Pandaemonium

A PLAYLIST FOR PETE SHELLEY

December 7, 2018 by Kenan Malik

What is it that links Big Mama Thornton’s ‘Hound dog’ to Sam Cooke’s ‘(What a) wonderful world’ to the Kinks’ ‘You really got me’ to the Supremes’ ‘You can’t hurry love’ to Toots and Maytal’s ‘Pressure drop’ to the Undertones’ ‘Teenage kicks’ to Prince’s ‘When doves cry’ to the Buzzcocks’ ‘Ever fallen in love (with someone you shouldn’t have)?’? It’s one of those strange questions that popped into my head this week after the death of Pete Shelley. Shelley was […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: buzzcocks, music, pete shelley, pop songs, punk

WHERE DOES THIS BULLY GET HIS IDEAS FROM?

December 3, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on an assault on a Syrian refugee schoolboy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the CRISPR baby). It was published in the Observer, 2 December 2018, under the headline ‘I know all about being bullied by racists. That’s the Britain I grew up in’. I cannot recall ever being ‘waterboarded’. But nor can I recall many days when, as a schoolboy, I did not return home without a bruised lip […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, hostile environment, immigration, racism, racist attacks, refugees, social media, theresa may, tobias ellwood

ON THE ETHICS OF CRISPR

November 30, 2018 by Kenan Malik

Last week, the Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced the birth of the first CRISPR baby (actually, twins). Two beautiful little Chinese girls, Lulu and Nana, came crying into the world as healthy as any other babies a few weeks ago’, He said in the first of five videos posted on to YouTube. He’s claim is as yet unverified, but if true, it would signal a landmark moment in human genome-editing. It has also been widely met with outrage and condemned […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science • Tags: bioethics, biotechnology, china, chinese science, crispr, ethics, gene editing, genetics, genome editing, germline editing, he jiankui

DISAGREEMENT IS NOT HATRED

November 26, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the transgender debate, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the war on terror). It was published in the Observer, 25 November 2018, under the headline ‘Debate ends when we label views we simply disagree with as ‘hatred’’. ‘It is better to debate a question without settling it,’ observed the 18th-century French writer Joseph Joubert, ‘than to settle a question without debating it.’ How naive that sounds today. In this age […]

Categories: Free Speech, Justice & Liberties, Women • Tags: bigotry, censorship, feminism, free speech, hate speech, joseph joubert, kathleen stock, maghan murphy, transgender, twitter, women's rights

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #49

November 23, 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. . Exiled: the disturbing story of a citizen made unBritish Kamila Shamsie, Guardian, 17 November 2018 Although the powers to strip citizenship were increased in 2003, they were still very rarely used. But in 2013, 18 people were deprived of citizenship, a huge increase from the six of the previous two years. In […]

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CROWNED WITH NO FALSE PATRIOTIC WREATH

November 19, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on nationalism, patriotism and civic pride, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on academics publishing controversial ideas anonymously). It was published in the Observer, 18 November 2018, under the headline ‘Patriotism is meaningless if it doesn’t embrace acts of defiance’. Nationalism, the French president Emmanuel Macron suggested at last week’s Armistice commemoration in Paris, ‘is a betrayal of patriotism’. The phrase made the headlines, not least because it was seen as a rebuke […]

Categories: Politics • Tags: britain, civic pride, civil society, colin kaepernick, emmanuel macron, langston hughes, nationalism, patriotism

MADNESS, MADNESS, THEY CALL IT GLADNESS

November 16, 2018 by Kenan Malik

Trojan Records is 50 years old this year. It was the label that, together with Island Records (founded a decade earlier in 1958), introduced first ska, then reggae, to Britain. To celebrate the 50th anniversary, a new film, Rudeboy, has been released. It is, as the blurb says, ‘a film about the origins and ongoing love affair between Jamaican and British youth culture’. It’s a wonderful film, and an even better soundtrack. And it got me delving back into my […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: bluebeat, music, reggae, ska, trojan records

TERRIBLE CRIMES AND TAWDRY DEBATES

November 12, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Asian ‘grooming gangs’ and the debate about them,, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 11 November 2018, under the headline ‘We’re told 84% of grooming gangs are Asian. But where’s the evidence?’ Few debates about academic methodology result in a researcher being labelled a ‘posh socialist ‘activdemic’’ or another being told that her work is akin to a BNP leaflet. But this is no ordinary academic debate. It’s about Asian ‘grooming gangs’ and a report on the issue […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain • Tags: asian grooming gangs, britain, british asians, british muslims, ceop, child sexual exploitation, ella cockbain, grooming gangs, haras rafiq, islam, maajid nawaz, muna adil, nazir afzal, quilliam, racism

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #48

November 9, 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. . The people, no Thomas Frank, The Baffler, No 42, November 2018 In 1999, we thought right-wing populism was a historical mystery that needed to be unraveled and understood; in the minds of its legions of analysts today it’s no mystery at all. For them, the common people’s incomprehension of liberal values is […]

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BLOOD, SOIL AND CITIZENSHIP

November 5, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on notions of citizenship, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on bootlegging and Bob Dylan). It was published in the Observer, 4 November 2018, under the headline ‘Myths about shared culture have no place in the citizenship debate’. What links Mike Leigh’s new film, Peterloo, to Donald Trump’s threat to deprive children born to undocumented migrants of the right to US citizenship? It might seem an odd question, best left to Only Connect fans. But answering […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: 14th amendment, birthright citizenship, britain, citizenship, Class, donald trump, eric kaufmann, france, jus sanguinis, jus soli, michael walzer, mike leigh, peterloo, usa

NIGHT SHAPES ON THE SOUTHBANK

November 2, 2018 by Kenan Malik

I published a post a while back on the brutalism of London’s Southbank. That brutalism looks very different at night, darkness giving a different shape, as it were, to form and colour. Most of these photos were taken about a week ago, though a couple are from my earlier post.

Categories: Photos • Tags: architecture, brutalism, london, night, photography, southbank

BLASPHEMY, RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR

October 29, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on a European Court of Human Rights ruling and on changing forms of blasphemy law, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the contrast between the EU’s response to Italy on immigration and the budget). It was published in the Observer, 28 October 2018, under the headline ‘None of us should enjoy the right to have our beliefs shielded from abuse‘. Should it be illegal to call the prophet Muhammad […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Free Speech • Tags: blasphemy, censorship, european court of human rights, free speech, gay news, iqbal sacranie, islam, james kirkup, mary whitehouse, muhammad

A LITTLE MESSAGE FROM TWITTER…

October 26, 2018 by Kenan Malik

So, there I was writing an article on blasphemy and censorship (my Observer column, to be published tomorrow), when an email from Twitter Legal dropped into my inbox. It began: We are writing to inform you that Twitter has received official correspondence regarding your Twitter account, @kenanmalik. The correspondence claims that the following Tweet, is illegal: https://twitter.com/kenanmalik/status/1041253630018502656 The tweet to which it refers was a link to the Jesus and Mo cartoon shown at the top. The email continued: Twitter has […]

Categories: Free Speech, Pandaemonium • Tags: censorship, free speech, jesus and mo, twitter

WHITE IDENTITY AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

October 22, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Eric Kaufmann’s book Whitehift, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Turkish repression). It was published in the Observer, 21 October 2018, under the headline ‘White identity is meaningless. Real dignity is found in shared hopes’. ‘It’s dignity, stupid.’ Where once economic wellbeing was seen as key to winning electoral support, there is now recognition that more intangible qualities matter too – the ability to be heard, to live […]

Categories: Class, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-catholicism, demography, eric kaufmann, ethnic identity, ethnicity, identity politics, immigration, racism, white identity, white interests, whiteshift, working class

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #47

October 19, 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. . Brazil’s Bolsonaro-led far right wins a victory far more sweeping and dangerous than anyone predicted. Its lessons are global. Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept, 8 October 2018 In sum, it is virtually impossible to overstate the threat level posed to democracy and human rights in the world’s fifth most-populous country as a result of […]

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