Author Archives: Kenan Malik

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

INEQUALITY AND POLITICAL DIVIDES

March 3, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on perceptions of inequality in Britain, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 28 February 2021, under the headline “The left/right divide still exists. But it’s struggling to escape the lure of identity politics”. First, the good news. Britons see inequality as a major problem and divide broadly along traditional political lines in their attitudes towards it. Then, the bad news. Britons are also inclined to see inequalities as driven by individual behaviour as much as […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: bobby duffy, brexit, british politics, conservative party, covid 19, identity politics, individualism, inequality, labour party, pandemic, racism, reluctant individualism

LOS TRES GRANDES

February 28, 2021 by Kenan Malik

There are many things we’ve missed over the past year. One of the art exhibitions that I would have most liked to have seen was the Los Tres Grandes at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, a show that has just finished. It told of the work of the three great Mexican muralists of the early twentieth century, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, and their influence on American art, including that of Jackson Pollock […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: art, david alfaro siqueiros, detroit industry murals, diego rivera, jose clemente orozco, the epic of american civilization, whitney museum

DEMOCRACY AND THE ROHINGYA

February 24, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how the failure to defend the Rohingya has undermined the democracy movement in Myanmar, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the controversy over the interview of Zara Muhammad on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.) It was published on 21 February 2021, under the headline “Where were the protesters when the Rohingya were being murdered?” For almost three weeks there have been mass protests on the streets of Myanmar. On 1 February, the […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: aung sang suu kyi, democracy, ethnic cleansing, genocide, myanmar, myanmar coup, rohingya

THE WOKE AND THE UNWOKE

February 16, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the polarisation between “woke” and “anti-woke” arguments, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 14 February 2021, under the headline “Woke warriors on the march? Don’t forget the bigotry of the ‘unwoke’”. Want to rid an Oxford college of a statue of an imperialist? That’s “wokery”. Too many immigrants? Blame the woke. Insufficiently appreciative of the British empire? You’re in the “Woke Orthodoxy”. Want to strangle Andrew Neil’s new radio station even before it airs? That’s the “woke warriors”. Joe […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: anti-semitism, anti-woke, anti-zionism, brian eno, british empire, cecil rhodes, cynical theories, david baddiel, frankfurt school, free speech, james lindsay, ken loach, nigel biggar, racism, unwoke, white privilege, whiteness, winston churchill, woke, wokeness

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #79

February 15, 2021 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. . Coronavirus and the withering of the public spherePhilip Alcabes, American Scholar, 19 September 2020 In lieu of a proper public response to coronavirus, the United States was the scene of a heated and unbridled reaction that is, as anyone who pays attention knows, still smoldering. National health officials shifted blame; state governors offered […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

IRRATIONAL MARKETS AND CORPORATE POWER

February 3, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what the GameStop affair tells us about stock markets and corporate power, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 31 January 2021, under the headline “An uprising against Wall Street? Hardly. GameStop was about the absurdity of the stock market”. For those of us who are as intimate with the inner workings of the stock market as we are with the circuitry of the Large Hadron Collider, the brouhaha over GameStop has been illuminating. While the story may […]

Categories: Economy, International • Tags: corporate censorship, corporate power, discord, gamestop, hate speech, misinformation, reddit, robinhood, shorting, stock buyback, stock market, wall street, wallstreetbets

THE NOBLE SAVAGES OF THE WORKING CLASS

January 26, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on contradictory perceptions of the working class, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the scandal of the global distribution of Covid vaccines.) It was published on 24 January 2021, under the headline “Age-old notions of the noble savage haunt views of working-class life”. There are few things more fractured and muddled than contemporary attitudes towards working-class people. On the one hand, too many people ignore, even deny, the grim realities of […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: austerity, left behind, magic money tree, meritocracy, morality, noble savages, passing, poor, poverty, resolution foundation, rishi sunak, sam friedman, torsten bell, working class, working poor

SNOW AND ICE (WITH A DASH OF COLOUR)

January 24, 2021 by Kenan Malik

Yes, it snowed in London today, albeit briefly. So, some snow photos (not all from today, but all from south-east London). Snow and ice with a dash of colour (apart from the final black and white at night image). And if you are interested, there are more photos on my photography site, Light Infusion.

Categories: Photos • Tags: photography, snow

FREE SPEECH, BIG TECH AND BROKEN POLITICS

January 19, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the fallout from Donald Trump’s banishment from social media, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on ingrained prejudices about migrants and the poor.) It was published on 17 January 2021, under the headline “Control Facebook and mend broken societies… If only it were that simple”. London is full of “Pops”. From the area around City Hall to parts of the Olympic Park, there are dozens of “privately owned public spaces”. Places that […]

Categories: Free Speech, Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: alexei navalny, big tech, censorship, donald trump, facebook, free speech, parler, poland, social media, twitter

NOT CREATED TO DECORATE A ROOM

January 17, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. His paintings, John Berger wrote, “deserve to hang among the best English paintings of our time”. Yet Theodore Major is barely known. (I only stumbled across his work recently, via Berger). Why? Partly because he was working class, and from unfashionable Wigan. Partly, too, because he detested the art world and refused to sell his paintings “to the people who want them, the rich people”. My paintings, he said “are not created to decorate a room.” He had “no […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: art, lowry, theodore major, wigan, working class artists

LESS ABOUT MONEY THAN ABOUT PRIORITIES

January 12, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the failure to tackle inequality, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 10 January 2020, under the headline “Lives are falling apart. Enough talk about inequality, it’s now time to act”. Inequality. Everyone agrees it’s bad. Everyone agrees that the pandemic and lockdowns have exacerbated inequality. And everyone agrees that something must be done to reduce it. So, what has been done? Nearly a year into the pandemic, and at the start of the third national lockdown […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics

THE RED WALL TRAPS TO AVOID (AND NOT AVOID)

January 5, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about “Red Wall” seats in England, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on India, Argentina and the potency of mass mobilisation.) It was published on 3 January 2021, under the headline “It’s too easy to lapse into stereotypes when we talk about ‘red wall’ seats”. “What will the ‘Red Wall’ think?” As Boris Johnson pivots from Covid-19 and Brexit towards his “levelling up” agenda, that is likely to be a […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: boris johnson, conservative party, labour party, lynsey hanley, red wall, social conservatism, social liberalism, tories

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