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Balti Britain: A Journey Through the British Asian Experience
Weaving an informative travelogue with an illuminating autobiography, this account combines the history of Asians in Great Britain with the author’s personal recollections. From the arrival of the first Indian in 1614 to the young extremists in Walthamstow mosque in 2006, this portrait conveys a vivid and rich chronicle of a people’s past. The author’s own life is also explored, describing his carefree childhood in Pakistan, his family's emigration to a racist Britain in the 1950s, and his adulthood straddling two cultures. Authentic and strikingly honest, this record also considers vital questions such as Are arranged marriages a good thing? Does the term "Asian" obscure more than it conveys? Do Vindaloo and Balti actually exist? and Is multiculturalism an impossible dream?
392 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2008
1 person is currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Ziauddin Sardar
199 books153 followersZiauddin Sardar has written or edited 45 books over a period of 30 years, many with his long-time co-author Merryl Wyn Davies. Recent titles include Balti Britain: a Journey Through the British Asian Experience (Granta, 2008); and How Do You Know: Reading Ziauddin Sardar on Islam, Science and Cultural Relations (Pluto, 2006). The first volume of his memoirs is Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim (Granta, 2006). His recent television work includes a 90-minute documentary for the BBC in 2006 called 'Battle for Islam'. Sardar's online work includes a year-long blog on the Qur'an published in 2008 by The Guardian newspaper.
Sardar is a Visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies in the Department of Arts Policy and Management at City University London and is Editor of the forecasting and planning journal, Futures. He is also a member of the UK Commission on Equality and Human Rights. His journalism appears most often in The Guardian and The Observer, as well as the UK weekly magazine, New Statesman. In the 1980s, he was among the founders of Inquiry, a magazine of ideas and policy focusing on Muslim countries. His early career includes working as a science correspondent for Nature and New Scientist magazines and as a reporter for London Weekend Television.
>>(from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziauddin... )<<
--
*You can know more from his own site:
http://www.ziauddinsardar.com/Biograp...
Sardar is a Visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies in the Department of Arts Policy and Management at City University London and is Editor of the forecasting and planning journal, Futures. He is also a member of the UK Commission on Equality and Human Rights. His journalism appears most often in The Guardian and The Observer, as well as the UK weekly magazine, New Statesman. In the 1980s, he was among the founders of Inquiry, a magazine of ideas and policy focusing on Muslim countries. His early career includes working as a science correspondent for Nature and New Scientist magazines and as a reporter for London Weekend Television.
>>(from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziauddin... )<<
--
*You can know more from his own site:
http://www.ziauddinsardar.com/Biograp...
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 29, 2014
After reading the first chapter and a half, and the few GR reviews, I wasn't optimistic for the rest of the book. But picking it up again later, I found it did after all have plenty more to say than stuff I'd already heard at school, from other kids and their families, and from RE lessons. A couple of others have said that there's too much about the author and his family, and therefore it never seems like the definitive book on a subject which needs one - I would agree: it has a digressive, blog-like structure in which chapter titles only relate to a fraction of the content, and it shifts frequently between history, polemic, sociology and memoir. But I still found it enjoyable and interesting.
Before the last couple of chapters, I was going to give three stars. Because among Sardar's interview subjects, there are very few women. This in a book on a culture in which the roles of women can be controversial. Near the end is an interview with a Jain teacher friend of his who was incredibly likeable and wise (who tipped the balance to four stars; she interestingly, just like teachers I know, was very positive about British multiculturalism – perhaps schools are where it works best). But before that the only discussions with women are about ... arranged marriage. Already in the 90s we were being told that there's plenty more to the lives of Asian women and girls than arranged marriage (though it's kind of obvious when you're at school with them). He mentions highly educated, intelligent women in his family, but the book is mostly about him, his father and grandfathers, and his male mates: middle-aged and older men with Muslim Pakistani roots, often working in the arts and academia. A more informed reviewer would know about the less obvious lacunae this creates.
As a corollary, I noticed that during the episode about his friend Suhayl Saadi (whose linguistically ambitious book Psychoraag sounds potentially interesting to Goodreaders into experimental fiction), Sardar, a London resident since primary school age, generalises a variety of typically Glaswegian / West Central traits and opinions as Scottish, not having realised that they aren't all so characteristic of other regions. Though at least, unlike many books about British immigrant experience, it ventures outside London in the first place - there are also sections on Leicester , Oldham and Bradford, and not a few allusions to Birmingham.
Sardar has an interesting thesis – which appears to be used in some of his other books – about the way colonialism has influenced race relations and racism in Britain. (It is welcome to hear an account concentrating on Britain, by a writer old enough to have spent much of his adult life without the web and its overwhelmingly Americanised content.) The British Empire was something missing from my childhood education; home was very European-focused, and it was that point when schools dealt with the difficulty by never mentioning it – as a result, most of what I learned came from fiction and TV dramas, the romanticised version. It seemed to be gone – though eventually I did start to notice things that linger, for example, wondering if some names in London Docklands might be rude, calling something pretty new 'plantation' for instance, without the apparent reason of preserving history.
The crux of Sardar's thesis of colonial racism is a tendency for those in charge to see colonial and ex-colonial peoples as children, in need of teaching, improvement and socialisation. In British cities and suburbs where multiculturalism works relatively well, this doesn't seem so evident now as perhaps it did in the 50s, 60s and 70s – but arguably continues to apply to discussion about the depressed ex mill towns of Yorks and Lancs, places in which populations are typically very divided and self-segregating , and there is constant racial tension (which I noticed in those areas even from the sort of white middle class or alternative types who in big cities you never hear talking that way).
He states that the legacy of colonialism should instead be for British Asian people to be popularly considered more British; they are here because of the colonies, and their ancestors made substantial contributions to Britain's wealth, the export of which deprived the subcontinent. The countries are closely linked by over two hundred years of history, although geographically they aren't the closest.
For 400 years, Britain was made in and with India. In reciprocal ways India, in its history and opinions and all their twists and turns, was made by and with Britain. How could this history end with immediate disassociation? How could its culmination be the arrival of ‘new’,‘immigrant’ people? and
To be truly post-colonial is not a stance for or against imperialism. It is the understanding that our histories are entwined, our identities commingled, that we are inseparable because for centuries we have not been discrete, bounded, separate communities. Britain and India partook of each other but generally ignored their interpenetration. Against the weight of fact, against the human truth of personal, social, intellectual, economic and political history, Britain and India continue to be seen, understood and contemplated in separate compartments.
Sardar, born in the 1950s, was and is sceptical of the 'Asian Cool' of the 1990s. Cornershop, Goodness Gracious Me, East Is East and so on were very familiar to me at that time – though anything indie was far from mainstream at my school and I can't remember any Asian kids talking about bhangra. (There was one Bengali girl who liked The Cure, which in that year in that school, was actually really weird and unique.) The fairly conservative 40 year old Sardar didn't make much of all this popcultural flowering, but I think that for those around my age it established something important about Asian people being part of the cool bits of culture, as potentially versatile and funny as anyone, and not simply the high-achieving swot stereotype which appears still to be significant in America.
What wasn't evident to the average white teenager and twentysomething of the time, though, was that most of these bands, shows and films were Indian, and the mainstream acceptance of middle-class (usually secular, Hindu or Christian) Indian people in the media and the workplace effectively disguised widespread poverty among the British Pakistani and particularly Bangladeshi populations. Reasons for that poverty (accompanied by poorer health and lower educational attainment) were more systematically and comprehensively discussed in this sociology text I read at the beginning of the year. Sardar alludes to kinship and honour networks which, whilst providing support and community, also in some places – such as Bradford, where most of the Asian population has roots in a few villages in one area of Pakistan – can be very insular, and get caught in a feedback loop of negative attitudes with many resident white people.
There is also religion. Pakistani and Bangladeshi people are mostly Muslim – and since September 11th, many people (predominantly though not entirely white) have been less comfortable with practising muslims. Even those who consider themselves fairly open minded may be content to leave things at an acquaintance or colleague level. Sardar's discussion of this reminded me of a time when I worked alongside a very nice old nearly-Orthodox Jewish man. It took me by surprise when he wouldn't shake the hand of a woman, but I didn't consider this to reflect on him as a person and never felt his religion to be a barrier to conversation. Would I have been as chatty with a similarly devout Muslim? Sardar doesn't touch on the role of angry-atheism; among people of my own acquaintance, that's by far the most common, maybe the only, foundation for some degree of islamophobia – those who who are left wing and comfortable with people from other ethnic backgrounds nevertheless tend to assume that muslims have fundamentalist or village-islam beliefs, and in some cases a) have nary a picture of moderate or liberal religion, or b) consider all degrees of religious belief , especially in monotheisms, equally bad.
His chapter about Islam in Britain was fascinating. Ignorantly, the only denominations of islam that were familiar to me were Sunni and Shia, from years of old TV news about the Middle East. Perhaps I once knew vaguely of others but had forgotten. The relationships of these different movements to one another are intricate, and I have no idea how partial Sardar's views are within the community, but these are the most significant denominations and groups described: Barelvi (constituting the majority of British Muslims); Deobandi (a puritan, reformist denomination founded as a response to British rule in India in the C19th, more recently influenced by Saudi Wahabism), Tablighi Jamaat (a heavily proselytising group, membership of which can overlap with these and which many of Muslims have had at some point, usually temporarily; it used to be benign but some sections of it have become more fundamentalist recently) . Shias are less than 5% of Muslims in Britain. The politics do not always fit convenient boxes for non-Muslims; Sardar makes the Barelvis sound generally more moderate, but they were also active in demonstrations about Salman Rushdie in the 90s.
He states that British Muslims [with their increasing base of intellectuals and critical scholars] are in the best position to stand up to this notion of victimhood and lead the fight against terrorism. I believe it requires confronting the rhetoric of puritanism that dominates the British Muslim community. The majority of puritans, such as Deobandis and followers of ideological parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood, may be peaceful, but their one-dimensional interpretation of Islam is obsolete and dangerous for all concerned. To define Islam in total opposition to all others – not just Christians, Jews, Hindus, secularists and the West, but all other interpretations of Islam as well – is to place Islam in an enclave. If you insist that your interpretation must be seen as the ‘authentic’,‘pure’ and ‘undiluted’ version of Islam, then you should not be surprised if some young hot-heads see it as the final solution.
It's very interesting to hear that older moderate muslims such as Sardar and his circle consider the extremist preachers loathed in tabloid headlines to have had a substantial role in the radicalisation and fundamentalisation of young men. That they believe these mullahs should never have been allowed into the country in the first place as they were years ago. This, as well as mere statistical representation, is a strong argument for government consulting and containing more British muslims. I must admit to being the kind of woolly liberal who'd have naively thought “they're only talking”, not understanding the international and religious perspective - some things need a serious knowledge of context that the average civil servant won't have.
The book never goes into other aspects of the young becoming more muslim than their parents, or those who consider the rebellion of being religious in contemporary society as analogous to punk. (It's such an intriguing perspective, having met a handful of original punks whose religious views tend to be quite strongly atheist... how does it all join together?) Sardar merely says British Muslims are required to apologize so often for their existence – for the way they look, dress, wish to educate their children – it is no surprise that many see themselves as victims and cling to ossified tradition.
The author's hero is his maternal grandfather, a traditional doctor who was known in his region for wisdom. The maxim which had the most impact on Sardar is “there is more than one way of knowing” - he is for philosophies that stand for this, against those which have black-and-white thinking. I'm always glad to see thinkers espousing this – it also frequently seems to be older figures with more life experience who take such a stance, whilst the youngest (like the typical student radical) are more single-minded. Sardar details conversations in which he and his daughter, a barrister and born in the 1980s, disagreed over some contemporary concepts in racism. The step from demonizing an institution such as the Met to branding every policeman as racist, indeed demonizing whole cultures and peoples, is a short and logical one. This sort of labelling particularly appeals to those who shun complexity and diversity and see the world purely in terms of black and white. It is the same tactics Britain used with such devastating effect to demonize Asian cultures and institutions as savage and barbaric. I feel this is going too far as the concept of institutional racism – and its acknowledgement by the Lawrence Report - can be useful in various contexts. But the kind of demonisation he describes, whilst I've hardly ever heard it IRL, can be seen in internet identity politics discussions in which people who don't have the correct background may be held not to be entitled to an opinion, where the 'do unto others' principle is rejected, leading to increasing polarisation.
Near the end, there is an excellent long interview with British political theorist and latterly House of Lords member Bhikhu C. Parekh, one of the main architects of multicultural policy in Britain and a man whose own work I'm sure is very much worth reading. He has a calm wisdom that contrasts with some of Sardar's more emotional polemics elsewhere in Balti Britain. I can't decide which of numerous long quotes to include, but the most significant thing here is multiculturalism doesn't mean tolerating obnoxious cultural practices. Too many people assume it does, particularly in the wake of what could be called atheist fundamentalist rhetoric, which influences some people who in other respects are further to the left than the main UK political parties. Including the person without whom I probably wouldn't have started reading books on this topic. I was trying to make sense of how one could describe oneself as against multiculturalism, but know, have had relationships with people from many backgrounds, not have a problem with immigration, and consider that people should be allowed to wear what they want, including women the full veil. I had at that point read nothing substantial and my instinctive confusion – whereby two people who agreed on all the detail would nevertheless describe themselves as one in favour of, one against, this term and policy - came from what I'd observed through my old work. In this particular case, though it's painful to consider this may be inaccurate thinking from someone I otherwise admire, I have to conclude that this opposition to “multiculturalism” was merely an unconsidered lifting of the phrase from Hitchens, as a shorthand for village-islam practices and punishments, and fundamentalism, and those tacitly in favour of them. (And a concomitant assumption that British Muslims were in favour of them unless they left the religion.) Yet these are the very 'obnoxious cultural practices' which are actually beyond the pale of multiculturalism according to authorities on the subject.
Several sections of this book are very worthwhile reading, although it could be better organised and the author can be a bit long-winded at times in the memoir parts (not clearly delineated). For a shorter, but equally good, and more systematic exploration of British multiculturalism (albeit one that doesn't have the specifically subcontinental detail), I would recommend Multiculturalism: A Very Short Introduction by Ali Rattansi.
Before the last couple of chapters, I was going to give three stars. Because among Sardar's interview subjects, there are very few women. This in a book on a culture in which the roles of women can be controversial. Near the end is an interview with a Jain teacher friend of his who was incredibly likeable and wise (who tipped the balance to four stars; she interestingly, just like teachers I know, was very positive about British multiculturalism – perhaps schools are where it works best). But before that the only discussions with women are about ... arranged marriage. Already in the 90s we were being told that there's plenty more to the lives of Asian women and girls than arranged marriage (though it's kind of obvious when you're at school with them). He mentions highly educated, intelligent women in his family, but the book is mostly about him, his father and grandfathers, and his male mates: middle-aged and older men with Muslim Pakistani roots, often working in the arts and academia. A more informed reviewer would know about the less obvious lacunae this creates.
As a corollary, I noticed that during the episode about his friend Suhayl Saadi (whose linguistically ambitious book Psychoraag sounds potentially interesting to Goodreaders into experimental fiction), Sardar, a London resident since primary school age, generalises a variety of typically Glaswegian / West Central traits and opinions as Scottish, not having realised that they aren't all so characteristic of other regions. Though at least, unlike many books about British immigrant experience, it ventures outside London in the first place - there are also sections on Leicester , Oldham and Bradford, and not a few allusions to Birmingham.
Sardar has an interesting thesis – which appears to be used in some of his other books – about the way colonialism has influenced race relations and racism in Britain. (It is welcome to hear an account concentrating on Britain, by a writer old enough to have spent much of his adult life without the web and its overwhelmingly Americanised content.) The British Empire was something missing from my childhood education; home was very European-focused, and it was that point when schools dealt with the difficulty by never mentioning it – as a result, most of what I learned came from fiction and TV dramas, the romanticised version. It seemed to be gone – though eventually I did start to notice things that linger, for example, wondering if some names in London Docklands might be rude, calling something pretty new 'plantation' for instance, without the apparent reason of preserving history.
The crux of Sardar's thesis of colonial racism is a tendency for those in charge to see colonial and ex-colonial peoples as children, in need of teaching, improvement and socialisation. In British cities and suburbs where multiculturalism works relatively well, this doesn't seem so evident now as perhaps it did in the 50s, 60s and 70s – but arguably continues to apply to discussion about the depressed ex mill towns of Yorks and Lancs, places in which populations are typically very divided and self-segregating , and there is constant racial tension (which I noticed in those areas even from the sort of white middle class or alternative types who in big cities you never hear talking that way).
He states that the legacy of colonialism should instead be for British Asian people to be popularly considered more British; they are here because of the colonies, and their ancestors made substantial contributions to Britain's wealth, the export of which deprived the subcontinent. The countries are closely linked by over two hundred years of history, although geographically they aren't the closest.
For 400 years, Britain was made in and with India. In reciprocal ways India, in its history and opinions and all their twists and turns, was made by and with Britain. How could this history end with immediate disassociation? How could its culmination be the arrival of ‘new’,‘immigrant’ people? and
To be truly post-colonial is not a stance for or against imperialism. It is the understanding that our histories are entwined, our identities commingled, that we are inseparable because for centuries we have not been discrete, bounded, separate communities. Britain and India partook of each other but generally ignored their interpenetration. Against the weight of fact, against the human truth of personal, social, intellectual, economic and political history, Britain and India continue to be seen, understood and contemplated in separate compartments.
Sardar, born in the 1950s, was and is sceptical of the 'Asian Cool' of the 1990s. Cornershop, Goodness Gracious Me, East Is East and so on were very familiar to me at that time – though anything indie was far from mainstream at my school and I can't remember any Asian kids talking about bhangra. (There was one Bengali girl who liked The Cure, which in that year in that school, was actually really weird and unique.) The fairly conservative 40 year old Sardar didn't make much of all this popcultural flowering, but I think that for those around my age it established something important about Asian people being part of the cool bits of culture, as potentially versatile and funny as anyone, and not simply the high-achieving swot stereotype which appears still to be significant in America.
What wasn't evident to the average white teenager and twentysomething of the time, though, was that most of these bands, shows and films were Indian, and the mainstream acceptance of middle-class (usually secular, Hindu or Christian) Indian people in the media and the workplace effectively disguised widespread poverty among the British Pakistani and particularly Bangladeshi populations. Reasons for that poverty (accompanied by poorer health and lower educational attainment) were more systematically and comprehensively discussed in this sociology text I read at the beginning of the year. Sardar alludes to kinship and honour networks which, whilst providing support and community, also in some places – such as Bradford, where most of the Asian population has roots in a few villages in one area of Pakistan – can be very insular, and get caught in a feedback loop of negative attitudes with many resident white people.
There is also religion. Pakistani and Bangladeshi people are mostly Muslim – and since September 11th, many people (predominantly though not entirely white) have been less comfortable with practising muslims. Even those who consider themselves fairly open minded may be content to leave things at an acquaintance or colleague level. Sardar's discussion of this reminded me of a time when I worked alongside a very nice old nearly-Orthodox Jewish man. It took me by surprise when he wouldn't shake the hand of a woman, but I didn't consider this to reflect on him as a person and never felt his religion to be a barrier to conversation. Would I have been as chatty with a similarly devout Muslim? Sardar doesn't touch on the role of angry-atheism; among people of my own acquaintance, that's by far the most common, maybe the only, foundation for some degree of islamophobia – those who who are left wing and comfortable with people from other ethnic backgrounds nevertheless tend to assume that muslims have fundamentalist or village-islam beliefs, and in some cases a) have nary a picture of moderate or liberal religion, or b) consider all degrees of religious belief , especially in monotheisms, equally bad.
His chapter about Islam in Britain was fascinating. Ignorantly, the only denominations of islam that were familiar to me were Sunni and Shia, from years of old TV news about the Middle East. Perhaps I once knew vaguely of others but had forgotten. The relationships of these different movements to one another are intricate, and I have no idea how partial Sardar's views are within the community, but these are the most significant denominations and groups described: Barelvi (constituting the majority of British Muslims); Deobandi (a puritan, reformist denomination founded as a response to British rule in India in the C19th, more recently influenced by Saudi Wahabism), Tablighi Jamaat (a heavily proselytising group, membership of which can overlap with these and which many of Muslims have had at some point, usually temporarily; it used to be benign but some sections of it have become more fundamentalist recently) . Shias are less than 5% of Muslims in Britain. The politics do not always fit convenient boxes for non-Muslims; Sardar makes the Barelvis sound generally more moderate, but they were also active in demonstrations about Salman Rushdie in the 90s.
He states that British Muslims [with their increasing base of intellectuals and critical scholars] are in the best position to stand up to this notion of victimhood and lead the fight against terrorism. I believe it requires confronting the rhetoric of puritanism that dominates the British Muslim community. The majority of puritans, such as Deobandis and followers of ideological parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood, may be peaceful, but their one-dimensional interpretation of Islam is obsolete and dangerous for all concerned. To define Islam in total opposition to all others – not just Christians, Jews, Hindus, secularists and the West, but all other interpretations of Islam as well – is to place Islam in an enclave. If you insist that your interpretation must be seen as the ‘authentic’,‘pure’ and ‘undiluted’ version of Islam, then you should not be surprised if some young hot-heads see it as the final solution.
It's very interesting to hear that older moderate muslims such as Sardar and his circle consider the extremist preachers loathed in tabloid headlines to have had a substantial role in the radicalisation and fundamentalisation of young men. That they believe these mullahs should never have been allowed into the country in the first place as they were years ago. This, as well as mere statistical representation, is a strong argument for government consulting and containing more British muslims. I must admit to being the kind of woolly liberal who'd have naively thought “they're only talking”, not understanding the international and religious perspective - some things need a serious knowledge of context that the average civil servant won't have.
The book never goes into other aspects of the young becoming more muslim than their parents, or those who consider the rebellion of being religious in contemporary society as analogous to punk. (It's such an intriguing perspective, having met a handful of original punks whose religious views tend to be quite strongly atheist... how does it all join together?) Sardar merely says British Muslims are required to apologize so often for their existence – for the way they look, dress, wish to educate their children – it is no surprise that many see themselves as victims and cling to ossified tradition.
The author's hero is his maternal grandfather, a traditional doctor who was known in his region for wisdom. The maxim which had the most impact on Sardar is “there is more than one way of knowing” - he is for philosophies that stand for this, against those which have black-and-white thinking. I'm always glad to see thinkers espousing this – it also frequently seems to be older figures with more life experience who take such a stance, whilst the youngest (like the typical student radical) are more single-minded. Sardar details conversations in which he and his daughter, a barrister and born in the 1980s, disagreed over some contemporary concepts in racism. The step from demonizing an institution such as the Met to branding every policeman as racist, indeed demonizing whole cultures and peoples, is a short and logical one. This sort of labelling particularly appeals to those who shun complexity and diversity and see the world purely in terms of black and white. It is the same tactics Britain used with such devastating effect to demonize Asian cultures and institutions as savage and barbaric. I feel this is going too far as the concept of institutional racism – and its acknowledgement by the Lawrence Report - can be useful in various contexts. But the kind of demonisation he describes, whilst I've hardly ever heard it IRL, can be seen in internet identity politics discussions in which people who don't have the correct background may be held not to be entitled to an opinion, where the 'do unto others' principle is rejected, leading to increasing polarisation.
Near the end, there is an excellent long interview with British political theorist and latterly House of Lords member Bhikhu C. Parekh, one of the main architects of multicultural policy in Britain and a man whose own work I'm sure is very much worth reading. He has a calm wisdom that contrasts with some of Sardar's more emotional polemics elsewhere in Balti Britain. I can't decide which of numerous long quotes to include, but the most significant thing here is multiculturalism doesn't mean tolerating obnoxious cultural practices. Too many people assume it does, particularly in the wake of what could be called atheist fundamentalist rhetoric, which influences some people who in other respects are further to the left than the main UK political parties. Including the person without whom I probably wouldn't have started reading books on this topic. I was trying to make sense of how one could describe oneself as against multiculturalism, but know, have had relationships with people from many backgrounds, not have a problem with immigration, and consider that people should be allowed to wear what they want, including women the full veil. I had at that point read nothing substantial and my instinctive confusion – whereby two people who agreed on all the detail would nevertheless describe themselves as one in favour of, one against, this term and policy - came from what I'd observed through my old work. In this particular case, though it's painful to consider this may be inaccurate thinking from someone I otherwise admire, I have to conclude that this opposition to “multiculturalism” was merely an unconsidered lifting of the phrase from Hitchens, as a shorthand for village-islam practices and punishments, and fundamentalism, and those tacitly in favour of them. (And a concomitant assumption that British Muslims were in favour of them unless they left the religion.) Yet these are the very 'obnoxious cultural practices' which are actually beyond the pale of multiculturalism according to authorities on the subject.
Several sections of this book are very worthwhile reading, although it could be better organised and the author can be a bit long-winded at times in the memoir parts (not clearly delineated). For a shorter, but equally good, and more systematic exploration of British multiculturalism (albeit one that doesn't have the specifically subcontinental detail), I would recommend Multiculturalism: A Very Short Introduction by Ali Rattansi.
June 10, 2017
This was a very interesting book. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in understanding a bit about British Asian life.
November 25, 2008
Interesting enough, and heartfelt enough, and worthwhile enough in this age of hardening attitudes towards multiculturalism, but it's hardly a "journey through the British Asian experience" as the subtitle has it. For a start, the majority of the views expressed here are those from second-generation writers and academics from Pakistan -- and while their voices do deserve to be heard, they're hardly representative of "British Asians". Moreover, Sardar becomes so polemical on so many occasions that the whole feels more essayistic (is that a word?) than exploratory.
March 3, 2018
Firstly, the author seems to have swallowed a thesaurus. Never use a simple word when there is a complicated one that means the same just waiting to put on the page. Irritating and unnecessary.
That aside this wasn't the book I expected. Somehow I had the idea it was a somewhat lighthearted wander through Indian British communities with comments on cuisine. Nothing like that which wouldn't necessarily make it any less enjoyable except that the whole premise and conclusions of the narrative seem wrong. The author is from the British Pakistani community and this book is a justification for why certain individuals within that community commit various atrocities. It was written after the London transport bombings but before the Rochdale grooming gang trial but his justification would just as easily related to the latter.
As I read it the author believes that the harm Britain did to India and Indians in the several centuries before independence has scarred them as a community and that has been compounded by being discriminated against in Britain and living in deprived areas with poor education opportunities and high unemployment. One could give some credence to this except that even he admits the Hindu Indian community and the Muslim Bangladeshi community have not produced similar unsocial individuals. Very much in passing he justifies the Indian difference as due to the immigrants in this community coming more from the middle and educated classes. Even if that was true it doesn't explain why the Bangladeshi British community, who could never be described as middle class and educated, has not spawned the same sort of unsocial individuals as the Pakistani community. I don't have another answer but the one given by the author doesn't stack up. (Purchased secondhand at Skoob Books, London)
That aside this wasn't the book I expected. Somehow I had the idea it was a somewhat lighthearted wander through Indian British communities with comments on cuisine. Nothing like that which wouldn't necessarily make it any less enjoyable except that the whole premise and conclusions of the narrative seem wrong. The author is from the British Pakistani community and this book is a justification for why certain individuals within that community commit various atrocities. It was written after the London transport bombings but before the Rochdale grooming gang trial but his justification would just as easily related to the latter.
As I read it the author believes that the harm Britain did to India and Indians in the several centuries before independence has scarred them as a community and that has been compounded by being discriminated against in Britain and living in deprived areas with poor education opportunities and high unemployment. One could give some credence to this except that even he admits the Hindu Indian community and the Muslim Bangladeshi community have not produced similar unsocial individuals. Very much in passing he justifies the Indian difference as due to the immigrants in this community coming more from the middle and educated classes. Even if that was true it doesn't explain why the Bangladeshi British community, who could never be described as middle class and educated, has not spawned the same sort of unsocial individuals as the Pakistani community. I don't have another answer but the one given by the author doesn't stack up. (Purchased secondhand at Skoob Books, London)
June 1, 2025
Sardar uses the history and experiences of his family and friends to explore the complexities of British Asian identities. I found it particularly interesting to learn more about the different religious affiliations of London mosques and the differences in religious makeup between the Muslim Council of Britain and the British Muslim Forum, but the book also touches on Jain and Hindu communities. The vignettes of Sardar's family and friends are fascinating and at times touching. He argues that, to the extent British Asian identities are problematic, it is largely because white British society and institutions have failed to recognise centuries of common history and persist in treating as newcomers people whose ancestors' fates have been intertwined with those of white Britons for centuries - a thesis that fits well with the original work of Ted Cantle on community cohesion, subsequently sadly misused and distorted by the Labour Government.
June 10, 2020
A bit dated but overall excellent, I wish there was one that had an update of where the author stands, now, given the changes that have occurred between the writing of this book and today.
The intro was a little rough to get through, thus 4/5, but it became an excellent read after that first hudle.
The intro was a little rough to get through, thus 4/5, but it became an excellent read after that first hudle.
April 13, 2019
A bit gimicky but very touching.
December 20, 2010
Judging by the number of pages of this book that I dog-eared, I know that parts of it are both interesting and thought-provoking. But it’s worth noting that it took me more than three months to actually finish the book and, as I attempt to review it, I’m left with a distinct feeling of meh.
With its brightly-coloured cover and jaunty title, I thought Balti Britain would be a breezy and none-too-serious read about British Asians. In fact, there’s quite a lot of gravity to be found within the book (no bad thing), but that gravity mixes strangely with the parts that are breezy, like Ziauddin Sardar’s search for the origins of the supposedly-Indian “balti” curry dish.
The book is part journalism (as Sardar investigates issues like British-grown terrorism), part history, and part memoir. But there’s no dividing line between the three narrative strands. Sardar’s unfortunate tendency to ramble and digress means that it becomes a hard book to digest. Oftentimes, I would find Sardar was writing about something I found interesting (such as how his children’s British-Asian identities began to differ from his own as they grew up), and then suddenly he’d dive into an only-tangentially-relevant historical account.
There’s nothing wrong with Sardar’s writing ability, and there’s plenty of worthwhile content within the book. In fact, the things wrong with Balti Britain are depressingly banal:
1. Sardar doesn’t seem to know what his book is about, so he makes it about anything that occurs to him as he’s writing.
2. Sardar rambles, leaving his reader behind as he delves into yet another thought process.
This turns what had the potential to be an interesting book into a slog to the finish.
With its brightly-coloured cover and jaunty title, I thought Balti Britain would be a breezy and none-too-serious read about British Asians. In fact, there’s quite a lot of gravity to be found within the book (no bad thing), but that gravity mixes strangely with the parts that are breezy, like Ziauddin Sardar’s search for the origins of the supposedly-Indian “balti” curry dish.
The book is part journalism (as Sardar investigates issues like British-grown terrorism), part history, and part memoir. But there’s no dividing line between the three narrative strands. Sardar’s unfortunate tendency to ramble and digress means that it becomes a hard book to digest. Oftentimes, I would find Sardar was writing about something I found interesting (such as how his children’s British-Asian identities began to differ from his own as they grew up), and then suddenly he’d dive into an only-tangentially-relevant historical account.
There’s nothing wrong with Sardar’s writing ability, and there’s plenty of worthwhile content within the book. In fact, the things wrong with Balti Britain are depressingly banal:
1. Sardar doesn’t seem to know what his book is about, so he makes it about anything that occurs to him as he’s writing.
2. Sardar rambles, leaving his reader behind as he delves into yet another thought process.
This turns what had the potential to be an interesting book into a slog to the finish.
January 28, 2009
Sardar uses the history and experiences of his family and friends to explore the complexities of British Asian identities. I found it particularly interesting to learn more about the different religious affiliations of London mosques and the differences in religious makeup between the Muslim Council of Britain and the British Muslim Forum, but the book also touches on Jain and Hindu communities. The vignettes of Sardar's family and friends are fascinating and at times touching. He argues that, to the extent British Asian identities are problematic, it is largely because white British society and institutions have failed to recognise centuries of common history and persist in treating as newcomers people whose ancestors' fates have been intertwined with those of white Britons for centuries - a thesis that fits well with the original work of Ted Cantle on community cohesion, subsequently sadly misused and distorted by the Labour Government.
November 8, 2014
More of an exercise of his (admittedly admirable) vocabulary than the establishment of any definitive opinions. With his post-modernist sociological approach, you are left with an equally fragmented conclusion(s). That's if you can call it/them conclusion(s). I don't have much time for sociology as a stand alone academic science, but I can tell an equally unacquainted individual when I see one.
August 18, 2013
self indulgent memoire mixed in with some factual truths, and some other people's accounts of their own experiences. maybe its an example of 'selfie' journalism. by no means that definitive text i was hoping for...
December 23, 2010
interesting insight into mutli culturalism and into the author's view of what it means to be an asian britain
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