Author Archives: Kenan Malik

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

FORMS OF BIGOTRY AND FORMS OF BLINDNESS

November 23, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the lessons of the Azeem Rafiq case, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 14 November 2021, under the headline “If tackling racism is just a box-ticking exercise, the urgent imperative to change our ways is lost”. For some, it was a gotcha moment. For others, an occasion to parade their own prejudices. Yet others celebrated the end of the “attempt to destroy English cricket”. On Tuesday, Azeem Rafiq gave devastating testimony to a parliamentary committee about the racism he had […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: antisemtism, azeem rafiq, cricket, identity politics, jews, muslims, racism, rare earth mettle, royal court theatre, yorkshire cricket club

INSTRUMENTS TO PURSUE A CRUEL POLICY

November 16, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on EU migration policy against the background of the flashpoint on the Belarus-Poland border, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 7 November 2021, under the headline “Lukashenko is a handy villain to mask the cruelty of Fortress Europe”. A company of men in dark uniforms and balaclavas, all carrying clubs. They are battering a group of people, repeatedly clubbing them on their arms, legs and backs. They push them into a river that marks the boundary of the […]

Categories: International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: belarus, european union, fortress europe, immigration, isaias afwerki, janjaweed, khartoum process, libya, lukashenko, niger, omar al-bashir, poland, samos two, undocumented migrants

PESSIMISM, MISANTHROPY AND CHANGING THE WORLD

November 9, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the dangers of unthinking pessimism, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 7 November 2021, under the headline “Want to change the world? Then you’d better give up on self-defeating pessimism”. He quickly apologised for his crassness. But the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comparison of politicians who fail to tackle climate change with those in the 1930s who appeased the Nazis was not simply crass. It illustrated how many imagine that the best means of arousing political concern is […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: afropessmism, anti-natalism, archbishop of canterbury, climate change, david benatar, extinction rebellion, frank wilderson, global warming, john gray, jonathan frantzen, justin welby, left, misanthropy, pessimism, racism, roger hallam, ta-nehisi coates

THE POLITICS OF REBRANDING

November 2, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how politics and social activism have too often become exercises in rebranding not material change, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 31 October 2021, under the headline “You can’t escape your past by changing your name, as Mark Zuckerberg will discover”. It’s easy to mock the Corporation Formerly Known As Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Facebook would henceforth be Meta, and his attempt to swerve the intensifying assault on his company’s sordid activities with a nifty […]

Categories: History, Politics • Tags: cultural recognition, david hume, edward colston, facebook, imperial college, mark zuckerberg, meta, racism, rebranding, thomas huxley, thomas jefferson, william gladstone, winston churchill

ON THE ASSISTED DYING DEBATE

October 26, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the complexities of the assisted dying debate, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 24 October 2021, under the headline “Claiming a monopoly on truth and decency is no way to win the assisted dying debate”. A man is standing on the parapet of a bridge. He is about to jump. What should you do? Most people would agree that the moral act would be to talk to him to try to persuade him not to. […]

Categories: Britain, Human, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: assisted dying, baroness meacher, death, netherlands, ronald dworkin, sanctity of life, slippery slope, suicide

ON THE FLAUNTING OF DOUBLE STANDARDS

October 19, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on immigration, free speech and double standards, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 17 October 2021, under the headline “Whether freedom of speech or fairness to migrants, some principles are sacred”. “Why is hypocrisy so odious?” asked the political theorist Judith Shklar almost half a century ago. Hypocrisy, she argued, is a necessity, a recognition that we are human and imperfect and that we cannot but transgress. The calling out of hypocrisy, Shklar observed, can often be more […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration, Women • Tags: channel migrants, chimamanda ngozi adichie, double standards, feminism, free speech, gender critical feminism, home office, hypocrisy, immigration policy, judith shklar, michelle donelan, no platform, priti patel, priyamvada gopal, selina todd, transgender

WANT TO RAISE WAGES? REBUILD OUR UNIONS

October 12, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about labour shortages, immigration and high pay, was my Observer column this week. It was published 10 October 2021, under the headline “Blame the erosion of trade union power, not migrants, for poor wages”. Employers use migrants to try to drive down wages. The reasons for low pay and productivity in Britain have little to do with immigration. The best way to prevent employers exploiting migrants is not by restricting immigration. These three claims may seem contradictory. […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Race & Immigration • Tags: boris johnson, britannia unchained, dagenham sewing machinists strike, equal pay, european union, ford, immigration, inequality, low pay, made in dagenham, productivity, strikes, tories, trade unions, women workers, working class

NOT SO BLACK AND WHITE

October 7, 2021 by Kenan Malik

As you have probably noticed, posting on Pandaemonium has been erratic recently. This is largely the result of my working on a new book, the provisional title of which is Not So Black and White: The History of Race From White Supremacy to the Politics of Identity. (The actual title will be finalised in the New Year.) It is a history of the interaction between race, class and identity, placing contemporary debates, particularly about the politics of identity, in the […]

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

THE ANGLOSPHERE AND THE HISTORY OF LIBERTY

September 28, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the myths of the “Anglosphere”, was my Observer column this week. It was published in the Observer, 26 September 2021, under the headline “We should not allow the Anglosphere to distort the history of liberty“. “A people that idly sips its cognac on the boulevards as it lightly takes a trifling part in the comedie humaine,” Franklin Giddings, professor of sociology at Columbia University, taunted contemptuously in 1900, “can only go down in the struggle for existence with men who have […]

Categories: Britain, History, International • Tags: anglo-saxon, anglosphere, aukus, british empire, britishness, daniel hannan, englishness, freedom struggles, haitian revolution, john locke, liberties, linda colley, nigel farage, radical enlightenment, slavery, spinoza

MORTALITY, INEQUALITY AND LESSONS FROM AMERICA

September 21, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on lessons from America about the relationship between inequality and mortality rates, was my Observer column this week. It was published in the Observer, 19 September 2021, under the headline “America’s mortality gap should sound a blaring alarm across the Atlantic”. Americans die younger than Europeans. That is true whether they are rich or poor, black or white, toddlers or OAPs. The latest confirmation of the mortality gap across the Atlantic comes from a newly published study that tracked death rates in the […]

Categories: Class, International, Politics • Tags: america, angus deaton, anne case, britain, covid 19, deaths of despair, europe, health policy, inequality, levelling up, mortality rates, poverty, race, race and class, usa

OMAR LITTLE AND MORAL COMPLEXITY

September 14, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the significance of Michael K Williams, Omar Little and The Wire, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 12 September 2021, under the headline “In an age too given to moral certainty, let’s remember The Wire’s Omar as a study in complexity”. It’s not often that a shotgun-wielding thief and killer comes to be seen as possessing a moral core. But then it’s not often that you have a character like Omar Little. Or an actor […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: baltimore, black lives matter, cop shows, david simon, left behind, michael k williams, morality, omar little, television, the wire, trumpism

THE MAGICAL QUALITY OF WHITENESS

September 7, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on immigration, identity and the obsession with whiteness, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 5 September 2021, under the headline “To be truly British, the country needs to stay largely white. Really, Lionel Shriver?” “They have seen the passing of the American Indian and the buffalo; and now they query as to how long the Anglo-Saxon may be able to survive.” So wrote William Ripley in an essay for the Atlantic Monthly in 1908. Ripley was one of […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: britishness, conservatism, douglas murray, identity politics, immigration, lionel shriver, racism, white decline, white identity, whiteness, william ripley