Author Archives: Kenan Malik

A PICTURE OF HOW POWER WORKS

November 24, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the normalisation of corruption and incompetence, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the funding of the Biden transition.) It was published on 22 November 2020, under the headline “From Grenfell to PPE, absolute power still corrupts in high places”. A cladding manufacturer allegedly fakes results to win a contract for material it knows is a deathtrap. The government sets up a system to reward companies with whom ministers have links. Almost 90% of […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: chumocracy, corruption, deregulation, george orwell, grenfell tower, national audit office, windrush scandal

VACCINES, HESITANCY AND TRUST

November 17, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on vaccine hesitancy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Chicago libraries’ utopian experiment.) It was published on 15 November 2020, under the headline “Vaccination hesitancy is about lack of trust. Compulsion is not the answer”. “If a strain as deadly as the 1918 influenza emerges and people’s hesitancy to get vaccinated remains at the level it is today, a debilitating and fatal disease will spread.” So wrote Heidi Larson in 2018. Larson is director […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: big pharma, coronavirus pandemic, covid 19, heidi larson, mandatory vaccination, pfizer, pharmaceutical companies, trust, vaccine hesitancy, vaccines

IN PRAISE OF THE DOUBLE BASS

November 14, 2020 by Kenan Malik

The double bass is well established as an instrument in jazz – l love Charles Mingus, Paul Chambers, Ray Brown and Scott LaFarro in particular – but one rarely talks about it in the classical tradition. I’ve only recently discovered it, both music specially created for the double bass, and music transcribed from cello pieces. And it’s every bit as gorgeous, dramatic and soul-stirring as in jazz. So, a few performances showing off the classical double bass. . Dominik Wagner […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: dominik wagner, double bass, francois rabbath, joelle leandre, lauren pierce, music, xavier foley

TERROR, HYPOCRISY AND ILLIBERALISM

November 10, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on responses to Islamist terrorism, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Poland, abortion and the power of polar protest.) It was published on 8 November 2020, under the headline “Fanatics have no right to censor critics. But neither does Emmanuel Macron”. Letters complaining about newspaper articles are unexceptional. Not so letters from the Élysée Palace. Last week, the Financial Times published, after the killing of teacher Samuel Paty in Paris and of churchgoers in Nice, an article by its […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, War on terror • Tags: blasphemy, censorship, charlie hebdo, emmanuel macron, farhad khosrokhavar, financial rimes, france, islamism, jihadism, racism, samuel paty, secularism, terrorism, vienna attaack

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #77

November 8, 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. . Ding-dong, the jerk is gone. But read this before you sing the Hallelujah ChorusThomas Frank, Guardian, 8 November 2020 Biden’s instinct, naturally, will be to govern as he always legislated: as a man of the center who works with Republicans to craft small-bore, business-friendly measures. After all, Biden’s name is virtually synonymous with […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

THE PUTNEY DEBATES AND NEGLECTED HISTORY

November 3, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the Putney Debates and British history that is neglected, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on immigration and deterrence.) It was published on 1 November 2020, under the headline “It’s true, we ignore parts of our history – and not just about our colonial past”. Last week marked the anniversary of the beginning of one of the key events of British history. If you missed it, it’s not surprising. The Putney debates barely have […]

Categories: Britain, History • Tags: christopher hill, democracy, english civil wars, english revolution, equality, henry ireton, john lilburne, katherine chidley, levellers, new model army, oliver cromwell, putney debates, richard overton, wars of the three kingdoms

MAKING EMPIRE ETHICAL

October 31, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This is a review of Priya Satia’s Time’s Monster, published in the Observer, 25 October 2020. In his celebrated “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, written in 1963 while in prison for having taken part in a banned march against segregation, Martin Luther King Jr describes receiving a letter from a “white brother in Texas” who had told him that “all Christians know that the coloured people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History • Tags: anti-colonialism, british empire, colonialism, enlightenment, ethics, imperialism, james mill, john stuart mill, priya satia, thomas macaulay, time's monster

WHAT FOOTBALL TELLS US ABOUT GLOBALISATION

October 27, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on football and globlisation, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Facebook and transparency.) It was published on 25 October 2020, under the headline “Money fosters the cosmopolitan joy of our football but also its soullessness”. If you want to see the dilemmas of globalisation playing out, forget Brexit or the US elections. Watch a game of football (though in Britain, of course, you can’t actually watch a game in a stadium these […]

Categories: Politics, Sport • Tags: english premier league, european premier league, football, globalisation, heysel tragedy, identity, inequality, jurgen klopp, liverpool fc, mohamed salah, pep guardiola

ON BEING WHITE AND ON BEING WORKING CLASS

October 20, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about the “white working class”, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 18 October 2020, under the headline “Being white won’t hold boys back. Being working class just might”. White, working-class boys fare badly at school. About that, almost everyone is agreed. More contested is the reason why. Last week, the first witnesses gave evidence to the commons select committee on education’s investigation into “Left Behind White Pupils From Disadvantaged Backgrounds”. The hearing made […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Race & Immigration • Tags: brexit, education, identity politics, inequality, left behind, racism, schools, white privilege, white working class, working class

TO DEFEND THE FREEDOM TO OFFEND

October 17, 2020 by Kenan Malik

A slightly shorter version of this is published in the Observer, 18 October 2020. The details are still emerging, but the horror is clear – the beheading of a teacher, Samuel Paty, in Paris, apparently in response to his using Charlie Hebdo cartoons in a classroom discussion on free speech. There are always calls after such attacks to moderate attitudes to free speech, claims that “free speech isn’t worth it”. Hardly had news begun filtering out about the original Charlie Hebdo […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Free Speech, Justice & Liberties • Tags: charlie hebdo, freedom of religion, islam, islamism, liberalism, liberties, offence

FROM PETERLOO TO THE MANGROVE NINE

October 13, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Steve McQueen’s new film Mangrove and “black history”, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the public being more liberal than the government on immigration.) It was published on 11 October 2020, under the headline “Mangrove isn’t simply a ‘black story’, but central to our country’s history”. “It’s quintessentially a piece of British history. It is about British citizens who dealt with injustice and triumph.” So says director Steve McQueen about his new film, Mangrove, which […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History, Race & Immigration • Tags: black history, black history month, bristol bus boycott, british history, clr james, ep thompson, haitian revolution, identity politics, mangrove, mangrove nine, paul stephenson, peterloo, police racism, racism, steve mcqueen, the black jacobins, the making of the english working class

DEBATING THE PAST, CONTESTING THE PRESENT

October 11, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This is the full version of my essay on the statues debate for the NYR Daily, first published 9 September 2020 under the headline “When Monuments Fall”. “We stand today at the national center to perform something like a national act – an act which is to go into history.” So said the great nineteenth-century former slave and staunch abolitionist Frederick Douglass at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C., in 1876. “That we are […]

Categories: History, Politics • Tags: abraham lincoln, anti-racism, black lives matter, boris johnson, cecil rhodes, confederate statues, edward colston, frederick douglass, gandhi, rhodes must fall, slavery, statues, winston churchill

WELCOME TO FLATLAND

October 6, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the shallowness of cultural and political debate, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Home Office plans for asylum seekers.) It was published on 4 October 2020, under the headline “Welcome to Flatland, where shallow appeal ousts substance and reason”. Four international art galleries decide to “postpone” a controversial exhibition. Donald Trump and Joe Biden take part in what has aptly been called a “shitshow” of a presidential election debate. Celebrity activist Laurence Fox […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Politics • Tags: black lives matter, donald trump, joe biden, laurence fox, philip guston, polarisation, presidential debate, racism, reclaim, usa

RETREATING FROM LIBERTIES

September 29, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the left, the right coronavirus and liberties, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on faith and American politics.) It was published on 27 September 2020, under the headline “Where is the voice of the left as ‘libertarians’ annex the Covid-19 debate?” “Not all heroes wear masks.” So tweeted Tory contrarian Toby Young in July after fellow freedom warrior James Delingpole posted a selfie of himself maskless in a supermarket. How daring. How heroic. […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: civil liberties, conservative party, coronavirus, democracy, freedom, hansard society, left, libertarianism, liberties, parliament, right, rightwing libertarianism, statutory instruments, toby young

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #76

September 27, 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. . Xenophobia turns migrants into scapegoatsJan Bornman, New Frame, 23 September 2020 In recent months, as South Africa has been dealing with the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been growing calls for migrants to be deported and for the government to take action against crimes allegedly committed by people born outside […]

Categories: Pandaemonium