Author Archives: Kenan Malik

HIDDEN ASSUMPTIONS THAT FRAME OUR LIVES

February 9, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the hidden assumptions that underlie policy making and public perceptions, was my Observer column this week. It was published 5 February 2023, under the headline “Debt, bad; work, good: ‘pub bore’ beliefs that seal a miserable fate for the poorest”. “I can’t live on the never-never and neither can this country… Austerity was a necessary evil… The unemployed will only work if they are forced to.” No, not the sound of the pub bore, but some of the often unstated assumptions […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: andrew dilnot, austerity, bbc, benefits, conditionality, debt, ifs, institute for fiscal studies, michael blastland

MORALISING POVERTY AND MISTRANSLATING EQUALITY

February 2, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the problems in the ways we think of poverty and indequality, was my Observer column this week. It was published 29 January 2023, under the headline “Focusing on diversity means we miss the big picture. It’s class that shapes our lives”. “There is no primary poverty left in this country,” Margaret Thatcher told the Catholic Herald in 1978, five months before she became prime minister. “There may be poverty because people don’t know how to budget, don’t know how to spend their […]

Categories: Britain, Class • Tags: adolph reed, diversity, individualism, inequality, margaret thatcher, moralising poverty, poverty, walter benn michaels

HOW HANIF KUREISHI GAVE ME A VOICE

January 26, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the personal significance of Hanif Kureishi, was my Observer column this week. It was published 22 January 2023, under the headline “Hanif Kureishi helped liberate British Asians from their imposed identities”. We had been messaging each other on Boxing Day, trying to fix a date for a drink. Then all went silent. I assumed that Hanif Kureishi was too busy enjoying himself in Rome. Only later did I discover that he had had a fall that had left him almost paralysed […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Race & Immigration • Tags: fatwa, hanif kureishi, islamism, muslims, my beautiful laundrette, racism, salman rushdie, the satanic verses

RACISM REBRANDED

January 19, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This is an extract from my book Not So Black and White, prefaced by an introduction to the themes of the book. It was published in the Observer’s New Review on 8 January 2023. (I have not put in the links; you can find the references in the book.) “The Negro is not. Any more than the white man.” So wrote Frantz Fanon, the Martinique-born revolutionary and intellectual, in his 1952 masterpiece, Black Skin, White Masks. He was making an argument about […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Kenan Malik, Not so Black and White, Race & Immigration • Tags: alain de benoist, alt-right, bat ye'or, douglas murray, ethnopluralism, far right, generation identity, great replacement theory, grece, identity politics, immigration, lionel shriver, muslims, nouvelle droite, racism, white decline, white identity

USING DIVERSITY TO EVISCERATE DIVERSITY

January 12, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on a controversy over an image depicting Muhammad,, was my Observer column this week. It was published 8 January 2023, under the headline “An art treasure long cherished by Muslims is deemed offensive. But to whom?” It is a beautiful painting found in a 14th-century Persian manuscript, the “Compendium of Chronicles”, a history of Islam. It shows the Prophet Muhammad receiving his first Quranic revelations from the angel Gabriel. Christine Gruber, professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan, describes it […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: academic freedom, blasphemy, censorship, depicting muhammad, diversity, hamline university, islam, muhammad, religious freedom

THE TWITTER FILES BEYOND THE CULTURE WARS

January 5, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the significance of the Twitter Files, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 1 January 2023, under the headline “The Twitter Files should disturb liberal critics of Elon Musk – and here’s why”. Half the room is jumping up and down, screaming “Gotcha!”. The other half shrugs its shoulders, muttering “So what’s new?”. Welcome to the war over the so-called Twitter Files. Over the past month, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, has made available to a handpicked […]

Categories: Free Speech, Science & Technology • Tags: algorithmic bias, censorship, culture wars, deamplification, elon musk, fbi, liberties, surveillance, the twitter files, twitter

IMMIGRATION POLICY AND THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY

December 22, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on immigration policy as more theatre than workable solutions, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 18 December 2022, under the headline “Workable proposals? No, western immigration policy is a theatre of cruelty”. A decade ago, on 3 October 2013, a boat carrying migrants caught fire and sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa; 366 people died. It was not the first migrant disaster in the Mediterranean – at least 12,000 migrants had drowned in the previous 20 […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: centre for policy studies, channel migrants, criminalising rescue, deterrence, human smugglers, immigration policy, immigration statistics, matthew goodwin, mediterranean migrants, migrant deaths, rwanda scheme, suella braverman

MIMIC, BULLSHITTER AND MACHINE

December 15, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on ChatGPT and the possibilities and limitations of AI, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 11 December 2022, under the headline “ChatGPT can tell jokes, even write articles. But only humans can detect its fluent bullshit”. As the capabilities of natural language processing technology continue to advance, there is a growing hype around the potential of chatbots and conversational AI systems. One such system, ChatGPT, claims to be able to engage in natural, human-like conversation and even […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: ai, artificial intelligence, chatgpt, consciousness, human nature, literalness, meaning

DIVERSITY DEBATES AND THE TWO DIFFERENT BRITAINS

December 8, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the census data and the debate about diversity data in Britain, was my Observer column this week. It was published 4 December 2022, under the headline “White Britons are declining and immigrants help prop up Christianity. Does it matter?” Ten million people living in England and Wales were born abroad. Fewer than half of Britons call themselves Christians. For some, the two main takeaways from the 2021 census for England and Wales – a more diverse nation and a more secular […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, census, christianity, conservatism, diversity, douglas murray, ngozi fulani, nigel farage, racism, religion, white decline

UNIVERSALISM, RELATIVISM AND QATAR

December 1, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on universalism, relativism and the debate about human rights in Qatar, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 27 November 2022, under the headline “It can be hard to distinguish the cultural claims of right and left. Just look at Qatar”. “Everyone has their beliefs and cultures. We welcome and respect that. All we ask is that other people do the same for us.” So insists Yasir al-Jamal, deputy general secretary of the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee for Delivery and […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Sport • Tags: cultural imperialism, cultural relativism, enlightenment, fifa, herder, imperialism, qatar, qatar world cup, racism, universalism

THE SHALLOWNESS OF TODAY’S WOULD-BE MESSIAHS

November 24, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the mystique of Elon Musk, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 20 November 2022, under the headline “Beware self-made ‘genius’ entrepreneurs promising the earth. Just look at Elon Musk”. Trussonomics trashed within eight weeks. Donald Trump’s anointed candidates cut down in the US midterms. Sam Bankman-Fried, the poster boy of the crypto world, collapsing into bankruptcy. Elon Musk throwing Twitter into turmoil. The bursting of myths and the shredding of reputations seem to be the themes of the […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: elon musk, sam bankman-fried, spacex, technology, tesla, twitter

IMMIGRATION POLICIES THAT CREATE THE IMMIGRATION CRISIS

November 10, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on why immigration policies create the immigration crisis, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 6 November 2022, under the headline “Sealed borders are a fantasy and talk of invasion is toxic. There is an alternative“. On one thing, Suella Braverman is right. The system is broken. But about almost everything else, she is grievously wrong, especially about the reasons for it being so. The cause of the brokenness is not a surge of migrants and asylum seekers, still […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: asylum seekers, channel migrants, deterrence, eu immigration policy, immigration panics, immigration policy, polarisation, priti patel, rwanda deportation scheme, suella braverman

NEW POETRY FLOWERING ON THE STEM OF THE OLDEST

November 3, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 30 October 2022, under the headline “TS Eliot’s Waste Land was a barren place. But at least a spirit of optimism still prevailed”. He promised “a new start”. I made no comment. What should I resent? No, not a response to the Tory leadership chaos but lines from TS Eliot’s The Waste Land. This month marks the centenary of the publication of Eliot’s masterpiece, one of […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: antisemitism, christianity, modernism, optimism, pessmism, poetry, ralph ellison, the waste land, ts eliot, virginia woolf

ON POLITICS AND HUMAN FLOURISHING

October 27, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the Beveridge Report and the idea of human flourishing, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 23 October 2022, under the headline “If this chaos does not make us rethink our idea of the good society, whatever will?” “Out of intermittent labour spring our gravest woes. It produces in the labourer intermittent energy; the off-days become habitual; with indolence comes intemperance; with uncertainty of employment comes recklessness about the future; from these result pauperism and the […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: beveridge report, communitarianism, community, free market, human flourishing, libertarianism, poor laws, society, undeserving poor, welfare state, william beveridge

PICTURING ANOTHER WORLD AND OUR WORLD

October 20, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the photography of Chris Killip and Graham Smith, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 16 October 2022, under the headline “To romanticise or demonise – not the only ways to frame working-class lives”. An old man walking between rows of terraced housing and, behind him, the sky erased by the huge bow of a ship being built. A teenager picking coal on a beach. A man manoeuvring his horse and cart around a car dumped […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Culture & Books • Tags: chris killip, darren mcgarvey, graham smith, lynsey hanley, photography, poverty, poverty safari, seacoalers, susan sontag, working class