Author Archives: Kenan Malik

MASS DETENTION – THE LAST TIME AROUND

June 29, 2019 by Kenan Malik

Against the background of the debate about squalor and brutality of the USA’s immigrant detention centres – and whether they constitute ‘concentration camps’, a debate I might engage in sometime – it is worth remembering that America has a long history of mass detention camps. Among the most notorious were the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. ‘The Japanese race’, observed General John L DeWitt, head of the US Army’s Western Defense Command, and a key figure […]

Categories: International, Photos, Race & Immigration • Tags: concentration camps, dorothea lange, internment camps, japanese internment, linda gordon, mass detention, photography, racism, usa

SCIENCE, VACCINES AND DISTRUST WITHOUT REASON

June 24, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on a study of global attitudes to science and to vaccines, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Facebook’s launch of its digital currency Libra.) It was published on 23 June 2019, under the headline ‘A growing lack of trust in authority poses a serious danger to our health’. Virtually every Bangladeshi and Rwandan believes that vaccines are safe. Fewer than half of Japanese or French do so. In Western Europe, one in […]

Categories: Politics, Science • Tags: ebola, trust, vaccination, vaccine hesitancy, vaccines, wellcome global monitor

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #59

June 22, 2019 by Kenan Malik

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . European policies create new dangers on Mediterranean Steffen Lüdke, Maximilian Popp, Jan Puhl & Raniah Salloum, Spiegel International, 18 June 2019 For refugees, Europe is increasingly becoming a fortress without a gate. Even volunteer maritime rescuers are now being criminalized. Ports are closed to them. Ships are confiscated. Helpers are put on trial. Lifeline captain Claus-Peter Reisch […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

THE CRIME OF AIDING THE WRONG KIND OF HUMAN

June 17, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the criminalisation of solidarity with undocumented migrants, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 16 June 2019, under the headline ‘Are only certain kinds of people deemed worthy of our compassion?’ When is a Good Samaritan not a Good Samaritan? When he or she helps someone undeserving of our humanity In Arizona on 11 June, a jury was unable to reach a verdict on Scott Daniel Warren, a college lecturer accused of conspiracy to transport and […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: european union, immigration, immigration policy, pia kemp, scott daniel warren, solidarity, undocumented migrants, usa

CARTOONS TOO DANGEROUS

June 15, 2019 by Kenan Malik

A version of this is published in the Observer, 16 June 2019. What does a newspaper do if it publishes an anti-Semitic cartoon? Determine that it won’t do so again? Or stop publishing cartoons? The New York Times appears to have taken the second route. In April, its international edition (which is distinct from its US edition) ran a syndicated cartoon by the Portuguese cartoonist António Moreira Antunes that depicted the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as a guide dog leading a blind Donald Trump […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: cartoons, free speech, new york times

SEEING WHAT WE WANT TO SEE

June 10, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how we often interpret the news through the lens of what we want to see, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 9 June 2019, under the headline ‘Fake news will thrive as long we are happy to see only what we want to see’. If a gorilla walked right in front of your eyes, you wouldn’t miss it, would you? Actually, half the country probably would. In a classic 1999 experiment, psychologists Christopher Chabris and […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Photos, Race & Immigration • Tags: assisted dying, central park five, christopher chabris, daniel simons, ethics, euthanasia, fake news, invisible gorilla experiment, noa pothoven, racism, usa, when they see us, wilding

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #58

June 8, 2019 by Kenan Malik

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . He was arrested at 13. Now Saudi Arabia wants to execute him Muhammad Darwish, Tamara Qiblawi & Ghazi Balkiz, CNN, June 2019 Foot on pedal, 10-year-old Murtaja Qureiris is about to lead the group of around 30 children. In video footage obtained by CNN, he is wearing rolled up denim jeans and […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

CLASS REALITIES AND CULTURAL DIVIDES

June 3, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the importance of class as a political issue, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Boris Johnson and lies.) It was published on 2 June 2019, under the headline ‘Forget culture wars. Class is still the defining force shaping British lives’. If you are a woman living in working-class Middlesbrough, you are likely to die seven years earlier than if you were living in affluent Hart in Hampshire. If you are a […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: brexit, british politics, Class, conservatives, john cleese, labour party, working class

WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO SPEAK?

May 31, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the Bristol Festival of Ideas, 21 May 2019, as part of the Coleridge Series. ‘Who has the right to speak?’ It is the key question in debates around free speech. Who should be allowed to speak? What should be permitted to be said? And who makes the decision? Historically, the issues were relatively clear. Censorship was imposed from the top. Its aim was to deflect, contain or deem illegitimate any […]

Categories: Free Speech, War on terror • Tags: anti-terror laws, blasphemy, censorship, corporate censorship, fake news, free speech, gill valentine, hate speech, incitement laws, iqbal sacranie, muslim, offence, prevent, racism, self-censorship, social media, tariq modood, universities

MEN, WOMEN AND THE POLITICS OF ABORTION

May 27, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the gender, politics and abortion rights, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the world’s most expensive drug.) It was published on 26 May 2019, under the headline ‘Men don’t have abortions. That’s no reason not to fight for women’s rights’. The decision by the state of Alabama effectively to ban abortion has refocused attention in America on the issue of reproductive rights. The Alabama law is the most dramatic move in a […]

Categories: Politics, Women • Tags: abortion, abortion bans, alabama, equal rights amendment, equality, usa, women's liberation movement conference, women's rights, women's strike for equality

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #57

May 25, 2019 by Kenan Malik

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . ‘If we don’t rehabilitate reason, we will not be able to fix our broken world’ Achille Mbembe & Andreas Eckert, Mail & Guardian, 10 May 2019 South Africa has been your home for many years. When you went there (in 2000), it was still a country full of hope. At the end of […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

CAN WE ESCAPE SURVEILLANCE CULTURE?

May 20, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the rise of surveillance culture was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the Brexit Party) It was published on 19 May 2019, under the headline ‘As surveillance culture grows, can we even hope to escape its reach?’ Sometimes, it is the very ordinariness of a scene that makes it terrifying. So it was with a clip from last week’s BBC documentary on facial recognition technology. It shows the Metropolitan police trialling a facial recognition […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: cctv cameras, china, facial recognition, police, privacy, smart cities, surveillance, surveillance culture

THE BEAUTY OF THE OUD

May 18, 2019 by Kenan Malik

The oud has over the years come to be one of my favourite instruments. I discovered it first through the music of Anouar Brahem and of Dhaffer Youssef, both North African, both jazz musicians, though very different in their approach. And through them I came to discover a whole new world of music, one that can be both joyous and sublimely beautiful. The oud is a fretless, pear-shaped, lute-like instrument whose origins go back several thousand years. (There is a […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: adel shams el-din, anouar brahem, chafer youssef, driss el maloumi, hussein mohamed, jazz, munir bashir, music, naseer shamma, oud, rehab azar, said chraibi, tarek abdallah

DANNY BAKER, RACISM AND PUNISHMENT

May 13, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate around Danny Baker’s racist tweet, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on why we need poetry.) It was published on 12 May 2019, under the headline ‘We thrive on provocation. But are we too quick to punish those who stray?’. There was something shocking and absurd about Danny Baker’s tweet of a photograph of a posh couple with a costumed monkey in response to the arrival of the royal baby. You […]

Categories: Free Speech, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: bbc, danny baker, punishment, racism, social media

TALKING IDENTITY IN AUSTRALIA

May 10, 2019 by Kenan Malik

These are audios of two events from my recent trip to Australia in which I discuss the politics of identity. The first is a talk I gave at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. The second is a discussion on Melbourne’s community radio RRR. . What’s wrong with identity politics? A talk at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne . Talking identity on RRR

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Kenan Malik, Politics • Tags: australia, herder, identity politics, immigration, immigration controls, left, racism, universalism, white identity, working class