Author Archives: Kenan Malik

REWRITING THE HISTORY OF HOW GROOMING GANGS WERE EXPOSED

January 15, 2025 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the women who first exposed the story of the grooming gangs, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 12 January 2025, under the headline “The right is trying to rewrite history with its toxic rhetoric on Britain’s rape gangs”. “It has taken a man of Elon Musk’s influence to drag this into the light,” claims the Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe. The US tech entrepreneur’s discovery of Britain’s grooming gangs scandal, and his tirade of derogatory tweets directed […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Women • Tags: anna hall, elon musk, grooming gangs, julie bindel, matt goodwin, muslim women's network, rape gangs, samira ahmed, suzanne moore

THE ELITE WAR OVER VISAS

January 8, 2025 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the fractious battle among Donald Trump supporters over H-1B visas, was published in the Observer on 5 January 2025 under the headline “Forget talk of defending workers, the US visa feud is about the market’s needs”. On the one side stand Silicon Valley moguls and leaders of corporate America; on the other, longstanding Donald Trump loyalists and supporters of the Maga (“Make America great again”) movement. One side claims to be building America’s bright new future by recruiting the best talent […]

Categories: International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: donald trump, elon musk, h-1b visa, immigration, laura loomer, maga, sohrab ahmari, vivek ramaswamy

RAGE AND TERROR IN THE AGE OF ANTI-POLITICS

January 1, 2025 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the contemporary character of terrorism, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 29 December 2024, under the headline “Was the Magdeburg market attack the inevitable product of an anti-politics age?” Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, the alleged perpetrator of the horror attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg, does not, Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, observed, “fit any existing mould”. He had acted in “an unbelievably cruel and brutal manner, like an Islamist terrorist, though he was clearly ideologically hostile […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International, War on terror • Tags: afd, anti-politics, christmas market, end of history, francis fukuyama, if we burn, immigration, islam, low-tech terrorism, magdeburg terror attack, muslims, nancy faeser, nihilistic terror, olivier roy, radicalisation, taleb al-abdulmohsen, terrorism, vincent bevins

THE PLACE OF FAITH IN A SECULAR SOCIETY

December 4, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on whether religious views have a place in secular political debate, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 1 December 2024, under the headline “Who should have the last word on assisted dying in a secular Britain?” For many years, I used to give an annual lecture to theology students training to be Anglican priests at Trinity College, Bristol, on “Why I am an atheist”. One perennial response from the students was that “without belief in God, […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: assisted dying, atheism, blasphemy, faith, kim leadbetter, lord falconer, religion, secularism, shabana mahmood, tahir ali

ON ALLISON PEARSON’S RIGHT TO BE OBNOXIOUS

November 27, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Allison Pearson and the meaning of free speech, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 24 November 2024, under the headline “I’ll defend Allison Pearson’s right to be obnoxious – as she should defend mine”. There are few columnists with whom I disagree more than I do with the Daily Telegraph’s Allison Pearson. Yet, I welcome the decision by the police to drop their investigation into her alleged tweet. This should never have been a matter for the police. […]

Categories: Britain, Free Speech • Tags: allison pearson, birmingham six, censorship, dave bradshaw, essex police, free speech, free speech union, police state, shrewsbury 24, two-tier policing, winston silcott

TAKING ON AMAZON

November 20, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the struggle to unionise an Amazon warehouse, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 17 November 2024, under the headline “How a small group of Amazon workers took on big business and challenged traditional unions”. “The union wants to protect workers. The employer wants to protect workers. How do I choose between them?” So asks one young worker in Union, a documentary about the battle to unionise an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, New York. It is a […]

Categories: Class, International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: alu, amazon, amazon labor union, brett story, chris smalls, class solidarity, donald trump, elon musk, jeff bezos, stanley aronowitz, stephen maing, trade unions, union busting, unionisation

COSPLAYING SOCIAL JUSTICE

November 13, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Musa al-Gharbi’s book We Have Never Been Woke, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 10 November 2024, under the headline “Cosplaying social justice is the new elitist way of elbowing out the working class”. When Musa al-Gharbi first arrived in New York in 2016, what he most noticed was the operation of a “racialized caste system” under which “disposable servants… will clean your house, watch your kids, walk your dogs, deliver prepared meals to you”. […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Justice & Liberties • Tags: black lives matter, catherine liu, class solidarity, democratic party, elite capture, inequality, musa al-gharbi, olufemi taiwo, social justice, symbolic capitalists, we have never been woke, wokeness

ON THE LEGACY OF “THE PARANOID STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS”

November 6, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Richard Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 3 November 2024, under the headline “Today’s populism is informed by bigotry, but its roots lie in the promise of equality”. “American politics has often been an arena for angry minds.” Not a comment on this year’s presidential campaign but an observation on another US presidential race, that of 1964. It is the opening line to one of the most influential political […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International, Politics • Tags: america, barry goldwater, donald trump, eric foner, populism, richard hofstadter, the paranoid style in american politics

THE LONG HISTORY OF TWO-TIER POLICING

October 30, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate around “two-tier policing”, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 27 October 2024, under the headline “Our first political prisoner? No. Locking up dissenters is an ignoble British tradition”. In July 1967, the Black Power activist Michael X addressed a meeting in Reading. “The most savage human being in the world,” he told the audience, “is the white man.” He was arrested the following month, charged with inciting racial hatred and sentenced to 12 […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties • Tags: beast of broadwater farm, birmingham six, broadwater farm, eileen turnbull, guildford four, keith blakelock, lord denning, maguire seven, mangrove nine, michael x, peter lynch, policing, racism, ricky tomlinson, shrewsbury 24, two-tier justice, two-tier policing, winston silcott

UNEMPLOYMENT IS NOT A MEDICAL CONDITION

October 23, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on unemployment and weightloss drugs, was published in the Observer on 20 October 2024 under the headline “Pumping the unemployed with weight-loss drugs echoes Victorian attitudes to the poor”. In early 2023, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, chief executive of the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, and its UK corporate vice-president Pinder Sahota, met in Whitehall with the then health secretary Steve Barclay, England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, and various health and Treasury officials. They discussed the possibilities of a […]

Categories: Britain, Class • Tags: beveridge report, british politics, george orwell, mounjaro, poor laws, poverty, unemployment, wegovy, weight loss drugs, working class

NEITHER CIVILISATION NOR RESISTANCE

October 16, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Israel, Hamas, civilisation and resistance, was published in the Observer on 13 October 2024 under the headline “Israel is not ‘saving western civilisation’. Nor is Hamas leading ‘the resistance’”. “Israel is not invading Lebanon, it is liberating it.” So proclaimed France’s pre-eminent liberal philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy as Israeli tanks drove across the border and its war planes bombed villages in the south and residential districts in Beirut. “There are moments in history,” he exulted, when “‘escalation’ becomes a necessity and a virtue.” For […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: benjamin netanyahu, bernard-henri levy, civilisation, david nirenberg, ethnic cleansing, gaza, hamas, hezbollah, israel, israeli invasion of lebanon, jews, judaism, lebanon, likud, palestine, plo, ronald schecter, sabra and shatilla, the jewish question, zionism

WHERE NOW FOR LIBERAL CONSERVATISM?

October 2, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the changing fortunes of liberal conservatism, was published in the Observer on 29 September 2024 under the headline “Can liberal conservatism survive the remaking of the right? We’ll soon find out”. Conservatism, the late philosopher Roger Scruton wrote, emerged into the modern world as “a kind of ‘yes but…’” response to liberalism. Conservatives, he observed, believe, like liberals, in the importance of the free market, of private property and of individual choice. They believe also in the overriding significance of […]

Categories: Britain, History, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: alain de benoist, civic nationalism, conservatism, edmund burke, edmund fawcett, edward luttwak, ethnic nationalism, friedrich hayek, illiberal conservatism, immigration, liberal conservatism, liberalism, london, margaret thatcher, national conservatives, national identity, patrick deneen, roger scruton, volkisch, whiteness

ON POLITICS BY LABELLING

September 25, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the penchant for politics by labelling, was published in the Observer on 22 September 2024, under the headline “Too white? Too black? Too woke? Politics by labelling is a disease of our times”. Yes, I’ve been called a “coconut”. When Marieha Hussain wrote the word on a placard she carried on a Palestine march last November, it was to deride Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, the then prime minister and home secretary, for their obnoxious immigration policies and their […]

Categories: Free Speech, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: 1965 race relations act, black identity, coconut, frantz fanon, gatekeepers, identity politics, incitement laws, incitement to racial hatred, kehinde andrews, marieha hussain, michael x, racism, un-jews

SPRINGFIELD AND THE MEMEFICATION OF POLITICS

September 18, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what the claims about immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, tells us about politics, was published in the Observer on 15 September 2024 under the headline “Trump’s fantasy that migrants are eating cats proves the meme has prevailed over real politics”. If one town could be emblematic of the vicissitudes of blue-collar life in America, Springfield, Ohio, might be as good a pick as any. At the heart of the midwest, Springfield’s prosperity was built on manufacturing and publishing. […]

Categories: International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: donald trump, eating pets, elon musk, great replacement theory, haitian immigrants, immigrants, immigration panics, jd vance, memefication, memeification, nathan clark, racism, springfield, white identity

PRIDE, SHAME AND BRITISH HISTORY

September 11, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on perceptions of British history in terms of pride and shame, was published in the Observer on 8 September 2024 under the headline “Pride or shame? British history is too complex to be seen in such glib terms”. “Britain’s long and proud history has been trashed by the self-hating left.” “British history is not being taught and people are hugely ignorant of our past.” “We have lost that sense of what was at stake, with a consequent decline of pride in the […]

Categories: Britain, History, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: anti-woke, battle of cable street, british empire, british history, british social attitudes, britishness, oswald mosley, peterloo, pride in british history, social liberalisation, woke