Author Archives: Kenan Malik

ISLAMIC ART AND FLORENCE

August 13, 2018 by Kenan Malik

I am away for a couple of weeks, so will be 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 short piece was published in the Observer on 8 July 2018 under the headline ‘Look at art for the deep connection between Europe and Islam’. The Adoration of the Magi is an early 15th-century altarpiece painting by the Italian painter Gentile da […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History • Tags: adoration of the magi, elif shafak, europe, florence, gentile da fabriano, islam, islamic art, renaissance

THE BUSINESS OF LEARNING

August 10, 2018 by Kenan Malik

My Observer column consists usually of two articles: a longer essay that I republish on Pandaemonium on the Monday, and a short piece that I normally don’t publish here. However, I am away for the next couple of weeks, so will be posting little new material on Pandaemonium. So, I am taking the opportunity to republish some of those shorter pieces. This, on the marketization of universities was first published in the Observer on 29 July under the headline ‘The […]

Categories: Academia, Britain • Tags: marketisation, sam gyimah, universities

SILENCED BY THE WORKPLACE

August 6, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This was the main article in my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 July 2018, under the headline ‘Why are employers allowed to police what we say as private citizens?’ Angela Williamson needed an abortion. The trouble was, she lived in Tasmania. Abortion is legal in the state, but the last abortion clinic closed in December. So, this February, Williamson was forced to travel to Melbourne for her operation. Distressed and angry, she dashed off a few tweets to […]

Categories: Free Speech, International • Tags: abortion, angela williamson, free speech, privacy, public sphere, twitter

THE DRAMA OF CRICKET

August 4, 2018 by Kenan Malik

My Observer column consists usually of two articles: a longer essay that I republish on Pandaemonium on the Monday, and a short piece that I normally don’t publish here. However, I am away for the next couple of weeks, so will be posting little new material on Pandaemonium. So, I am taking the opportunity to republish some of those shorter pieces, beginning with the short article in my Observer column this week on the drama of cricket. I despair for […]

Categories: Sport • Tags: cricket, england, india, sport

TREASON, OBLIGATION AND TRUST

July 30, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about treason laws, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 July 2018, under the headline ‘If we want to build trust in society, a new treason law is no way to do it’. Does the crime of treason have any meaning today? A new report from the Policy Exchange thinktank, Aiding the Enemy, insists that it does. Britain’s current laws on treason are unfit for purpose and should be updated. An updated law, […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: british politics, dissent, free speech, freedom struggles, morality, policy exchange, treason, usa

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #43

July 27, 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 death of the public square Franklin Foer, The Atlantic, 6 July 2018 At the time of Milton’s birth, in 1608, there wasn’t much of a public sphere in England. By the time he wrote Areopagitica, it was robust: coffee houses, newspapers, bookstores, theatres, and meeting places – the locales that allowed individuals […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

DESIGNER BABIES AND DYSTOPIAN VISIONS

July 23, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about genome editing, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on being banned in Pakistan, a shorter version of my previous Pandaemonium post) It was published in the Observer, 22 July 2018, under the headline ‘Fear of dystopian change should not blind us to the potential of gene editing’. ‘Designer babies on horizon’, ran the headlines. Last week, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent body advising on […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science • Tags: bioethics, biotechnology, crispr, designer babies, dystopia, ethics, gene editing, genetic enhancement, genetics, genome editing, gremlin editing, ivf, louise brown, Nuffield council

BANNED IN PAKISTAN

July 20, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This post is about readers in Pakistan. Unfortunately readers in Pakistan won’t actually be able to read this. Which is what this post is about. Pandaemonium is a WordPress site. This week WordPress received an email from the ‘Web Analysis Team’ of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ‘The webpages hosted on your platform are extremely Blasphemous and are hurting the sentiments of many Muslims around Pakistan’, it read. What particularly seemed to concern the PTA were my articles about Charlie […]

Categories: Free Speech, International • Tags: blasphemy, censorship, charlie hebdo, free speech, liberal hypocrisy, pakistan, racism

HOPE AND FEAR IN A WORLD OF UNCERTAINTY

July 16, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the meaning of hope, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 15 July 2018 under the headline ‘The Thai cave rescue was born of hope, an instinct that sustains and drives us’. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’ So reads the inscription above the entrance to Hell in Dante’s Inferno. There must have been times over the past two weeks when it might have seemed the inscription to the entrance to the Tham Luang […]

Categories: Human, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: hope, human nature, seneca, thai cave rescue, tham luang caves, viktor frankl

SHOUTOUT FOR A RETURN TO OZ

July 13, 2018 by Kenan Malik

I am returning to Australia next April to give the keynote address at the Welcoming Cities conference in Brisbane. I’m looking forward greatly to coming back to Oz, and to Brisbane. I am open to speaking in other events and in other places, too. So, this is a shoutout – if you would like me to speak at an event in Australia in March/April 2019 do get in touch and hopefully we can arrange something. . The photo is […]

Categories: Kenan Malik

THE SUPREME COURT AND SOCIAL CHANGE

July 9, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about Donald Trump’s judicial pick for the Supreme Court, and what it tells us about the relationship between courts, democracy and social change, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on an exhibition in Florence on the Islamic influence on European art.) It was published in the Observer, 8 July 2018, under the headline ‘The law, whether in the US or UK, can’t change society if we resist’. […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: democracy, donald trump, judicial activism, judicial system, justice, law, roe v wade, scotus, supreme court, usa

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB

July 6, 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. . ‘It’s nothing like a broken leg’: why I’m done with the mental health conversation Hannah Jane Parkinson, Guardian, 30 June 2018 I will admit that I am not well. That writing this, right now, I am not well. This will colour the writing. But it is part of why I want to […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

A CRISIS THAT HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH MIGRATION

July 2, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the drivers of the ‘migration crisis’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on tribalism in sport and politics.) It was published in the Observer, 1 July 2018, under the headline ‘Hostility to migrants is not born of rising numbers but a failure of hope’. Another migration crisis, another EU summit, another banal resolution. Last week’s gathering of EU leaders was dominated by the migration issue, and shaped by the different needs […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: bence sagvari, european union, fortress europe, immigration controls, migration, migration crisis, vera messing

A QUIET RAGE AGAINST APARTHEID

June 29, 2018 by Kenan Malik

‘My prime concern was with values – what did we value in South Africa, how did we get to those values and how did we express those values,’ David Goldblatt observed. ‘I was very interested in the events that were taking place in the country as a citizen but, as a photographer, I’m not particularly interested, and I wasn’t then, in photographing the moment that something happens. I’m interested in the conditions that give rise to events.’ David Goldblatt, who died […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Photos • Tags: apartheid, david goldblatt, photography, south africa

DEBATING HUMANS AND MACHINES

June 25, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what the remarkable achievement of IBM’s ‘Project Debater’ tells us about the differences between humans and machines, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the persecution of the Roma.) It was published in the Observer, 24 June 2018, under the headline ‘Machines may beat us in debate, but will they ever have the human touch?’ So, a machine can now not only demolish you at chess or devastate you […]

Categories: Human, Philosophy & Ethics, Science • Tags: a1, Human, ibm, machine, meaning, project debater, semantic networks, social

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