Pandaemonium

LEVELLING UP? MORE LIKE HAMMERING DOWN

July 27, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the government’s new immigration proposals, was my Observer column this week. It was published in the Observer, 11 July 2021, under the headline “Levelling up should take many forms. And don’t forget London’s poorest need it too”. Levelling up is hard to do. Well, in one sense it is. Providing new opportunities for people and places that most need but have least access to them requires strategic vision and political will. Boris Johnson’s recent word salad of a speech, supposedly the […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: benefits, boris johnson, communities, conservative party, covid 19, inequality, levelling up, london, poverty, sick pay, social infrastructure, tories, universal credit

INEQUALITY AND THE POLITICS OF DIVISION

July 20, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the violence n South Africa, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the GB News debacle) It was published on 18 July 2021, under the headline “Gross inequality stoked the violence in South Africa. It’s a warning to us all”. “It feels qualitatively different this time.” There are few people I know in South Africa who don’t think this about the carnage now engulfing the nation. Violence was institutionalised during the years of apartheid. […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: anc, apartheid, corruption, covid 19, economic freedom fighters, identity politics, inequality, jacob zuma, police killings, poverty, racism, sectarianism, south africa

FAREWELL PATREON

July 18, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. A few years ago, I set up a Patreon account to help fund improvements to Pandaemonium. Patrons have been incredibly generous, and I am thankful for all the support I have received. However, I have not had the time and space to do much of what I hoped to do, such as digital books and podcasts. And now I am working on a (physical) book, due out autumn next year, which means that I have even less time to […]

Categories: Kenan Malik, Pandaemonium

CYNICISM & CRUELTY DRESSED UP AS LAW

July 13, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the government’s new immigration proposals, was my Observer column this week. It was published in the Observer, 11 July 2021, under the headline “After Priti Patel has finished, which refugees will carry a torch for Britain?” “Before I died I contemplated how drowning would feel.” So opens Gulwali Passarlay’s 2015 book The Lightless Sky. Passarlay was, in 2006, a 12-year-old boy in a rural village in Afghanistan, caught in the crossfire between Taliban and American forces. After his father was shot […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: asylum seekers, british politics, gunwale passarlay, immigration, nationality and borders bill, people smugglers, priti patel, sabir zazai, the lightless sky

ON BEING A 90-MINUTE ENGLISHMAN

July 7, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on football and Englishness, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 4 July 2021, under the headline “I love the football team but can’t get tribal about England. What’s going on?” Yes, I shouted with joy when Raheem Sterling scored against Germany last week. I would have been equally joyful had he scored against Scotland. And when India play England in a Test series next month, I will be rooting for England, not for the country of my birth. […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Sport • Tags: britishness, england, englishness, eric hobsbawm, football, identity, john denham, nationalism, racism, roger scruton, sport, sunder katwala, tebbit test

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #81

July 5, 2021 by Kenan Malik

The latest (somewhat random) collection of essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . The Brazilianization of the worldAlex Hochuli, American Affairs, Summer 2021 The reality is that the twentieth century – with its confident state machines, forged in war, applying themselves to determine social outcomes – is over. So are its other features: organized political conflict between Left and Right, or between social democracy and Christian […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

THE POWER NOT TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ONE’S POWER

June 29, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on Grenfell and the culture of impunity, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 27 June 2021, under the headline “From Grenfell Tower to the Met police, shirking responsibility has become endemic”. Being accountable for one’s actions seems about as fashionable these days as a foreign holiday. It is telling that Dido Harding can oversee the debacle that was the test-and-trace programme and yet still be in the running to be the next boss of NHS England; that the […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: accountability, corruption, cressida dick, dido harding, grenfell fire, grenfell tower, kctmo

OFFENCE, CRUELTY AND PUBLIC DEBATE

June 23, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, transgender rights and the nature of contemporary public debate, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 20 June 2021, under the headline “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie captures the hypocrisies of too many ‘social justice’ zealots”. “The more she wrote, the less sure she became. Each post scraped off yet one more scale of self until she felt naked and false.” So wrote Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about Ifemelu, the central character in her […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech, Justice & Liberties • Tags: akwaeke emezi, americanah, chimamanda ngozi adichie, feminism, identity politics, jess de wahls, jk rowling, public debate, selina todd, social media, trans rights, transgender, transphobia, transphobic

FOUR COLOURS: GREEN

June 21, 2021 by Kenan Malik

Continuing my series of posts on photographs composed largely of single colours, in an almost monochromatic fashion, this time green. (Previous posts were on blue and yellow.) For more, check out my photography website, Light Infusion. . Bridge over the Limehouse Cut . Poised to open . Poised to fly . Paradise . Splash . Fan . Seed gone . Mist over Malham . Reflection in Giverney . The strangeness of Orford Ness . Feeling the light

Categories: Photos

SPORT, POLITICS AND TAKING THE KNEE

June 16, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the debate over taking the knee, and the relationship between sport and politics, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 13 June 2021, under the headline “We need to separate sport and politics. But also recognise that they’re inseparable”. “Fans don’t want politics brought into football.” Many would agree with Tory MP Lee Anderson’s sentiment. And so, he carried on, in response to England footballers “taking the knee” before a match: “For the first time in […]

Categories: Politics, Sport • Tags: black lives matter, colin kaepernick, culture wars, englishness, football, lee anderson, muhammad ali, patriotism, racism, taking the knee, wilfried zaha

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND MEDICAL DATA

June 9, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the the new NHS medical database, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 6 June 2021, under the headline “Tell me how you’ll use my medical data. Only then might I sign up”. Would you allow your medical data to be anonymised and used for research into cancer or to aid future pandemic planning? Most people would probably say yes. I certainly would. But what if that data could be accessed by tech giants such as […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: british politics, data, medical data, medical privacy, nhs, nhs digital, privacy

THE BIGOTRY OF RACE NORMING

June 6, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This is a (very) short piece on the practice of “race norming” that was published as part of my Observer column, 6 June 2021. It is an important issue, and I will hopefully write a longer article on this issue soon. The NFL, American football’s professional league, is to abandon the practice of “race norming” in assessing compensation for former players with brain injuries. It’s the assumption that black players have lower cognitive functioning than white ones, an assumption that made […]

Categories: Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: affirmative action, american football, race norming, racism, usa

FOUR COLOURS: YELLOW

May 30, 2021 by Kenan Malik

Continuing my series of posts on photographs composed largely of single colours, in an almost monochromatic fashion, this time yellow. (The previous post was on blue.) For more, check out my photography website, Light Infusion. . Sydney Opera House at sunset . Foggy sunset over the Cambrian hills . Sun and storm over London . Parliament building, Budapest, reflected . London South Bank . Buddha, Dambulla, Sri Lanka . Eden Project, Cornwall . Flower in the wet . Lip (in […]

Categories: Photos

A SHARED FUTURE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA

May 25, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on cancel culture and hypocrisy.) It was published on 23 May 2021, under the headline “From the river to the sea, Jews and Arabs must forge a shared future”. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, runs a Palestinian slogan. Originally a call for a secular state in historic Palestine between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean, it soon […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: anti-semitism, anti-zionism, benjamin netanyahu, bernard lazare, gaza, hamas, israel, jerusalem, likud, palestine, racism, sheikh jarrah, tony judt, west bank, zionism

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #80

May 23, 2021 by Kenan Malik

The latest (somewhat random) collection of essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Ghosts in the land Adam Shatz, London Review of Books, 3 June 2021 The territory it governs lies in ruins, but Hamas has reason to celebrate. While 90 per cent of its rockets were repelled by Iron Dome, Israel’s defence system, 100 per cent hit their other target: the Palestinian Authority, which looks […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

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