Author Archives: Kenan Malik

THE UBERISATION OF BRITAIN

May 4, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on labour insecurity in Britain, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 1 May 2022, under the headline “In the name of job flexibility, ‘Uberisation’ is spreading its tentacles across society”. In the late 18th century, as the impact of the Industrial Revolution bit into the lives of the nascent working class, the high cost of fuel, one study notes, “forced inhabitants of many southern regions to abandon home cooking”. Fuel costs were much greater in the south […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: anti-union laws, fire and rehire, gig economy, labour insecurity, labour market, margaret thatcher, new labour, p&o, poverty, thatcherism, tony blair, trade unions, uberisation, working class

IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND REDRAWING BORDERS

April 28, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how Western immigration policies are undermining the sovereignty of poorer nations, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 24 April 2022, under the headline “In this new age of empire, the west has no need to conquer. Money and coercion do the job”. Where is America’s southern border? Look on a map and you can see the line where America ends and Mexico begins, a line along part of which Donald Trump tried to build his […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: deportation, empire of borders, european union, immigration controls, immigration policy, imperialism, rwanda, sovereignty, usa

NOT SO BLACK AND WHITE

April 13, 2022 by Kenan Malik

. It’s out. Well, details of my forthcoming book, anyway. The book itself, Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics will be published in January by Hurst. Here’s the blurb from the Hurst brochure: Is white privilege real? Does American history begin in 1619 or 1776? Why has left-wing antisemitism grown? How racist is the working class? Who benefits most, when anti-racists speak in racial terms? . These very different questions have […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Kenan Malik, Not so Black and White

SEX, GENDER AND SPORT

April 6, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about transgender athletes in sport, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 3 April 2022, under the headline “From pool to track: disputes over trans athletes mustn’t make everyone a loser”. If you want a case study of how not to handle the question of transgender athletes in sport, look to the treatment of British cyclist Emily Bridges. As a talented male junior, Bridges won three silver medals at national championships and seemed destined […]

Categories: Sport, Women • Tags: emily bridges, gender, joanna harper, lia thomas, sex-based categories, testosterone, trans rights, transgender, transgender athletes, transphobia, women's rights

SOVEREIGNTY NOT JUST WHEN IT IS POLITICALLY CONVENIENT

March 30, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the British denial of sovereignty , was my Observer column this week. It was published on 27 March 2022, under the headline “As the imperial ties are being cast aside, a royal tour was always going to be a farce”. Sovereignty, we are told, matters. It matters in Ukraine. It matters in Brexit. And, for some, the freedom afforded by sovereignty in the one instance is analogous to that afforded in the other. Many of those who celebrate sovereignty against […]

Categories: Britain, International • Tags: british commonwealth, british empire, caribbean, caroline elkins, chagos islands, john stuart mill, kemi badenoch, nigel biggar, royal family, sovereignty, windrush scandal

SOLIDARITY, IDENTITY AND “PEOPLE LIKE US”

March 9, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what the responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine tells us about the ways in which we think about solidarity, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 6 March 2022, under the headline “The people of Ukraine need our solidarity. But not just because they’re ‘like us’”. In 1857, the English poet and Chartist leader Ernest Jones wrote a series of articles in The People’s Paper about the “Indian Mutiny” of that year. It was, he observed, no “mutiny” but […]

Categories: History, International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-slav racism, ernest jones, europe, european union, fortress europe, freedom struggles, identity politics, racism, refugees, russia, russian invasion, slavs, solidarity, ukraine, ukraine war, vladimir putin

COVID AND FREEDOM: TRIVIALISED AND TRIBALISED

March 2, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on restoring freedoms post-covid, was my Observer column this week. It was published 27 February 2022, under the headline “‘Freedom day’ was no leap into the light. For that we must set aside tribalism”. There was a certain irony that “freedom day” – the name given by some to the removal on Thursday of the last official Covid restrictions in England – was also the day that Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. For two years, as the virus has wreaked havoc and […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: canada, covid 19, covid restrictions, freedom, freedom convoy, freedom day, ottawa, trust

NOT JUST A BLACK AND WHITE ISSUE

February 9, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the controversy over Whoopi Goldberg’s comments about race and the Holocaust, was my Observer column this week. It was published 6 February 2022, under the headline “Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust remarks drew on a misguided idea of racism”. “This is white people doing it to white people, so y’all gonna fight amongst yourselves.” Whoopi Goldberg’s comments on ABC’s The View about the Holocaust being not “about race” but “white on white” violence that exposed “man’s inhumanity to man” has drawn a slew of condemnation. […]

Categories: History, Race & Immigration • Tags: holocaust, jews, jim crow, nazism, nuremberg laws, race, racism, usa, white privilege, whiteness, whoopi goldberg

FORGETTING THE LESSONS OF FREE SPEECH STRUGGLES

February 2, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the history of free speech and the lessons we are in danger of forgetting, was my Observer column this week. It was published 30 January 2022, under the headline “Freedom of speech was too hard won to be cavalier now about censorship”. If the great campaigners for free speech of the past, such as Baruch Spinoza or Mary Wollstonecraft or Frederick Douglass, were alive today, “they would surely declare the 21st century an unprecedented golden age”. So suggests Jacob […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: antisemitism, censorship, charlie hebdo, der sturmer, eleanor roosevelt, free speech, hate speech, jacob mchangama, nazism, social justice, the satanic verses, weimar republic

THE POVERTY OF MORALISM

January 26, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on poverty and social policy, was my Observer column this week. It was published 23 January 2022, under the headline “Poor people face a perfect storm. Let no one tell you it’s their own fault”. Terry Pratchett understood why most social policies fail. In his book Men At Arms, one of the characters, Samuel Vines, put forward his “‘boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness”. “The reason that the rich were so rich,” Vines observed, “was because they managed to spend less money.” […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: cost of living crisis, inflation, jack monroe, poverty, samuel vimes, terry pratchett, undeserving poor, universal credit

CONTESTING FREEDOM AND “WHITE FREEDOM”

January 4, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the historian Tyler Stovall and the idea of “white freedom”, was my Observer column this week. It was published 2 January 2022, under the headline “We talk a lot about freedom – but not enough about whose freedom is at stake”. “For me, history is the record not only of how things change, but how people make things change, how they act individually and collectively to create a better world.” So wrote American historian Tyler Stovall about his approach to his […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History, Justice & Liberties • Tags: abraham lincoln, enlightenment, france, freedom, freedom struggles, french colonialism, french revolution, kant, liberalism, putney debates, race, race and class, radical enlightenment, tyler stovall, white freedom, whiteness

CRICKET AND THE CRAVING FOR A QUICK FIX

December 30, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debacle of English Test cricket, was my Observer column this week. It was published 26 December 2021, under the headline “The thrills! The spills! No wonder we’re losing the drama of the epic encounter”. (Oh, and if you don’t already know, England were humiliated in Melbourne.) Perhaps I won’t have woken up this morning to the sound of clattering England wickets in the Boxing Day heat of Melbourne. Perhaps, by the time you read this, England will have […]

Categories: Sport • Tags: australia, ben stokes, cricket, england, formula one, indian premier league, lewis hamilton, max verstappen, miracle of istanbul, muhammad ali, rumble in the jungle, t20, test cricket, the ashes

LIBERTARIANS WHO WOULD DENY LIBERTY

December 21, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Tory libertarians, was my Observer column this week. It was published 19 December 2021, under the headline “Strange beasts, these ‘libertarians’ who love to curb the freedom of others”. When is a libertarian not a libertarian? When, apparently, it is the wrong kind of people whose liberties are being curtailed. The past week has seen so-called “libertarian” Tory MPs rebel against the government’s Covid plan B – the necessity for vaccine certificates or negative tests to attend large venues, mandatory vaccinations […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: asylum seekers, david davis, illiberal conservatism, libertarianism, liberties, marcus fysh, nationality and borders bill, police, police crime sentencing and court bill, right to protest, rightwing libertarianism, tory libertarians, walter bagehot

DECEIT, NEGLECT AND COLLUSION ON THE ROAD TO GRENFELL

December 14, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the backstory of the policies that led to the Grenfell fire, was my Observer column this week. It was published 12 December 2021, under the headline “Grenfell delivers yet more horrors. But the guilty still fail to take responsibility”. Lying. Refusing to follow rules. Mocking the little people. Deflecting any blame. Not just this government’s response to a Christmas party that “never took place”, but the response of successive governments to the issue of fire safety in buildings. Where […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: cladding scandal, garnock court, grenfell fire, knowsley heights, lakanal house

THE UNIVERSALISM THAT ISN’T

December 7, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Josephine Baker, Éric Zemmour and universalism in French politics, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 5 December 2021, under the headline “How can a country that hails Josephine Baker take the racist Zemmour seriously?” “How does it feel to be a white man?” Simeon was not a white man. He was an African American who had left his homeland to escape the ferocious racism every African American faced and sought shelter in Paris. There, he […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: 1961 paris massacre, algeria, emmanuel macron, eric zemmour, france, identity politics, islam, josephine baker, muslims, racism, the stone face, universalism, william gardner smith