Author Archives: Kenan Malik

MOST PEOPLE ARE DECENT, BUT DECENCY IS NOT ENOUGH

March 31, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on decency and politics, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the mess that is the free speech debate.) It was published on 29 March 2020, under the headline ‘Our basic decency is clear. But a good society needs more than decency’. ‘It may seem a ridiculous idea but the only way to fight the plague is with decency.’ So says Dr Rieux, a central character in Albert Camus’s 1947 novel The […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: big state, camus, common good, coronavirus, selfishness, socialism, solidarity

PHOTOGRAPHY STRIPPED DOWN

March 29, 2020 by Kenan Malik

Some people view photography as a realist medium, a means of faithfully recording the world as it is. All photography, however, even the most realist forms such as photojournalism, necessarily distorts, remakes, is partial, frames the image from a certain perspective, tells a particular story. In my photography, I see ‘fidelity’, in so far as it has any meaning, as capturing a particular mood or sense or idea evoked by a place or a moment or a phenomenon, rather than […]

Categories: Photos

WHY DOES IT REQUIRE A PANDEMIC FOR…

March 24, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare about policy towards low-paid workers, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 March 2020, under the headline ‘Coronavirus exposes society’s fragility. Let’s find solutions that endure once it’s over’. In a crisis, a society often reveals both its best aspects and its worst. So it is with Covid-19. On the one hand there is the selfishness of hoarding, on the other the selflessness of mutual aid groups. On […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: boris johnson, coronavirus pandemic, gig economy, insecure work, low pay, matt hancock, poverty, rishi sunak, unskilled workers, welfare system, working class

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #69

March 21, 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. . Why the coronavirus has been so successful Ed Yong, Atlantic, 20 March 2020 The new virus certainly seems to be effective at infecting humans, despite its animal origins. The closest wild relative of SARS-CoV-2 is found in bats, which suggests it originated in a bat, then jumped to humans either directly or through […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

MINDING THE METAPHORS

March 17, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how metaphors shape our thinking, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the miscarriage of justice over the Lockerbie bombing.) It was published on 15 March 2020, under the headline ‘Like a moth to a flame, we’re drawn to metaphors to explain ourselves’. The selfish gene. The Big Bang. The greenhouse effect. Metaphors are at the heart of scientific thinking. They provide the means for both scientists and non-scientists to understand, […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Language, Science • Tags: computers, george lakoff, lera boroditsky, linguistics, mark johnson, matthew cobb, metaphors, neuroscience, paul thobodeau, psychology, the idea of the brain

A DECADE OF LIGHT INFUSION

March 14, 2020 by Kenan Malik

I have neglected Light Infusion, my photographic site, in recent years. So I am in the process of getting it back into order; it will probably take next few weeks. In beginning to sort it out, I’ve been going back over my archive of photos. And I thought it might be entertaining (at least to me) to pick out my favourites from the past ten years. So, this is one photo per year over the past decade. The choice is […]

Categories: Photos

WHAT WE MEAN WHEN WE ASK, ‘BUT WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?’

March 10, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on EU border control policy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on free speech at universities.) It was published on 8 March 2020, under the headline ‘Detention, torture and killing … how the EU outsourced migration policy’. ‘But what else can we do?’ So asked many people after a video emerged of Greek border guards attempting to capsize a small rubber dinghy full of migrants, and firing shots towards it. The incident […]

Categories: Race & Immigration • Tags: european union, greece, immigration controls, janjaweed, lesbos, libya, migrant crisis, migrant deaths, moria, omar al-bashir, sudan, turkey

THE REAL MCCOYS

March 7, 2020 by Kenan Malik

McCoy Tyner, one of the great jazz pianists, died last week. A cornerstone of John Coltrane’s seminal 1960s quartet, he was, with his his rich percussive style, as influential as Coltrane in shaping the jazz of following half century. Tyner, Coltrane once observed, ‘holds down the harmonies, and that allows me to forget them. He’s sort of the one who gives me wings and lets me take off from the ground from time to time.’ As a tribute to Tyner, I thought […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: jazz, jazz piano, mccoy tyner, music

THIS WAS NOT A RIOT

March 2, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on last week’s violence in Delhi, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece onaudiobooks) It was published on 1 March 2020, under the headline ‘The violence in Delhi is not a ‘riot’. It is targeted anti-Muslim brutality’. In August 1958, gangs of white youths began systematically attacking West Indians in London’s Notting Hill, assaulting them with iron bars and meat cleavers and milk bottles. One policeman reported a 300-strong mob shouting: ‘We will kill all […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: bjp, citizenship amendment act, delhi, hindu nationalism, india, kapil mishra, muslims, notting hill riots, racism, riots

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #68

February 29, 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. . The disappeared Aura Bogado, Reveal News, 18 February 2020 A massive Department of Justice seal towers over the bench, flanked by giant windows that allow a glimpse of the downtown skyline. At one table, an attorney representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement faces the judge. Every 10 minutes or so, a new young client […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

FAR-RIGHT TERROR AND MAINSTREAM POLITICS

February 24, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how mainstream politics helps nurture far-right beliefs, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the costs of Jeff Bezos’ philanthropy) It was published on 23 February 2020, under the headline ‘Beware the politics of identity. They help legitimise the toxic far right’. ‘Hate is a poison that… is responsible for far too many crimes’, said the German chancellor Angela Merkel after the killing of nine people in a far-right terror attack […]

Categories: International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: afd, christopher caldwell, douglas murray, far right, germany, hanau, identity politics, racism, sam harris, terrorism, white identity

SPEAKING IN AMERICA

February 22, 2020 by Kenan Malik

I will be in America at the beginning of April, speaking at the American Association of Geographers conference in Denver on 6 April and in a debate on globalization and culture at the International Affairs Symposium at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon on 8 April. If you’re in either Denver or Portland (or San Francisco where I will also be) and want to get in touch, drop me a line. . The painting is ‘Flag’ by Jasper Johns.

Categories: Kenan Malik

WHEN CITIZENS ARE NOT ALL MADE EQUAL

February 17, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the transformation of the meaning of citizenship, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on changing scientific theories.) It was published on 9 February 2020, under the headline ‘Deportations to Jamaica, the Shamima Begum case and Windrush betray a woeful regard for the notion of citizenship’. ‘A transcendental power, more than any man should possess.’ So said Lord Houghton in 1870 in response to William Gladstone’s plan to acquire the ability to revoke the […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, citizenship, deportation, immigration, shamima begum, shiraz maher, statelessness

SONGS OF LOVE AND HEARTBREAK

February 14, 2020 by Kenan Malik

For Valentine’s Day, BBC Radio 6 challenged people to make a mixtape of their six favourite love songs. Of course, I couldn’t resist, though it was a task reducing the list down to six. I just about managed it, though there are dozens of others I might included – from Aretha Franklin to Radiohead, from Bob Marley to Lauryn Hill. And just to add a twist, I’ve added six of favourite heartbreak songs, too. And I’m sure nobody else agrees […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: music

AMERICAN DIRT, IDENTITY AND IMAGINATION

February 10, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the controversy over the novel American Dirt, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on citizenship, moral principles and hard cases.) It was published on 9 February 2020, under the headline ‘Stop telling authors what they can write. The only limit is imagination’. ‘What insults my soul’, Zadie Smith has written, ‘is the idea… that we can and should write only about people who are fundamentally ‘like’ us: racially, sexually, genetically, nationally, politically, […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics

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