of weeks, so the next few posts will be from the archives – old material that I have not previously published on Pandaemonium. All will, in fact, be book reviews that explore themes of race, difference and identity. This first is a review of David Cannadine’s Ornamentalism, first published in the New Statesman, 7 May 2001. . Review of David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (Allen Lane, 2001) In October 1865, […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, History • Tags: british empire, david cannadine, edward said, equality, imperialism, orientalism, racism, universalism

IS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT ISLAM?

August 12, 2014 by Kenan Malik

I took part on Saturday in a panel discussion at the World Humanist Congress in Oxford on ‘Is there something about Islam?’ which debated whether ‘there is anything distinctive about Islam’ that leads to violence, bigotry and the suppression of freedom. Other panellists were Alom Shaha, Maajid Nawaz and Maryam Namazie. This is a transcript of my introductory comments. Every year I give a lecture to a group of theology students – would-be Anglican priests, as it happens – on […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion • Tags: buddhism, danish cartoons, islam, islamism, jihadism, naser khader, racism, religion

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

EUROPE’S NEW FAULTLINE

May 18, 2014 by Kenan Malik

The Front National is expected to win next week’s European election in France; UKIP may well do so in Britain. Both parties combine a visceral hostility to immigration with an acerbic loathing of the EU, a virulent nationalism and deeply conservative views on social issues such as gay marriage and women’s rights. The problems that such parties pose for mainstream politics goes, however, far beyond the odiousness of their policies. What their success expresses is the redrawing of the political […]

Categories: Britain, International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, british politics, european union, france, front national, identity politics, immigration, matthew goodwin, racism, robert ford, ukip, working

THE FORGOTTEN ROOTS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

May 15, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This essay is published in the summer issue of New Humanist. The nations of the world, claimed Lord Salisbury in a speech to the Primrose League at the Albert Hall in 1898, were divided into the ‘living’ and the ‘dying’. The ‘living’ were the ‘white’ nations – the European powers, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The ‘dying’ comprised the rest of the world. ‘The living nations’, Salisbury claimed, ‘will gradually encroach on the territory of the dying’ and from […]

Categories: Britain, History • Tags: britain, first world war, germany, imperialism, opium wars, racial science, racism

POLICING BY CRISIS

April 18, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of my Internation New York Times column on the crisis in British policing, published last month under the title ‘Britain’s Bobbies in the Dock’. I also wrote a subsequent post on the framing of Winston Silcott. In March, Britain’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced a public inquiry into claims that the Metropolitan Police had spied on a black family even as the force was supposed to be investigating the racist killing of the family’s eldest […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties • Tags: britain, irish struggle, lord denning, miscarriage of justice, police, police racism, racism, stephen lawrence, winston silcott

CONFORMING, NOT TRANSFORMING

April 9, 2014 by Kenan Malik

Last week, Brendan Eich, CEO of Mozilla Corporation, the technology company that, among other things, is responsible for the Firefox browser, resigned after it was revealed that in 2008 he had given a $1000 donation to Proposition 8, the Californian campaign against gay marriage. Mozilla decided that his views were incompatible with its core values of ‘diversity and inclusiveness’. This week Brandeis University in America withdrew its offer of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the campaigner against female […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: ayaan hirsi ali, free speech, gay marriage, homophobia, islam, islamism, islamophobia, judith butler, maajid nawaz, racism, tariq ramadan, wendy doniger

MELANIE PHILLIPS RESPONDS

March 31, 2014 by Kenan Malik

Last week I wrote a critique of Melanie Phillips’ column in which she claimed the progressive ground for critics of mass immigration. Here is her response to my critique. My thanks to Melanie for taking the time and trouble to write this. I have written a response which I originally posted as a comment but have now attached to the end of this post. ‘A compendium of straw men, misunderstandings and questionable assertions’ I’m afraid Kenan’s criticism of my Times […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, fortress europe, immigration, liberalism, melanie phillips, muslims, racism