Pandaemonium

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE MODERATE?

October 15, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the meaning of being ‘moderate’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on AI and bias). It was published in the Observer, 14 October 2018, under the headline ‘Call yourself a ‘moderate’? You’re just avoiding the need to make your case’. To be moderate is to be good. That is almost incontestable political wisdom. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, who has declared her intention to step down, is […]

Categories: Politics • Tags: austerity, british politics, european union, extremist, immigration, margaret thatcher, moderate, theresa may

A DANSE MACABRE IN KERMARIA

October 12, 2018 by Kenan Malik

It’s a tiny chapel in the tiny hamlet of Kermaria-an-Iskuit, in Brittany. It was built in several stages from the 13th to the 15th century. The entrance porch is adorned with striking statues of the apostles. And inside is the only danse macabre fresco that survives in France. The danse macabre is a late-medieval visual allegory about the universality of death. It depicts death, usually personified as a skeleton, leading people from all walks of life – pope, emperor, king, bourgeois, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Photos • Tags: art, brittany, churches, danse macabre, death, france, frescoes, kermaria

A GLOBAL MIDDLE CLASS TIPPING POINT?

October 8, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on claims that half the world is now middle class, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the difference between engaging with public anxieties and following public opinion). It was published in the Observer, 7 October 2018, under the headline ‘As global poverty declines, we should beware the new class wars’. Half the world is now middle class. So ran the headlines reporting a Brookings Institution analysis of global poverty, according […]

Categories: Class, Politics • Tags: china, economic development, india, middle class, poverty, working class

OTIS RUSH AND CHICAGO BLUES

October 5, 2018 by Kenan Malik

Last week Otis Rush, one of the legendary figures of Chicago blues, died. Not as well know as guitarists such as Muddy Waters and BB King, he was nevertheless probably more influential, especially on rock guitarists from Eric Clapton to Jimmy Page. Chicago blues came out of the Great Migration, when African Americans from the South moved to Northern cities. Through that migration, the Delta blues, which had originated in Mississippi in the 1920s and 30s, gave way, from the […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: blues, chicago blues, music, otis rush

AFTER THE SATANIC VERSES

October 1, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the legacy of the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on a call to halt the housing of asylum seekers in Sunderland). It was published in the Observer, 30 September 2018, under the headline ‘The Satanic Verses sowed the seeds of rifts that have grown ever wider’. Thirty years ago last week, Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was published. Rushdie was then perhaps the most celebrated […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: british politics, censorship, clash of civilizations, free speech, identity politics, muslims, rushdie affair, salman rushdie, same sex marriage, the satanic verses

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #46

September 28, 2018 by Kenan Malik

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Americans want to believe jobs are the solution to poverty. They’re not. Matthew Desmond, New York Times, 11 September 2018 In America, if you work hard, you will succeed. So those who do not succeed have not worked hard. It’s an idea found deep in the marrow of the nation. William Byrd, an 18th-century […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

FROM EQUAL RIGHTS TO STAYING IN YOUR LANE

September 24, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on racial categories and social identities, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the Labour Party’s proposal to ban pregnant women from discovering the sex of their unborn child). It was published in the Observer, 23 September 2018, under the headline ‘Racial equality once meant tearing down barriers, not doing a DNA test’. Until about five years ago, Ralph Taylor did not consider himself black. He lived as a white […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: ancestry, anti-racism, cultural appropriation, equality, genealogy, genetic testing, identity politics, race, racial categories, racism, stay in your lane

A CENSORSHIP LESS VISIBLE

September 22, 2018 by Kenan Malik

These were my opening remarks at a debate on censorship in the theatre, held at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, 20 September 2018. Other speakers included Shereener Browne, Agnieszka Kolek and Anders Lustgarten. One of the problems in discussing censorship is that we often don’t recognize censorship for what it is. There is no longer the Lord Chamberlain marking scripts and cutting out the unacceptable. Instead, we, in effect, ourselves mark them. And that, ironically, makes censorship not more, but less, visible. In all my […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: behzti, censorship, exhibit b, free speech, kehinde andrews, stella odunlame, theatre

THE SCANDAL OF THE WORKING POOR

September 17, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the ‘working poor’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on hypocrisy and the Church of England). It was published in the Observer, 16 September 2018, under the headline ‘Welfare was meant to help the poor, not subsidise exploitative employers’. It will mean fewer jobs. That was the chorus from many on the right, from Tej Parikh of the Institute of Directors to the chancellor, Philip Hammond, in response to […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: austerity, british politics, conservative party, gig economy, john mcdonnell, labour party, matthew desmoond, poverty, working poor

FREE SPEECH, CULTURE AND IDENTITY: A GERMAN INTERVIEW

September 14, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This is a translation of part of an interview I gave to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on questions of free speech, multiculturalism and identity. The full interview is here. What restrictions should there be on freedom of expression? Should everyone always be allowed to say everything? It’s widely accepted today that in a plural society freedom of expression needs to be curtailed in the name of tolerance or respect. Otherwise minorities could suffer. I disagree. It’s precisely because we do […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, Multiculturalism • Tags: afd, culture, free speech, germany, hate speech, identity politics, multiculturalism

WHY DEBATE BANNON?

September 10, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the controversy over Steve Bannon’s invitation to the New Yorker festival,, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the Swedish elections). It was published in the Observer, 9 September 2018, under the headline ‘Condemning all debate with Bannon amounts to giving up on politics’. Two memes have become central to much contemporary political debate. The first is that we need to break out of our echo chambers. The second is […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, Politics • Tags: alt right, david remnick, donald trump, far right, free speech, new yorker, steve bannon

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #45

September 7, 2018 by Kenan Malik

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Who needs democracy when you have data? Christina Larson, MIT Technology Review, 20 August 2018 In 1955, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published a short story about an experiment in ‘electronic democracy,’ in which a single citizen, selected to represent an entire population, responded to questions generated by a computer named Multivac. […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

THE FRAUD OF FOREIGN AID

September 3, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about foreign aid, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the left on both sides of the Atlantic) It was published in the Observer, 2 September 2018, under the headline ‘As a system, foreign aid is a fraud and does nothing for inequality’. The five poorest countries in the world, measured by GDP per capita, are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Uganda, Tajikistan and Haiti. One might […]

Categories: Britain, International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: aid, british politics, china, development, european union, foreign aid, global poverty, global south, migration, poverty, usa

THE CHURCH AT VARENGEVILLE

August 31, 2018 by Kenan Malik

It’s a tiny church in a Normandy hamlet that we stumbled upon almost by accident. But, dramatically perched on the cliff edge, with views along the northern coast of France towards Calais, it’s not difficult to see why the Église Saint-Valéry in Varengeville-sur-Mer has attracted so many painters. Claude Monet painted it dozens of times (the one above is simply called ‘The Church at Varengeville’); Pissarro, Corot and Isabey are among others who have depicted it too. Apparently when the […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Photos • Tags: braque, churches, france, monet, photography, raoul ubac, varengeville

SAUDI VICIOUSNESS AND WESTERN CYNICISM

August 27, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Saudi Arabia’s ‘reform’ process, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 26 August 2018 under the headline ‘Don’t be deluded – our Saudi ‘partners’ are masters of repression’. Five Saudi activists face possible execution. Their crimes? ‘Participating in protests’, ‘chanting slogans hostile to the regime’ and ‘filming protests and publishing on social media’. The five, including women’s rights campaigner Israa al-Ghomgham, come from the Shia-majority Eastern Province. They have spent more than two years in […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International, War on terror • Tags: iran, iranian revolution, islamism, jihadism, mohammed bin salman, saudi arabia, terrorism, western policy, yemen

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