Author Archives: Kenan Malik

FREE SPEECH, BIG TECH AND BROKEN POLITICS

January 19, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the fallout from Donald Trump’s banishment from social media, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on ingrained prejudices about migrants and the poor.) It was published on 17 January 2021, under the headline “Control Facebook and mend broken societies… If only it were that simple”. London is full of “Pops”. From the area around City Hall to parts of the Olympic Park, there are dozens of “privately owned public spaces”. Places that […]

Categories: Free Speech, Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: alexei navalny, big tech, censorship, donald trump, facebook, free speech, parler, poland, social media, twitter

NOT CREATED TO DECORATE A ROOM

January 17, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. His paintings, John Berger wrote, “deserve to hang among the best English paintings of our time”. Yet Theodore Major is barely known. (I only stumbled across his work recently, via Berger). Why? Partly because he was working class, and from unfashionable Wigan. Partly, too, because he detested the art world and refused to sell his paintings “to the people who want them, the rich people”. My paintings, he said “are not created to decorate a room.” He had “no […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: art, lowry, theodore major, wigan, working class artists

LESS ABOUT MONEY THAN ABOUT PRIORITIES

January 12, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the failure to tackle inequality, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 10 January 2020, under the headline “Lives are falling apart. Enough talk about inequality, it’s now time to act”. Inequality. Everyone agrees it’s bad. Everyone agrees that the pandemic and lockdowns have exacerbated inequality. And everyone agrees that something must be done to reduce it. So, what has been done? Nearly a year into the pandemic, and at the start of the third national lockdown […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics

THE RED WALL TRAPS TO AVOID (AND NOT AVOID)

January 5, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about “Red Wall” seats in England, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on India, Argentina and the potency of mass mobilisation.) It was published on 3 January 2021, under the headline “It’s too easy to lapse into stereotypes when we talk about ‘red wall’ seats”. “What will the ‘Red Wall’ think?” As Boris Johnson pivots from Covid-19 and Brexit towards his “levelling up” agenda, that is likely to be a […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: boris johnson, conservative party, labour party, lynsey hanley, red wall, social conservatism, social liberalism, tories

SONGS OF DESPAIR AND HOPE

January 1, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. It seems appropriate to see off 2020, and welcome in 2021, with songs of despair and hope. There are, of course, a hundred songs I could have included in either list. To choose just five in each category was an almost impossible task, and the selections are rather arbitrary. To pare it down a bit, I excluded songs primarily of heartbreak and love ache and straightforward protest songs too, though some here (Lauryn Hill’s “Black Rage”, for instance) may […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: bob dylan, bob marley, bruce springsteen, despair, gill scott-heron, hope, jeff buckley, lauryn hill, music, nina simone, rl burnside, sam cooke, tracy chapman

CYNICISM, TRUST AND A BROKEN PUBLIC SPHERE

December 29, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the need to rebuild the public sphere, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on TS Eliot’s “Four Quartets”.) It was published on 20 December 2020, under the headline “We want to trust in each other. But it’d be easier if we weren’t so isolated”. Volunteers from Sikh communities – some from as far away as Coventry – provide food for stranded lorry drivers in Kent. Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, apologises for breaching Covid rules after a […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: call-out culture, community, coronavirus pandemic, covid 19, cynicism, human nature, humankind, lockdown, nicola sturgeon, public sphere, rutger bregman, trust

A YEAR OF PANDAEMONIUM

December 27, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. From Covid to Black Lives Matter, 2020 was a year like few others in recent times. Here’s a rundown of the year through the posts on Pandaemonium. . Covid Covid-19 was, of course, the issue that dominated the year. My first essay on the subject was a reflection on how new diseases seem to expose the existential fragility of human societies and how responses to epidemics are often attempts by the authorities to show that they are in control, […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

INEQUALITY, CLASS AND THE CULTURE WARS

December 22, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on inequality, “conservative values” and the “postmodern left”, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 20 December 2020, under the headline “The Tory ‘class agenda’ is a culture war stunt that will leave inequality untouched”. ‘Woke orthodoxy abolished”; “a landmark speech”; “a counter-revolution”. One couldn’t miss the fawning from certain sections of the media. Whoever is responsible for equalities minister Liz Truss’s spin definitely deserves their Christmas bonus. Truss, who doubles up as the international trade secretary, gave a […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: conservatism, equality, food banks, inequality, jacob rees-mogg, left, liz truss, marcus rashford, white working class, working class

BLUES & ROOTS & JAZZ BASSISTS

December 20, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. A few weeks ago, I published a post about discovering the double bass as a classical instrument. It seemed too good an opportunity to miss not to return to this theme, but with my favourite jazz bassists. So, here they are. Enjoy. . Charles Mingus – Moanin’ . Jaco Pastorius – The Chickenwith Biréli Lagrène & Peter Lükba . Paul Chambers – YesterdaysPaul Chambers Quartet . Dave Holland – Opening Day, with Anouar Brahem, Jack Djontes & Django Bates . Ray Brown […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: charles mingus, charlie haden, dave holland, double bass, jaco pastorius, jazz, music, paul chambers, ray brown

RESPECT AND TOLERANCE, PEOPLE AND IDEAS

December 15, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the changing meanings of respect and tolerance, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the revelations at the Grenfell inquiry.) It was published on 13 December 2020, under the headline “Ideas can be tolerated without being respected. The distinction is key”. Should Cambridge University academics and students “tolerate” or “respect” the views of others with which they might disagree? Should we tolerate Millwall fans booing players taking the knee? Should gender-critical feminists who argue for […]

Categories: Free Speech, Philosophy & Ethics, Women • Tags: cambridge university, censorship, football, free speech, les ferdinand, millwall, racism, respect, salil tripathi, taking the knee, tolerance, transgender, twitter

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #78

December 12, 2020 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. . How they built GrenfellAnoosh Chakelian, New Statesman, 11 December 2020 In December 2007, an Irish building materials company called Kingspan tested the fire safety of one of its insulation materials, Kooltherm K15. It was tested on a rig mocked up like a building, to mimic how the product might be used in real […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

LEVERAGING CRUELTY AS A SOCIAL GOOD

December 8, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the cruelty of “Imprisonment for Public Protection” and what it tells us about social policy, was my Observer column. It was published on 6 December 2020, under the headline “Our leaders can’t preach respect and treat the vulnerable with contempt”. “My family were going, ‘Why are you not out? They can’t give you a 13-month sentence and keep you in there for ever!’” Oh, but they can. And not just in China or Saudi Arabia, but in Britain, […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: antisocial behaviour, asbos, david blunkett, hostile environment, imprisonment for public protection, inequality, ipp, new labour, prisons, respect, respect agenda, richard sennett, tony blair

A FILM FROM A LAND WITH NO CINEMAS

December 5, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This short piece on the Lesothan film This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection is part my Observer column, 6 December 2020. There is no cinema in Lesotho. But Lesotho now has a film entered for the Best International Feature Film category at next year’s Oscars. Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection tells the story of 80-year-old Mantoa, grief-stricken after the deaths first of her husband, then of her daughter and, finally, her son, a migrant […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International • Tags: cinema, film, lemohang jeremiah mosese, lesotho, mary twala, oscars

NATURAL PATHOGENS AND A SOCIAL AFFLICTION

December 1, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how social inequalities shapes the fight against disease, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 November 2020, under the headline “There’s a social pathogen stalking the world that’s as deadly as Covid-19”. “What if tropical diseases had as much attention as Covid?”, asked Francine Ntoumi, director of the Congolese Foundation for Medical Research, recently. Ntoumi was really asking two questions. What is happening to all the other diseases that ravage the global south as the world’s attention has […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: africa, brazil, condorcet, coronavirus, covid 19, francine ntoumi, health inequalities, hiv, india, inequality, malaria, tb, tuberculosis

MARADONA, MUHAMMAD ALI AND ME

November 29, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This (very) short piece on Maradona was published aspart of my column in the Observer, 29 November 2020 I can still remember where I was when, in 1986, Diego Maradona scored with the “hand of God”. In a flat on the Coventry Cross estate, in east London. An Asian family lived there, one of a handful on the estate, who had faced vicious racist attacks. An England-Argentina game, just four years after the Falklands conflict, was a threatening proposition. I […]

Categories: Sport • Tags: argentina, football, hand of god, maradona, muhammad ali, racism

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