| Yasmin Alibhai-Brown | |
|---|---|
| Born | Yasmin Damji 10 December 1949 Uganda |
| Occupation | Journalist, author |
| Children | 2 |
| Ethnicity | Pakistani |
| Religious belief(s) | Islam |
| Notable credit(s) | Independent columnist |
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown MBE (returned) (born Yasmin Damji on 10 December 1949) is a Ugandan-born British journalist and author, who describes herself as a "leftie liberal, anti-racist, feminist, Muslim, part-Pakistani...a very responsible person".[1] Currently a regular columnist for The Independent and the Evening Standard,[2] she is a well-known commentator on issues of immigration, diversity and multiculturalism.[3][4] She is a founder member of British Muslims for Secular Democracy.[5]
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Alibhai-Brown's mother was born in East Africa and her father moved there from British India in the 1920s.[6] Born into the Ugandan Asian community in Kampala[7] in 1949,[8] she belongs to the Nizari branch of the Ismaili faith.[9] After graduating in English literature from Makerere University in 1972, she left Uganda for Britain, along with her niece, Farah Damji, shortly before the expulsion of Ugandan Asians by Idi Amin[9] and completed a Master of Philosophy degree in literature at Linacre College, Oxford in 1975.[2] After working as a teacher, particularly with immigrants and refugees, she moved into journalism in her mid-thirties.[9] She is married to Colin Brown, Chairman of the Consumer Services Panel of the Financial Services Authority;[6] the couple have a daughter and Alibhai-Brown has a son from a previous marriage[7]
A journalist on the New Statesman magazine in the early 1980s, Alibhai-Brown now contributes a weekly column to The Independent.[10] She has also written for The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Times, Time magazine, Newsweek and the Daily Mail,[11] and has appeared on the current affairs TV shows Dateline London and The Wright Stuff. Alibhai-Brown has won numerous awards for her journalism, including the EMMA Media Personality of the Year in 2000, the George Orwell Prize for Political Journalism in 2002 and the EMMA Award for Journalism in 2004.[2]
Alibhai-Brown was a research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a think tank associated with New Labour, from 1996 to 2001,[12] though she ended her connection with the Labour Party over the war in Iraq and other issues, and supported the Liberal Democrats in the 2005 General Election.[13] She is Senior Research Associate at the Foreign Policy Centre,[14] an Honorary Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University[11] and Honorary Visiting Professor at Cardiff[2] and Lincoln[11] Universities.
Alibhai-Brown was appointed to the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2001, but in 2003 Benjamin Zephaniah's public refusal of an OBE inspired her to return the award. She wrote that her decision had been made partly in a growing spirit of republicanism and partly in protest at the Labour government, particularly its conduct of the war in Iraq,[15] and has since criticised the British honours system as "beyond repair".[16]
In May 2011, Alibhai-Brown wrote in the Independent that Muslims and others should stop focusing solely on the wrongdoings of Israel, saying, "we Muslims need to accept our burdens too." She also said "It is no longer morally justifiable for activists to target only Israel and either ignore or find excuses for corrupt, murderous Arab despots. That kind of selectivity discredits pro-Palestinian campaigners and dishonours the principles of equality and human rights."[17]
Alibhai-Brown has attracted criticism for her views. Michael Wharton has accused her of an excessive pursuit of political correctness: "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."[18] Commentator Douglas Murray accused her of disregarding the lives of British soldiers killed in action: "The vindication of her own opinion is of more importance to her than the lives of British and American troops and Iraqi civilians."[19] Stephen Pollard accused her of racism while calling her opinions "utterly vile" in The Spectator [20]
On 25 August 2008, she appeared on Five's The Wright Stuff discussion programme. In a discussion about an employment issue relating to white men, Yasmin Alibhai Brown said "Take his advice. Don't apply. It would be great if you lot just went away; white, middle class men. We'd just walk in wouldn't we." When challenged by the host for the day, Richard Bacon, "Is that not a racist comment?" she replied "Of course".
In November 2010, Gareth Compton, a Conservative councillor for Birmingham Erdington, allegedly posted on his Twitter feed a suggestion that Alibhai-Brown be stoned to death. This was after Alibhai-Brown made an appearance on Radio 5 Live. The posting was quickly removed. Compton was arrested and released on bail on 11 November 2010. Alibhai-Brown had been unaware of the posting until alerted by her daughter. She later commented "If I, as a Muslim woman, had said about him what he said about me then I would be arrested in these times of the war against terror ... He does not have more of a right to say these things about me that I do about him and I think words matter when you are in public life."[21][22] Compton made a response through Twitter which said: "I did not 'call' for the stoning of anybody. I made an ill-conceived attempt at humour in response to Yasmin Alibhai-Brown saying on Radio 5 Live this morning that no politician had the right to comment on human rights abuses, even the stoning of women in Iran. I apologise for any offence caused. It was wholly unintentional." [23]
On the 5th May 2011 Yasmin was on the panel of BBC's Question Time show and was criticised for her opinion on how Osama Bin Laden should have been given a respectful burial as he would have liked.