Race

Daily Telegraph

IN THE early 1980s, when London Weekend Television was about to launch its first programme aimed at ethnic minorities, I was interviewed for the job of presenter. The interview was the most unusual I have ever had. It turned into a ferocious argument between me and the white interviewer about the relevance of the American experience of dealing with immigration. I tried to argue that Britain’s experience was, historically, very different to that of America, and that blindly following their example would not be very useful. He disagreed and, needless to say, I did not get the job.

I have been reminded of that episode as, following the bombs in London, there have been many references to how American-born Muslims have not taken to the bomb — apparently proving the superiority of the American way of integrating minorities. The problem with this analysis is that it ignores historical differences between the countries.

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The Telegraph

In the early 1980s, when London Weekend Television was about to launch its first programme aimed at ethnic minorities, I was interviewed for the job of presenter. The interview was the most unusual I have ever had. It turned into a ferocious argument between me and the white interviewer about the relevance of the American experience of dealing with immigration. I tried to argue that Britain’s experience was, historically, very different to that of America, and that blindly following their example would not be very useful. He disagreed and, needless to say, I did not get the job.

I have been reminded of that episode as, following the bombs in London, there have been many references to how American-born Muslims have not taken to the bomb – apparently proving the superiority of the American way of integrating minorities. The problem with this analysis is that it ignores historical differences between the countries.

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The prospect of prosperity lures some to Britain. Others have found that its greatest riches are not material after all

The Observer

TWENTY-FIVE years ago, when I decided to leave India and come back to this country for good, Shiva Naipaul invited me to dinner at his flat in Maida Vale and mockingly admonished me, saying, ‘So you have come back for more of the old colonial lash.’

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New Statesman

Mihir Bose finds more headscarves and less raki as Turkey’s secular state faces creeping Islamisation

IT WAS as I took the ferry from Bandirma to Istanbul, two days before Turkey went to the polls and handed a landslide victory to the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP), that for the first time I began to understand the creeping Islamisation that the secularists of the country fear.

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The Observer

BRITAIN’S polyglot possessions once covered a quarter of the globe, so why is the story told only from the white viewpoint? For the sake of all in our multicultural country we should look again at the history books

More than 30 years ago, soon after I first arrived in this country, I was taken to meet the father of an English girl I had got to know. He was a kindly man who said I should not believe the propaganda that Labour had given India independence; Churchill would have done the same had he won the 1945 elections. And, in any case, did I not think the Indians were better off under British rule and the British had done much good in India?

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