Author Archives: Kenan Malik

RACISM, MONARCHY AND PRIVILEGE

August 26, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, racism and the monarchy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on children and happiness.) It was published on 25 August 2019, under the headline ‘Sure, defend Meghan Markle from racists, but let’s not bow to the monarchy’. Take a feudal relic. Add a splash of glamour. A pinch of wokeness. And a dash of hypocrisy. Stir in a lashing of racism. Squeeze out the […]

Categories: Britain, Class • Tags: duchess of sussex, elton john, Jameela jamil, left, meghan markle, monarchy, privilege, racism, royal family, vogue, wokeness

ISLAND OF LIGHT

August 24, 2019 by Kenan Malik

The Western Isles and the Northern Isles, at the very edges of Britain, are rarely blessed with blue skies and bright sun. They are swaddled in cloud and wind and rain. And, yet, there is here a quality of light that you rarely see elsewhere in Britain. The cloudscape is an extension of the landscape, and as the light suffuses through the cloud, it acquires a painterly, almost ethereal, quality. It may be why there are so many artists on […]

Categories: Britain, Photos • Tags: orkney, photography

WILDNESS AND THE HUMAN IMAGINATION

August 19, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on humanity’s entangled relationship with the ‘wild’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on race, class and diversity.) It was published on 18 August 2019, under the headline ‘Last week, I gazed on a truly wild land… and saw art reflected back’. Achmore is a nondescript hamlet on the A858 that cuts across the isle of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides. This is a gnarled, fractured landscape, swaddled in wind […]

Categories: Britain, Nature • Tags: human imagination, isle of lewis, landscape, outer hebrides, robert macfarlane, scotland, western isles, wild

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #61

August 17, 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. . Britain’s infrastructure is breaking down. And here’s why no one’s fixing it Aditya Chakrabortty, Guardian, 14 August 2019 When I am out reporting it is not uncommon to go into a suburban postcode short of money yet still bustling with people – but the banks have nearly all cleared out, the church […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

THE REAL UNDESIRABLES ARE NOT ON THE STREETS

August 12, 2019 by Kenan Malik

As I am away for a couple of weeks, and posting little new material on Pandaemonium, I am taking the opportunity to publish some of those shorter pieces from my Observer column that I don’t normally post on Pandaemonium. This is a a short piece on homelessness and official attitudes and policies, first published on 7 July 2019. None are so blind as those who would blind others. Mark Field, the Foreign Office minister suspended for grabbing a protester by the throat, has, according to leaked […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: austerity, british politics, homelessness, london, mark field, rough sleeping

THE NECESSITY OF POETRY

August 10, 2019 by Kenan Malik

As I am away for a couple of weeks, and posting little new material on Pandaemonium, I am taking the opportunity to publish some of those shorter pieces from my Observer column that I don’t normally post on Pandaemonium. This is a a short piece on the need for poetry, first published on 12 May 2019, after the announcement of Simon Armitage as the new Poet Laureate. Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle That while you watched turned to pieces of snow Riding […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: george szirtes, howard nemerov, mean alexander, poetry, simon armitage

A TRIBUTE TO BRYAN MAGEE

August 5, 2019 by Kenan Malik

I am away for a couple of weeks, so am posting little new material on Pandaemonium. I am taking the opportunity to publish some of those shorter pieces from my Observer column that I don’t normally post on Pandaemonium. This is a. short tribute to Bryan Magee, published on 28 July 2019 under the headline ‘Bryan Magee, the man who loved to put big ideas on the small screen’. You can still watch them on YouTube. Two middle-aged white men (and the occasional woman) spending […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: bryan magee

DIVERSE, PERHAPS, BUT NOT MODERN

August 3, 2019 by Kenan Malik

I am away for a couple of weeks, so am posting little new material on Pandaemonium. I am taking the opportunity to publish some of those shorter pieces from my Observer column that I don’t normally post on Pandaemonium. Having said that, this short comment on the diversity of the Boris Johnson cabinet was published in the Observer on 28 July not as part of my weekly column but as part of a feature on the new Johnson government. ‘People seem to be disappointed that the […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: boris johnson, british politics, diversity, priti patel, racism, sajid javid

HAS THE RETWEET RUINED THE WORLD?

July 29, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Twitter, engagement ad democracy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Bryan Magee.) It was published on 7 July 2019, under the headline ‘Twitter won’t ruin the world. But constraining democracy would’. Has the retweet ruined the world? Chris Wetherell, the software developer who built Twitter’s retweet button, thinks so. Introduced in 2009, retweeting transformed the social media landscape, he suggests, by allowing people to pass on information without having bothered to […]

Categories: Politics, Science • Tags: brexit, democracy, donald trump, education, fake news, social media, social polarisation, technology, twitter

WHITE IDENTITY AND WORKING CLASS POLITICS

July 27, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay was published in the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten on 21 July 2019. The shift has been dramatic. Even a decade ago, discussion of ‘white rights’ and ‘white identity’ belonged to the fringes of politics. It was Nazi-speak. Today it has become a major political issue on both sides of the Atlantic. Not just the far-right but many mainstream commentators now argue that whites should be able to assert what the political scientist Eric Kaufmann calls their ‘racial self-interest’. Why […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: alain benoist, Class, eric kaufmann, identity politics, nouvelle droite, race, racism, white identity, working class

STUMBLING INTO THE PANOPTICON

July 22, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the creation of a surveillance state, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the ‘R word’ and the pretence of not using a word.) It was published on 7 July 2019, under the headline ‘When local councils use data tools to classify us, what price freedom?‘ Are you a ‘metro high-flyer’ or part of an ‘alpha family’? A ‘midlife renter’ or a ‘cafes and catchments’ sort? An ‘estate veteran’ or a […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: jeremy bentham, michel foucault, panopticon, privacy, social scoring, surveillance state

SINGING TO THE MOON

July 20, 2019 by Kenan Malik

Every newspaper and media outlet over the past week seems to have put out a soundtrack to accompany this week’s anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission. But most of the songs they have chosen (Fly Me to the Moon, Moondance, Marquee Moon, Walking on the Moon, etc) have little relation to the moon landings or even to the moon itself. While the moon landing had enormous impact on popular culture, including music, there are not that many tracks that […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: apollo 11, moon landing, music, space race, usa

THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF RACE AND CLASS

July 15, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on race and class in contemporary Britain, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the politics of human fossil finds.) It was published on 7 July 2019, under the headline ‘Working class versus minorities? That’s looking at it the wrong way’. Officials eyeing you with contempt. Police treating you as scum. A sense of being constantly watched and judged by professionals. Living in fear of benefit sanctions. A lack of community facilities. […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Philosophy & Ethics, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, ethnic pay gap, hostile environment, identity politics, migrants, minorities, precariat, race and class, runnymede trust, white working class, working class

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #60

July 13, 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. . Europe’s treatment of migrants is shameful Mathieu von Rohr, Spiegel International Editorial, 4 July 2019 A father and his daughter lie dead on the bank of the Rio Grande, entwined in an embrace, after drowning in their attempt to reach the United States. The man is Óscar Alberto Martinez Ramírez; his 23-month-old […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

MIGRANT DETENTION AND MORAL DISGRACE

July 8, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on whether migrant detention centres should be described as ‘concentration camps’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Tory policy and attitudes to the homeless.) It was published on 7 July 2019, under the headline ‘Whatever we call them, wherever they are, detention centres are a disgrace’. They are held in wire cages, with standing room only, sometimes for months. Adults have to wear the same clothes for weeks. Children have no washing […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: boer war, concentration camps, europe, european union, holocaust, migrant crisis, migrant detention, morality, nazi death camps, undocumented migrants, usa