Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
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Yasmin Alibhai-Brown MBE (born Yasmin Damji on 10 December 1949) is a Uganda-born journalist, based in London; she only hyphenated her surname after her second marriage in 1990 to a Christian man.
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[edit] Career
A victim of Idi Amin's expulsion of Ugandan Asians in 1972, Alibhai-Brown was educated at Oxford University completing her MPhil in literature in 1975. At first a journalist on the New Statesman magazine in the early 1980s, she now contributes a column to each Monday's Independent. She has also contributed to the New York Times, Newsweek and The Guardian.
Alibhai-Brown has also been a fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a think tank associated with New Labour, although she has distanced herself from the Labour Party over the war in Iraq and other issues. She is a Fellow of the British-American Project.
She was awarded a MBE in 2001, though she subsequently returned it at the end of 2003 [1] inspired by Benjamin Zephaniah's decision to reject his proposed honour.
[edit] Criticism
Alibhai-Brown often refers to her experience as a member of an ethnic minority (though she dislikes that term) as well as being Muslim, even though some Muslim schools of thought do not regard Alibhai-Brown's Ismaili Sect as being Muslim.
Alibhai-Brown is criticised from both sides. Many Muslims regard her as treacherous because she criticises Islam, calling for the hijab to be banned and supporting homosexuality. Some of these critics respond by saying she is not a Muslim at all, because she is Ismaili, the second largest Shī‘a group after the Twelvers.
When the Muslim Council of Britain called for the Holocaust Memorial Day to be replaced with the Genocide Memorial Day, she criticised the Council's refusal to "mourn victims of one of the deadliest mass exterminations in human history" [2]. The Council responded by accusing her of misrepresenting their position. It stated that the council "fully accepts and recognises the monstrous horror and cruelty that underpinned the Nazi holocaust".
However Alibhai-Brown is fiercely defensive of Muslims who are being killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Occupied Territories, describing the actions of Western governments there as "monstrous war crimes".
Non-Muslims on the British right criticise Alibhai-Brown for what they see as political correctness. Michael Wharton once stated, :"At 3.6 degrees on the Alibhai-Brown scale, it sets off a shrill scream that will not stop until you've pulled yourself together with a well-chosen anti-racist slogan." [3] Alibhai-Brown argues that she is merely pointing out racism, and that far from being politically correct she authored one of the first major books, 'After Multiculturalism', to criticise the concept. She argued it had degenerated into a "mutual non-interference pact" between minority and majority communities when in fact there should be greater discussion and criticism between groups.
[edit] Select bibliography
- Some of My Best Friends Are... (2004). London: Politico's. ISBN 1-84275-107-7
- Mixed Feelings: The Complex Lives of Mixed Race Britons (2001). London: Women's Press. ISBN 0-7043-4706-7
- Who Do We Think We Are? Imagining the New Britain (2000). London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-025598-2
- After Multiculturalism (2000). London: Foreign Policy Centre. ISBN 0-9535598-8-2
- True Colours (1999). London: Institute for Public Policy Research. ISBN 1-86030-083-9
- Hate Thy Neighbour (1998). London: Mindfield. ISBN 0-948491-52-3
- No Place Like Home (1995). London: Virago. ISBN 1-85381-642-6
- The Colour of Love: Mixed Race Relationships (with Anne Montague) (1992). London: Virago. ISBN 1-85381-221-8
- Racism (with Colin Brown, 1992)
