Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

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Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (born Yasmin Damji on 10 December 1949) is an Uganda-born journalist, based in London; she hyphenated her surname only after her second marriage in 1990.

Contents 1 Career 2 Criticism 3 Martin Amis 4 References 5 Select bibliography 6 External links

[edit] Career

A victim of Idi Amin's expulsion of Ugandan Asians in 1972, Alibhai-Brown was educated at Linacre College, 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, though she ended her connection with the Labour Party over the war in Iraq among other issues, and endorsed the Liberal Democrats in the 2005 general election^[1]. She is a Fellow of the British-American Project, though she has distanced herself from the organisation in recent years.^[2] Alibhai-Brown is also an occasional panelist on Matthew Wright's The Wright Stuff. Often giving controversial views during discussions. Her most recent appearance being in March 2008.^[3]

She was awarded a MBE in 2000, though she subsequently returned it at the end of 2003, admitting she only accepted her award so her mother would not face deportation. She added her mother was still "distraught" she had handed the award back.^[4] She was inspired by Benjamin Zephaniah's decision to reject his proposed honour.

[edit] Criticism

When the Muslim Council of Britain called for the Holocaust Memorial Day to be replaced with the Genocide Memorial Day, she criticized the Council's refusal to "mourn victims of one of the deadliest mass exterminations in human history" [1]. The Council responded by accusing her of misrepresenting their position stating that it "fully accepts and recognizes the monstrous horror and cruelty that underpinned the Nazi holocaust."

Some conservative critics have accused Alibhai-Brown of political correctness. Michael Wharton has stated that "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."^[5] 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 to criticize the concept, After Multiculturalism.

[edit] Martin Amis

Alibhai-Brown got drawn into the row between Martin Amis and Terry Eagleton regarding the treatment of British Muslims in October 2007. Following Eagleton's attack on Amis' purported Islamophobia, she accused him of being "with the beasts" in a comment piece in The Independent. Amis responded the next day with a lengthy, highly critical 'open letter' to her which was widely reported in the British press. ^[6]

[edit] References

[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)

[edit] External links

• Alibhai-Brown's columns for The Independent
• BBC World Service discussion of multi-culturalism with Yasmin Alibhai Brown
• "Madam, I am doing my job. These are regular customers."
• Epigram interview with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown