Author Archives: Kenan Malik

FREE SPEECH AND POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY

May 18, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the government’s plans for free speech, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Michel Barnier’s immigration comments.) It was published on 16 May 2021, under the headline “Challenge bigotry by all means, but outlaw it? I’d rather not”. “Blacks are genetically less intelligent.” “Muslims do not belong in this country.” “It is right to discriminate against gays.” Three bigoted statements. According to a new draft law, the Online Safety Bill, social media companies […]

Categories: Britain, Free Speech • Tags: censorship, free speech, gavin williamson, higher education (freedom of speech) bill, michelle donelan, online harm, online safety bill, prevent, social media, tories, universities

NAPOLEON, CHURCHILL AND HORRIBLE HISTORIES

May 12, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the need to acknowledge the complexities of historical figures, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on what ancient burials tell us about being human.) It was published on 10 May 2021, under the headline “Let’s be honest – every national hero is tainted by the values of our time”. With distance can come greater perspective. We often better appreciate a physical object, whether a mountain or a monument and its relationship […]

Categories: History, International • Tags: culture wars, emmanuel macron, france, frederick douglass, history wars, napoleon, winston churchill

FOUR COLURS: BLUE

May 9, 2021 by Kenan Malik

My favourite use of colour in photography is almost as monochrome, minimising the palette of colours being used. So, I thought I might publish a series of posts on photographs using largely single colours, beginning with blue. And for more, check out my photography website, Light Infusion. . Looking South from Achmore (in Lewis) . Storm over Scapa Flow . Storm over the Brittany Coast . Like a Turner – Mt Field in the Canadian Rockies . Crane and Shard . […]

Categories: Photos

GRENFELL, CORRUPTION AND THE HOLLOWED-OUT STATE

May 4, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the corruption revealed by the Grenfell Inquiry, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 2 May 2021, under the headline “Grenfell is still giving up its secrets and they retain the power to shock”. It is not just the broken promise, it is also the pitilessness of it. In February, Boris Johnson told parliament, in the wake of the cladding scandal, that “no leaseholder should have to pay for the unaffordable costs of fixing defects […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: arconic, boris johnson, building research establishment, celotex, cladding scandal, corruption, cronyism, fire safety act, flammable cladding, free market, grenfell tower, hollowed-out state, kingspan, privatisation, regulation, sleaze, state regulation, the state

ORIENTALISM AND AHISTORICISM

May 2, 2021 by Kenan Malik

I wrote a short piece for my Observer column on Edward Said, Hannah Arendt and James Baldwin and why I have come to appreciate them more despite (or perhaps because of) the contradictions in their arguments. I thought it might also be useful as a counterpoint, to publish a short part of my original critique of Said’s Orientalism from my 1996 book The Meaning of Race. It is part of a much longer critique, but gets to the essence of […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: aijaz ahmed, edward said, enlightenment, essentializing, greek philosophy, orientalism, west

POLICING INEQUALITIES OF RACE AND CLASS

April 27, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the nature of American policing, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on a breakthrough vaccine for malaria.) It was published on 25 April 2021, under the headline “US policing is far less about fighting crime than controlling the poor”. ‘Lower-class culture is pathological.” So claimed American political scientist Edward Banfield in his 1970 book The Unheavenly City. For Banfield, unlike the middle class, “the lower-class person lives from moment to moment… unable […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: 1033 programme, broken windows policy, derek chauvin, edward banfield, george floyd, james quinn wilson, mass incarceration, militarised policing, police killings, policing, poor, racism, thomas sowell, usa, william bratton

IMMIGRATION AND THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM

April 20, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the lessons of Denmark’s refugee policy, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 18 April 2021, under the headline “By demonising asylum seekers, Denmark reflects a panic in social democracy”. What do you call a government so hostile to refugees that it wants to send them back to a country that tortures and “disappears” its critics on a mass scale? Reactionary? Monstrous? In Denmark, they call it social democratic. Denmark is the first European nation to insist […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: danish peoples party, denmark, immigration, immigration policy, mette frederiksen, refugees, social democracy, syrian refugees, working class

AUTHENTICITY, IDENTITY AND LUTHER

April 18, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This is a longer version of a short piece published in the Observer, 18 April 2021. The African-American novelist Zora Neale Hurston’s final work, Seraph on the Suwanee, is set among poor Southern whites. Published in 1948, it’s often dismissed by critics as a “whiteface” novel because the lives and diction of the white characters seem too “black”, as if they were really black people in white masks. Hurston dismissed such criticism. “About the idiom of the book”, she wrote to friend […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Race & Immigration • Tags: authenticity, bbc, black identity, diversity, identity politics, idris elba, james baldwin, luther, zora neale hurston

HERE’S TO SOCIAL SPACES

April 13, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the importance of social spaces, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 11 April 2021, under the headline “Full pubs are a sign of communities that work. Let’s toast their return”. There were thousands this week, shivering in some icy pub garden, raising their glass to the next step on the government’s roadmap out of lockdown, as outdoor drinking resumed. At the start of the pandemic, they could have done so in thousands more venues […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: austerity, clubs, covid 19, libraries, lockdown, music venues, pandemic, poverty, pubs, social spaces, youth clubs

SO, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE SEWELL REPORT?

April 6, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 4 April 2021, under the headline “Yes, we need a more nuanced debate about race. But this flawed report fails to deliver it”. Britain is less racist than it was 40 years ago. Many minority groups in Britain still face racism. Both those claims can be (and are) true. So are these two claims: racism exists in Britain; racism […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-racism, race and class, racial disparities, racism, sewell report, tony sewell

PAINTING SPRINGTIME

April 4, 2021 by Kenan Malik

It’s spring, the sun is out (at least as I am writing this), there is blossom on the trees, and the end of lockdown is visible. And I was thinking of paintings of springtime. So, here is a selection, from Japanese and Western traditions, and more contemporary works. . Taikan Yokoyama, Spring Morning . Vincent van Gogh, Almond Blossom . Phil Greenwood, Blossom . Reiji Hiramatsu, Cherry Blossoms . Georgia O’Keefe, Cottonwood tree in spring . Ton Dubbeldam, Ocean Spring […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: art, david hockney, georgia o'keefe, hokusai, phil greenwood, picasso, reiji hiramatsu, springtime taikan yokoyama, ton dubbeldam, van gogh

TO LIVE IN A PLURAL SOCIETY

March 30, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the meaning of a plural society in the context of the furore surrounding Batley Grammar School, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the lessons of the Shrewsbury 24.) It was published on 28 March 2021, under the headline “To live in a diverse society means to live with debate. Bring it on”. No one has a right not to be offended. All of us have a duty to challenge bigotry. These […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Multiculturalism • Tags: batley grammar school, blasphemy, charlie hebdo, depicting muhammad, diversity, education, islam, islamophobia, muhammad, muslims, racism, samuel paty, sayeeda warsi

“CREATIVITY IS NOT FEARING THE UNKNOWN”

March 28, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. Nawal El Saadawi was a doctor, writer, feminist, and activist, usually controversial, often contrarian, always challenging. Her death last week robbed us of one of the most important voices of the past half century. I had the pleasure and honour of being in conversation with her on stage at the first Fuuse World Woman conference in Oslo in 2015. She could not understand my British accent, but we just about managed, and she was in very good form. So, […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties, Women • Tags: nawal el saadawi, women's rights

RACISM, PRIVILEGE AND ANTI-ASIAN HOSTILITY

March 23, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on anti-Asian racism in America, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on flag, queen and country.) It was published on 21 March 2021, under the headline “Myths of Asian privilege fuel a brutal and cartoonish bigotry”. Beyond the horror of the shooting in Atlanta of eight people, six of them Asian women, lies the fraught question “why?”. In all probability, a multitude of factors – racism, misogyny, religious belief, personal inadequacies – coalesced in suspect […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: affirmative action, anti-asian racism, anti-racism, asian privilege, atlanta shootings, harvard, identity politics, model community, privilege, racism, usa, yale, yellow peril

START THE WEEK TALKING IDENTITY

March 20, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. I was a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week last week discussing with Matthew D’Ancona and Minouche Shafik questions about identity politics, race, class and the social contract. Here’s a link to the programme. For more on identity politics, a few of my essays, talks and interviews on the subject: The rise of white identity politics Identity politics – the interview The history and politics of white identity Not all politics is identity politics On cultural appropriation […]

Categories: Kenan Malik, Politics • Tags: andrew marr, bbc, broadcasts, identity politics, matthew d'ancona, minouche sfafik, radio 4, start the week

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