Pandaemonium

THE REAL UNDESIRABLES ARE NOT ON THE STREETS

August 12, 2019 by Kenan Malik

As I am away for a couple of weeks, and posting little new material on Pandaemonium, I am taking the opportunity to publish some of those shorter pieces from my Observer column that I don’t normally post on Pandaemonium. This is a a short piece on homelessness and official attitudes and policies, first published on 7 July 2019. None are so blind as those who would blind others. Mark Field, the Foreign Office minister suspended for grabbing a protester by the throat, has, according to leaked […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: austerity, british politics, homelessness, london, mark field, rough sleeping

THE NECESSITY OF POETRY

August 10, 2019 by Kenan Malik

As I am away for a couple of weeks, and posting little new material on Pandaemonium, I am taking the opportunity to publish some of those shorter pieces from my Observer column that I don’t normally post on Pandaemonium. This is a a short piece on the need for poetry, first published on 12 May 2019, after the announcement of Simon Armitage as the new Poet Laureate. Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle That while you watched turned to pieces of snow Riding […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: george szirtes, howard nemerov, mean alexander, poetry, simon armitage

A TRIBUTE TO BRYAN MAGEE

August 5, 2019 by Kenan Malik

I am away for a couple of weeks, so am posting little new material on Pandaemonium. I am taking the opportunity to publish some of those shorter pieces from my Observer column that I don’t normally post on Pandaemonium. This is a. short tribute to Bryan Magee, published on 28 July 2019 under the headline ‘Bryan Magee, the man who loved to put big ideas on the small screen’. You can still watch them on YouTube. Two middle-aged white men (and the occasional woman) spending […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: bryan magee

DIVERSE, PERHAPS, BUT NOT MODERN

August 3, 2019 by Kenan Malik

I am away for a couple of weeks, so am posting little new material on Pandaemonium. I am taking the opportunity to publish some of those shorter pieces from my Observer column that I don’t normally post on Pandaemonium. Having said that, this short comment on the diversity of the Boris Johnson cabinet was published in the Observer on 28 July not as part of my weekly column but as part of a feature on the new Johnson government. ‘People seem to be disappointed that the […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: boris johnson, british politics, diversity, priti patel, racism, sajid javid

HAS THE RETWEET RUINED THE WORLD?

July 29, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Twitter, engagement ad democracy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Bryan Magee.) It was published on 7 July 2019, under the headline ‘Twitter won’t ruin the world. But constraining democracy would’. Has the retweet ruined the world? Chris Wetherell, the software developer who built Twitter’s retweet button, thinks so. Introduced in 2009, retweeting transformed the social media landscape, he suggests, by allowing people to pass on information without having bothered to […]

Categories: Politics, Science • Tags: brexit, democracy, donald trump, education, fake news, social media, social polarisation, technology, twitter

WHITE IDENTITY AND WORKING CLASS POLITICS

July 27, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay was published in the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten on 21 July 2019. The shift has been dramatic. Even a decade ago, discussion of ‘white rights’ and ‘white identity’ belonged to the fringes of politics. It was Nazi-speak. Today it has become a major political issue on both sides of the Atlantic. Not just the far-right but many mainstream commentators now argue that whites should be able to assert what the political scientist Eric Kaufmann calls their ‘racial self-interest’. Why […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: alain benoist, Class, eric kaufmann, identity politics, nouvelle droite, race, racism, white identity, working class

STUMBLING INTO THE PANOPTICON

July 22, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the creation of a surveillance state, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the ‘R word’ and the pretence of not using a word.) It was published on 7 July 2019, under the headline ‘When local councils use data tools to classify us, what price freedom?‘ Are you a ‘metro high-flyer’ or part of an ‘alpha family’? A ‘midlife renter’ or a ‘cafes and catchments’ sort? An ‘estate veteran’ or a […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: jeremy bentham, michel foucault, panopticon, privacy, social scoring, surveillance state

SINGING TO THE MOON

July 20, 2019 by Kenan Malik

Every newspaper and media outlet over the past week seems to have put out a soundtrack to accompany this week’s anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission. But most of the songs they have chosen (Fly Me to the Moon, Moondance, Marquee Moon, Walking on the Moon, etc) have little relation to the moon landings or even to the moon itself. While the moon landing had enormous impact on popular culture, including music, there are not that many tracks that […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: apollo 11, moon landing, music, space race, usa

THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF RACE AND CLASS

July 15, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on race and class in contemporary Britain, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the politics of human fossil finds.) It was published on 7 July 2019, under the headline ‘Working class versus minorities? That’s looking at it the wrong way’. Officials eyeing you with contempt. Police treating you as scum. A sense of being constantly watched and judged by professionals. Living in fear of benefit sanctions. A lack of community facilities. […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Philosophy & Ethics, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, ethnic pay gap, hostile environment, identity politics, migrants, minorities, precariat, race and class, runnymede trust, white working class, working class

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #60

July 13, 2019 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. . Europe’s treatment of migrants is shameful Mathieu von Rohr, Spiegel International Editorial, 4 July 2019 A father and his daughter lie dead on the bank of the Rio Grande, entwined in an embrace, after drowning in their attempt to reach the United States. The man is Óscar Alberto Martinez Ramírez; his 23-month-old […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

MIGRANT DETENTION AND MORAL DISGRACE

July 8, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on whether migrant detention centres should be described as ‘concentration camps’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Tory policy and attitudes to the homeless.) It was published on 7 July 2019, under the headline ‘Whatever we call them, wherever they are, detention centres are a disgrace’. They are held in wire cages, with standing room only, sometimes for months. Adults have to wear the same clothes for weeks. Children have no washing […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: boer war, concentration camps, europe, european union, holocaust, migrant crisis, migrant detention, morality, nazi death camps, undocumented migrants, usa

WHAT DETERRENCE LOOKS LIKE

July 5, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay was was first published in the Swedish newspaper Expressen, 2 July 2019. The photos of Óscar and Valeria Ramírez, migrants from El Salvador, drowned in the Rio Grande as they tried to cross into the USA, are haunting and distressing, and have sparked outrage and anger in America. Four years ago, images of the Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach similarly shocked and horrified Europe. These deaths are neither accidents nor isolated cases. They […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: alan kurdi, detention of migrants, european union, fortress europe, immigration controls, immigration policy, libya, mediterranean, migrant deaths, oscar and valeria ramirez, undocumented migrants, usa

THE TROUBLE WITH LIBERALISM

July 1, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the crisis facing liberalism, and why it is not the one that Vladimir Putin thinks it is, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 30 June 2019, under the headline ‘Liberalism is facing a crisis. But it’s not what Vladimir Putin thinks’. ‘What we may be witnessing is the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.’ So wrote Francis Fukuyama in his […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: conservatism, francis fukuyama, individualism, left, liberalism, neoliberalism, vladimir putin, working class

MASS DETENTION – THE LAST TIME AROUND

June 29, 2019 by Kenan Malik

Against the background of the debate about squalor and brutality of the USA’s immigrant detention centres – and whether they constitute ‘concentration camps’, a debate I might engage in sometime – it is worth remembering that America has a long history of mass detention camps. Among the most notorious were the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. ‘The Japanese race’, observed General John L DeWitt, head of the US Army’s Western Defense Command, and a key figure […]

Categories: International, Photos, Race & Immigration • Tags: concentration camps, dorothea lange, internment camps, japanese internment, linda gordon, mass detention, photography, racism, usa

SCIENCE, VACCINES AND DISTRUST WITHOUT REASON

June 24, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on a study of global attitudes to science and to vaccines, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Facebook’s launch of its digital currency Libra.) It was published on 23 June 2019, under the headline ‘A growing lack of trust in authority poses a serious danger to our health’. Virtually every Bangladeshi and Rwandan believes that vaccines are safe. Fewer than half of Japanese or French do so. In Western Europe, one in […]

Categories: Politics, Science • Tags: ebola, trust, vaccination, vaccine hesitancy, vaccines, wellcome global monitor

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