Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Known for her sharp commentary on issues of multiculturalism, race and religion, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown won the George Orwell Prize for political journalism in 2002 and the Emma Award for Journalism in 2004. She is also a radio and television broadcaster and author of several books including the acclaimed No Place Like Home and Who Do We Think We Are? Imagining the New Britain.

Pride and prejudice: In praise of Britain's colonial artists

The Tate is about to show works by Britain's 19th-century Orientalist painters. Snobbish? Patronising? Not at all, says Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. These colonialists had a better understanding of the East than we do today

Recently by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: A lament for the death of the left as a political force

Monday, 2 June 2008

"The best champagne and the best people" I was told, celebrated the launch of Standpoint, a magazine aiming to "celebrate Western civilisation", to reassert its dominance, shaken up by the effrontery of 9/11. It is edited by Daniel Johnson, son of Paul Johnson, the leftie who turned rabid right. His other son Luke, a libertarian, presides over Channel4 as chairman. Enthusiastic guests included Sir Tom Stoppard, Sir Vidia Naipaul, Frank Field and Nasir Ali, Bishop of Rochester, who appears to want to compel us all to join his church.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: From the right to free expression to a duty to offend

Monday, 26 May 2008

Settle down with a cup of cocoa on Wednesday and watch a BBC film about Mary Whitehouse, the woman who railed against art, drama, popular culture, TV sex, spontaneity, equality, homosexuality, joy and freedom.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: This week, I've been ashamed to be a woman

Monday, 19 May 2008

In 1988 I was on BBC TV debating politics with an all-female audience. For most guests, the 1979 election of Margaret Thatcher had marked an optimistic turn of history. I disagreed vehemently. Our leaderine made me biliously ashamed to be a woman.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Eat only local produce? I don't like the smell of that

Monday, 12 May 2008

On Saturday night I committed untold crimes – against the nation, the planet, my grandchildren, and theirs. I should feel contrite and shabby, but I don't. Fourteen dined at our table and were fed patties of cassava and sweet potatoes, spicy Kenyan beans with tindola – vegetables like cucumbers the size of a baby's fingers. Also tilapia, a freshwater fish from East Africa, and a gruellingly difficult dish made with eight kinds of lentils, meat, oats and cracked wheat. Finally, almond and orange cake and raspberries in saffron cream. None of the ingredients was produced locally. This unrepentant sinner even chose Spanish raspberries, so sweet and more concentrated than the English variety.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: In Kampala, 1968 was a bit more complex...

Monday, 5 May 2008

"So what were you doing then?" I am asked at dinner parties these days as the nation looks back in awe at 1968. "I wasn't here, I was in Kampala," I reply, and the conversation falls off the edge of the table, impossible to retrieve, like a napkin that slips off the lap and disappears.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Why should Muslims put up with being stereotyped?

Monday, 28 April 2008

Looking back at what I did this week, a parade of identities walks past, each one a part of the whole, none the whole of me. A passionate Londoner, I declared against Boris Johnson. With Billy Bragg at the Barbican on St George's Day, I was graciously invited by him to feel part of "progressive" Englishness and, funnily, in that hall, I did.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Londoners would be mad to vote for Boris

Monday, 21 April 2008

As 1 May approaches, many Londoners feel only presentiment and ire. None of the candidates for Mayor are inspiring, and the two frontrunners are so flawed that it shames democracy itself. We lurch between democratic duty and an enervating loss of will. Our diverse and lively city is invited to choose either a jaded, aging Labourite who doesn't want to let go or a refashioned Tory with elitist, colonial and libertarian values. It is a contest between practised rogues.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: A reminder of the real cost of living

Monday, 14 April 2008

Suddenly you notice the costs have really shot up. For me the wake-up call came with the last few supermarket bills, which were already too high because we now need so many more fancy foods. The hairdresser costs a third more than this time last year, petrol too, and on Saturday the Chinese restaurant in the West End charged punitive prices, perhaps to pay for the Olympics back home. So, there will have to be longer gaps between getting the roots done, more trips to Shepherd's Bush market for fruit, meat and veg, and obviously less dining out.

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

Monday, 7 April 2008

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.

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.

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