Author Archives: Kenan Malik

GRENFELL, CORRUPTION AND THE HOLLOWED-OUT STATE

May 4, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the corruption revealed by the Grenfell Inquiry, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 2 May 2021, under the headline “Grenfell is still giving up its secrets and they retain the power to shock”. It is not just the broken promise, it is also the pitilessness of it. In February, Boris Johnson told parliament, in the wake of the cladding scandal, that “no leaseholder should have to pay for the unaffordable costs of fixing defects […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: arconic, boris johnson, building research establishment, celotex, cladding scandal, corruption, cronyism, fire safety act, flammable cladding, free market, grenfell tower, hollowed-out state, kingspan, privatisation, regulation, sleaze, state regulation, the state

ORIENTALISM AND AHISTORICISM

May 2, 2021 by Kenan Malik

I wrote a short piece for my Observer column on Edward Said, Hannah Arendt and James Baldwin and why I have come to appreciate them more despite (or perhaps because of) the contradictions in their arguments. I thought it might also be useful as a counterpoint, to publish a short part of my original critique of Said’s Orientalism from my 1996 book The Meaning of Race. It is part of a much longer critique, but gets to the essence of […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: aijaz ahmed, edward said, enlightenment, essentializing, greek philosophy, orientalism, west

POLICING INEQUALITIES OF RACE AND CLASS

April 27, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the nature of American policing, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on a breakthrough vaccine for malaria.) It was published on 25 April 2021, under the headline “US policing is far less about fighting crime than controlling the poor”. ‘Lower-class culture is pathological.” So claimed American political scientist Edward Banfield in his 1970 book The Unheavenly City. For Banfield, unlike the middle class, “the lower-class person lives from moment to moment… unable […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: 1033 programme, broken windows policy, derek chauvin, edward banfield, george floyd, james quinn wilson, mass incarceration, militarised policing, police killings, policing, poor, racism, thomas sowell, usa, william bratton

IMMIGRATION AND THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM

April 20, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the lessons of Denmark’s refugee policy, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 18 April 2021, under the headline “By demonising asylum seekers, Denmark reflects a panic in social democracy”. What do you call a government so hostile to refugees that it wants to send them back to a country that tortures and “disappears” its critics on a mass scale? Reactionary? Monstrous? In Denmark, they call it social democratic. Denmark is the first European nation to insist […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: danish peoples party, denmark, immigration, immigration policy, mette frederiksen, refugees, social democracy, syrian refugees, working class

AUTHENTICITY, IDENTITY AND LUTHER

April 18, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This is a longer version of a short piece published in the Observer, 18 April 2021. The African-American novelist Zora Neale Hurston’s final work, Seraph on the Suwanee, is set among poor Southern whites. Published in 1948, it’s often dismissed by critics as a “whiteface” novel because the lives and diction of the white characters seem too “black”, as if they were really black people in white masks. Hurston dismissed such criticism. “About the idiom of the book”, she wrote to friend […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Race & Immigration • Tags: authenticity, bbc, black identity, diversity, identity politics, idris elba, james baldwin, luther, zora neale hurston

HERE’S TO SOCIAL SPACES

April 13, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the importance of social spaces, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 11 April 2021, under the headline “Full pubs are a sign of communities that work. Let’s toast their return”. There were thousands this week, shivering in some icy pub garden, raising their glass to the next step on the government’s roadmap out of lockdown, as outdoor drinking resumed. At the start of the pandemic, they could have done so in thousands more venues […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: austerity, clubs, covid 19, libraries, lockdown, music venues, pandemic, poverty, pubs, social spaces, youth clubs

SO, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE SEWELL REPORT?

April 6, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 4 April 2021, under the headline “Yes, we need a more nuanced debate about race. But this flawed report fails to deliver it”. Britain is less racist than it was 40 years ago. Many minority groups in Britain still face racism. Both those claims can be (and are) true. So are these two claims: racism exists in Britain; racism […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-racism, race and class, racial disparities, racism, sewell report, tony sewell

PAINTING SPRINGTIME

April 4, 2021 by Kenan Malik

It’s spring, the sun is out (at least as I am writing this), there is blossom on the trees, and the end of lockdown is visible. And I was thinking of paintings of springtime. So, here is a selection, from Japanese and Western traditions, and more contemporary works. . Taikan Yokoyama, Spring Morning . Vincent van Gogh, Almond Blossom . Phil Greenwood, Blossom . Reiji Hiramatsu, Cherry Blossoms . Georgia O’Keefe, Cottonwood tree in spring . Ton Dubbeldam, Ocean Spring […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: art, david hockney, georgia o'keefe, hokusai, phil greenwood, picasso, reiji hiramatsu, springtime taikan yokoyama, ton dubbeldam, van gogh

TO LIVE IN A PLURAL SOCIETY

March 30, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the meaning of a plural society in the context of the furore surrounding Batley Grammar School, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the lessons of the Shrewsbury 24.) It was published on 28 March 2021, under the headline “To live in a diverse society means to live with debate. Bring it on”. No one has a right not to be offended. All of us have a duty to challenge bigotry. These […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Multiculturalism • Tags: batley grammar school, blasphemy, charlie hebdo, depicting muhammad, diversity, education, islam, islamophobia, muhammad, muslims, racism, samuel paty, sayeeda warsi

“CREATIVITY IS NOT FEARING THE UNKNOWN”

March 28, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. Nawal El Saadawi was a doctor, writer, feminist, and activist, usually controversial, often contrarian, always challenging. Her death last week robbed us of one of the most important voices of the past half century. I had the pleasure and honour of being in conversation with her on stage at the first Fuuse World Woman conference in Oslo in 2015. She could not understand my British accent, but we just about managed, and she was in very good form. So, […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties, Women • Tags: nawal el saadawi, women's rights

RACISM, PRIVILEGE AND ANTI-ASIAN HOSTILITY

March 23, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on anti-Asian racism in America, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on flag, queen and country.) It was published on 21 March 2021, under the headline “Myths of Asian privilege fuel a brutal and cartoonish bigotry”. Beyond the horror of the shooting in Atlanta of eight people, six of them Asian women, lies the fraught question “why?”. In all probability, a multitude of factors – racism, misogyny, religious belief, personal inadequacies – coalesced in suspect […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: affirmative action, anti-asian racism, anti-racism, asian privilege, atlanta shootings, harvard, identity politics, model community, privilege, racism, usa, yale, yellow peril

START THE WEEK TALKING IDENTITY

March 20, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. I was a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week last week discussing with Matthew D’Ancona and Minouche Shafik questions about identity politics, race, class and the social contract. Here’s a link to the programme. For more on identity politics, a few of my essays, talks and interviews on the subject: The rise of white identity politics Identity politics – the interview The history and politics of white identity Not all politics is identity politics On cultural appropriation […]

Categories: Kenan Malik, Politics • Tags: andrew marr, bbc, broadcasts, identity politics, matthew d'ancona, minouche sfafik, radio 4, start the week

PROTESTS & POLICING AFTER THE PANDEMIC

March 16, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the government’s new policing bill, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the new government policy of “unlevelling down”.) It was published on 14 March 2021, under the headline “If you thought the right to protest was inalienable, then think again”. The next time you take part in a protest, don’t shout too loudly, don’t get in anybody’s way and don’t cause a commotion. Best to sit quietly in a corner […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: cressida dick, free speech, police, priti patel, protests, reclaim these streets, right to protest, rights, sarah everard

TRANSLATION AND IDENTITY

March 9, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the debate over the translation of Amanda Gorman’s poetry, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the Home Office’s inflexibility over British citizenship.) It was published on 7 March 2021, under the headline “Lost in translation: the dead end of dividing the world on identity lines”. In 1768, the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder paid a visit to the French city of Nantes. “I am getting to know the French language […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Language, Multiculturalism, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: amanda gorman, identity politics, invisible man, marieke lucas rijneveld, racism, ralph ellison, stay in your lane, translation

THE WAILERS ON THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST

March 7, 2021 by Kenan Malik

Bunny Wailer, founding member with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh of the Wailers, and the last surviving member of the original trio, died last week. The importance of the Wailers to the development of reggae was immense. So, in tribute, two tracks from the Old Grey Whistle Test from May 1973, just before the original Wailers broke up. There are too few videos with Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer all together.

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: bob marley, bunny wailer, music, peter tosh, reggae, the wailers

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