Kenan Malik

MAKE ME WANNA HOLLER

June 6, 2020 by Kenan Malik

I have published a similar post before, but this seemed a good time to resurrect it. The story of the struggle for black rights in America is intimately linked to the story of popular music. And this is a collection of 12 songs that span the past century and have acted as the soundtrack to the black struggle in America. It is largely chronological and reflects the shifts both in the struggle and in the music (as well as my […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International, Race & Immigration • Tags: african americans, america, anti-racism, black struggle, blues, ferguson, freedom struggles, george floyd, hip hop, jacob lawrence, jazz, police racism, r'n'b, racism, soul

LAUNDERING STATE ACTION, POLITICISING FACT CHECKING

June 2, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the relationship between the public, technology companies and the state, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 31 May 2020, under the headline ‘In a polarised world, even checking facts on Twitter becomes politicised’. Like many a Twitter debate, the war of words that broke out last week between Donald Trump and the social media company may seem inconsequential, even infantile. However, the spat raises important questions about the relationship between the public, technology companies and […]

Categories: Free Speech, Science & Technology

THE IGNORANCE AND THE CRUELTY

May 30, 2020 by Kenan Malik

I have written two short pieces in the Observer over the past couple of weeks about immigration rules. They reflect on similar themes, so I am publishing here together. The first was published on 31 May under the headline ‘Boris Johnson is a picture of ignorance on immigration’; the second on 24 May under the headline ‘Despite U-turns, migrants to Britain are being failed miserably’. The ignorance and the cruelty Imagine a Prime Minister who comes to power promising […]

Categories: Race & Immigration, Britain • Tags: boris johnson, british politics, coronavirus, deserving, essential workers, immigration policy, migrant workers, no recourse to public funds, stephen timms, undeserving

VIKTOR FRANKL’S SEARCH FOR MEANING

May 26, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Viktor Frankl’s existentialism,, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on deserving and undeserving migrants.) It was published on 24 May 2020, under the headline ‘What the lessons from Auschwitz teach us about the choices we make’. ‘To speak about the meaning and value of life may seem more necessary today than ever.’ It’s a quote that might have been plucked from any number of op-eds over the past couple of months. […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: auschwitz, choice, existentialism, holocaust, human agency, human nature, man's search for meaning, meaning, responsibility, social, vienna, viktor frankl, yes to everything

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #72

May 24, 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. . The urgency of critique New Frame, 21 May 2020 In South Africa there is, to our collective shame, a long list of unarmed people who have been killed by the police in the post-apartheid era. People have been killed during protests, as well as during various forms of armed state action such […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND HUMAN JUDGMENT

May 19, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the difference between human and artificial intelligence, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the return of football in Germany.) It was published on 17 May 2020, under the headline ‘For all its sophistication, AI isn’t fit to make life-or-death decisions’. Artificial intelligence is searching for the drugs to combat Covid-19. It enabled the pandemic to be tracked and information about it to be synthesised. It is diagnosing patients, triaging them, and identifying those in […]

Categories: Human, Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: ai, artificial intelligence, brian cantwell smith, coronavirus, human nature, judgment, reckoning

HOME IS A FOREIGN PLACE

May 16, 2020 by Kenan Malik

Home is a Foreign Place. The title of Zarina Hashmi’s perhaps most famous work, a set of 36 ideograms, sums up many of the tensions that suffused both her work and her life. Zarina (she preferred to be called simply by her first name), who died last month, was one of the most important postwar modernist artists, for whom displacement and loss was the key theme. ‘Memory’, she once said, ‘is the only lasting possession we have. I have made […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: art, home, india, modernism, nasreen mohamedi, pakistan, partition, zarina hashmi

THE PRIVILEGE OF ROMANTICISING NATURE

May 12, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the romanticisation of nature, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 10 May 2020, under the headline ‘Let’s stop romanticising nature. So much of our life depends on defying it’. Cormorants are hunting fish in the now clear waters of Venice. Wild boars roam the avenues of Barcelona and wild goats the streets of Llandudno. Above Los Angeles are blue skies. From smogless Delhi, you can once more glimpse the Himalayas. ‘The Earth is healing, we are the virus,’ runs […]

Categories: Nature, Politics • Tags: alan levinovitz, antihumanism, bhopal, coronavirus, environment, global south, india, inequality, natural, pollution, poverty, romanticising nature, working class

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #71

May 9, 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. . Why we fail to prepare for disasters Tim Harford, Financial Times, 16 April 2020 You can’t say that nobody saw it coming. For years, people had warned that New Orleans was vulnerable. The Houston Chronicle reported that 250,000 people would be stranded if a major hurricane struck, with the low-lying city left 20ft […]

Categories: Pandaemonium