Author Archives: Kenan Malik

THE ENDS OF EDUCATION

August 4, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the working class and the meaning of education, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 31 July 2022, under the headline “If education is all about getting a job, the humanities are left just to the rich”. “We rented a garret, for which we paid (I think) 25s a year, bought a few second-hand forms and desks, borrowed a few chairs from the people in the house, bought a shilling’s worth of coals… and started our […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Culture & Books • Tags: browne report, david runciman, diversity, education, education cuts, humanities, jonathan rose, robbins report, universities, working class

CLASS AND POWER IN CONTEMPORARY BRITAIN

July 28, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on class, power the different social meanings of “regulation”, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 24 July 2022, under the headline “Worship the rich, neglect the poor? Adam Smith’s words still capture how power works”. If you want to see how class and power operate in Britain today, look at the different ways in which “regulation” is applied to working-class people and businesses. In the one case, it is about imposing ever-tighter restrictions, making it increasingly […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Justice & Liberties • Tags: adam smith, anti-union laws, conservative party, grenfell fire, grenfell tower, strikes, trade unions

ON DIVERSITY AND ITS LIMITS

July 21, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on diversity and the Tory leadership campaign, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 17 July 2022, under the headline “Give me a pale male PM with great policies over a ‘diverse’ one reinforcing inequality”. It is not the British version of the Obama moment, when the election in 2008 of an African American to the White House appeared to mark a significant moment in American history. The magnitude of slavery in US history, the memory of […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: conservative party, diversity, identity politics, racism

YE ARE MANY – THEY ARE FEW

July 13, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the legacy of Percy Bysshe Shelley 200 years after his death, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 10 July 2022, under the headline “Long gone, but speaking clearly to our age – Shelley, the poet of moral and political corruption”. “Shall rank corruption pass unheeded by, Shall flattery’s voice ascend the wearied sky; And shall no patriot tear the veil away Which hides these vices from the face of day? Is public virtue dead? – […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Justice & Liberties • Tags: freedom struggles, mary shelley, peterloo, poetry, queen mab, richard holmes, romanticism, shelley, the masque of anarchy, working class

THE DRIP OF FAR RIGHT IDEAS INTO MAINSTREAM THINKING

July 6, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the seeping of far-right ideas into mainstream thinking, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 3 July 2022, under the headline “It’s not just the far right that should worry us. It’s their ideas seeping into the mainstream”. It is not often that the election of deputy speakers to a parliament can be described as portentous. The appointment last week of vice-presidents (the equivalent of deputy speakers) of the French national assembly was almost unnoticed outside […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: alain de benoist, communist party, douglas murray, emmanuel macron, far right, france, front national, gerald darmien, great replacement theory, immigration, marine le pen, pcf, racism, rassemblement national

IN DEFENCE OF STRIKES

June 29, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the importance of trade unions and the right to strike, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 27 June 2022, under the headline “Enemy within? Hardly… most people see why we need unions prepared to strike”. The Tories love the working class. So long as workers can help them win red wall seats. So long as they can paint them as “socially conservative” and use them as alibis for legislation hostile to immigrants or welfare claimants. So […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Justice & Liberties • Tags: british politics, conservative party, inequality, labour party, levelling up, mick lynch, rail strikes, rmt, strikes, tony blair, trade unions, working class

FANTASY FEARS AND REAL ISSUES

June 22, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on machine sentience and the real problems with AI, was my Observer column on 19 June 2022. It was published under the headline “Forget sentience… the worry is that AI copies human bias”. ‘I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person.” So claimed a Google software program, creating a bizarre controversy over the past week in AI circles and beyond. The programme is called LaMDA, an acronym for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, a project run by […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: ai bias, artificial intelligence, blake lemoine, facial recognition, google, lamda, predictive policing, privacy, sentience, surveillance, timnit gebru

OFFENDING THE GATEKEEPERS

June 15, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on attempts to ban the film The Lady of Heaven, was my Observer column on 12 June 2022. It was published under the headline “Film bans are less about offence, more ‘community leaders’ showing who’s boss”. “Birmingham will not tolerate the disrespect of our Prophet… You will have repercussions for your actions.” So claimed a leader of a Muslim protest against the film The Lady of Heaven. There were similar protests in cities from Bradford to London. Fear of “repercussions” led the cinema chain […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Free Speech • Tags: censorship, charlie hebdo, fatimah, free speech, gatekeepers, gurpreet kaur bhatti, hanif kureishi, hudud, islam, mf husain, muslims, offence, roshan muhammad sakih, salman rushdie, sharia, shia, sunni, the lady of heaven

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