Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: We must learn more about these murderous men

I am haunted by the faces of the eight British Muslim men currently on trial at Woolwich Crown Court, accused of plotting to blow up several transatlantic airliners. Prosecutors allege they contemplated the possibility of taking their own wives and children on their once-in-a-lifetime suicide trips. Recorded videos, played to the court, are chillingly solipsistic, callous and self-righteous.

Recently by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: The real star of the show wasn't Carla

Monday, 31 March 2008

I was in New York when Mme Sarkozy was presented to the nation naked on the pages of some newspapers. Back here on Thursday, Carla was still provoking fantasies and drooling Britons had gone demented with hot desire, all very unseemly.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: This unhealthy strain of left-wing McCarthyism

Monday, 17 March 2008

Reading about the forthcoming book by Tony Blair's Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, gives me an excuse to write on something that has been bugging me. The venerable John Pilger wrote just before Christmas on the British American Project (BAP), an Anglo-American network set up by the Right in the US in 1983. Alumni include the arch strategist, Mr Powell, several New Labour ministers, Tory top boys, business leaders and powerful media people – Paxman and Naughtie among them. Many US Masters ( and Mistresses) of the universe are also members.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Powell's Rivers of Blood are back again

Monday, 10 March 2008

Back in the spring of 1968, East African Asians were adjusting to the retreat of colonialism. We were, remember, the essential middle-class buffer between whites and blacks, set up to service the empire . East African political leaders were "blackenising" the civil service and other institutions. Asians, born and bred there, found themselves jobless and hopeless.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Being a mother is a tough job, but wonderful too

Monday, 3 March 2008

My mother, Jena, died on this day exactly two years ago, as winter was finally giving way. Her last months were desolate and she was starving herself so she could get faster to her maker. All that was left was a skeletal waif, her eyes somewhere far away or looking pleadingly at us. I longed for the woman who was my mother – lively, funny, intensely affectionate, optimistic, feisty, demanding, obstinate, and manipulative. I miss her so much. I need to talk to her, quarrel with her, stroke her still lovely skin.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Corruption is now endemic in our political culture

Monday, 25 February 2008

I wonder if dishonesty at high levels is now so embedded in the British political culture that those who indulge in it truly don't consider it a wrong, consider the odd financial naughtiness nothing more than that or a treat they occasionally give themselves.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: We've a problem with food – and Delia's not helping

Monday, 18 February 2008

Delia is back after five years. The reassuring, neat, polite, comforting, eminently practical and no-fuss cook is just the antidote we needed, I thought. Until I read that her book is called How to Cheat at Cooking and is a collection of gut-wrenching recipes using tinned mincemeat, soups and sauces.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Our crimes in Iraq must not be forgotten

Tuesday, 12 February 2008

Don't bring up the catastrophe in Iraq, not in polite circles or at dinner parties, or anywhere in public really. Better to burp or fart loudly. That is the message for 2008. What war? We have moved on, you bore, say the frightfully busy great and good, their eyes glazing over.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: What he wishes on us is an abomination

Saturday, 9 February 2008

What Rowan Williams wishes upon us is an abomination and I write here as a modern Muslim woman. He lectures the nation on the benefits of sharia law – made by bearded men, for men – and wants the alternative legal system to be accommodated within our democracy in the spirit of inclusion and cohesion.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Real freedom is being able to do as you please

Monday, 4 February 2008

Sam Baker, editor of Red magazine, announces the result of an interesting poll. Its readers are mostly thirtysomething. And what do they seek? Surely not? Can it be true? I don't believe it! They hug domesticity, long to stay at home while the hunter-gatherer male goes forth. They want to ferry kids around, make fresh pasta and the perfect tarte tartin. To wear aprons.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Why is racial abuse now considered acceptable?

Monday, 28 January 2008

On the day my beloved son was born at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, Margaret Thatcher gave a speech on how her kith and kin felt rather "swamped" by alien cultures and peoples. My child was branded – rejected, I felt – as he took his first breath. I never forgave the Iron Lady for inciting animosity against us.

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