Author Archives: Kenan Malik

RESPECT AND TOLERANCE, PEOPLE AND IDEAS

December 15, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the changing meanings of respect and tolerance, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the revelations at the Grenfell inquiry.) It was published on 13 December 2020, under the headline “Ideas can be tolerated without being respected. The distinction is key”. Should Cambridge University academics and students “tolerate” or “respect” the views of others with which they might disagree? Should we tolerate Millwall fans booing players taking the knee? Should gender-critical feminists who argue for […]

Categories: Free Speech, Philosophy & Ethics, Women • Tags: cambridge university, censorship, football, free speech, les ferdinand, millwall, racism, respect, salil tripathi, taking the knee, tolerance, transgender, twitter

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #78

December 12, 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. . How they built GrenfellAnoosh Chakelian, New Statesman, 11 December 2020 In December 2007, an Irish building materials company called Kingspan tested the fire safety of one of its insulation materials, Kooltherm K15. It was tested on a rig mocked up like a building, to mimic how the product might be used in real […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

LEVERAGING CRUELTY AS A SOCIAL GOOD

December 8, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the cruelty of “Imprisonment for Public Protection” and what it tells us about social policy, was my Observer column. It was published on 6 December 2020, under the headline “Our leaders can’t preach respect and treat the vulnerable with contempt”. “My family were going, ‘Why are you not out? They can’t give you a 13-month sentence and keep you in there for ever!’” Oh, but they can. And not just in China or Saudi Arabia, but in Britain, […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: antisocial behaviour, asbos, david blunkett, hostile environment, imprisonment for public protection, inequality, ipp, new labour, prisons, respect, respect agenda, richard sennett, tony blair

A FILM FROM A LAND WITH NO CINEMAS

December 5, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This short piece on the Lesothan film This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection is part my Observer column, 6 December 2020. There is no cinema in Lesotho. But Lesotho now has a film entered for the Best International Feature Film category at next year’s Oscars. Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection tells the story of 80-year-old Mantoa, grief-stricken after the deaths first of her husband, then of her daughter and, finally, her son, a migrant […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International • Tags: cinema, film, lemohang jeremiah mosese, lesotho, mary twala, oscars

NATURAL PATHOGENS AND A SOCIAL AFFLICTION

December 1, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how social inequalities shapes the fight against disease, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 November 2020, under the headline “There’s a social pathogen stalking the world that’s as deadly as Covid-19”. “What if tropical diseases had as much attention as Covid?”, asked Francine Ntoumi, director of the Congolese Foundation for Medical Research, recently. Ntoumi was really asking two questions. What is happening to all the other diseases that ravage the global south as the world’s attention has […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: africa, brazil, condorcet, coronavirus, covid 19, francine ntoumi, health inequalities, hiv, india, inequality, malaria, tb, tuberculosis

MARADONA, MUHAMMAD ALI AND ME

November 29, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This (very) short piece on Maradona was published aspart of my column in the Observer, 29 November 2020 I can still remember where I was when, in 1986, Diego Maradona scored with the “hand of God”. In a flat on the Coventry Cross estate, in east London. An Asian family lived there, one of a handful on the estate, who had faced vicious racist attacks. An England-Argentina game, just four years after the Falklands conflict, was a threatening proposition. I […]

Categories: Sport • Tags: argentina, football, hand of god, maradona, muhammad ali, racism

A PICTURE OF HOW POWER WORKS

November 24, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the normalisation of corruption and incompetence, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the funding of the Biden transition.) It was published on 22 November 2020, under the headline “From Grenfell to PPE, absolute power still corrupts in high places”. A cladding manufacturer allegedly fakes results to win a contract for material it knows is a deathtrap. The government sets up a system to reward companies with whom ministers have links. Almost 90% of […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: chumocracy, corruption, deregulation, george orwell, grenfell tower, national audit office, windrush scandal

VACCINES, HESITANCY AND TRUST

November 17, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on vaccine hesitancy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Chicago libraries’ utopian experiment.) It was published on 15 November 2020, under the headline “Vaccination hesitancy is about lack of trust. Compulsion is not the answer”. “If a strain as deadly as the 1918 influenza emerges and people’s hesitancy to get vaccinated remains at the level it is today, a debilitating and fatal disease will spread.” So wrote Heidi Larson in 2018. Larson is director […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: big pharma, coronavirus pandemic, covid 19, heidi larson, mandatory vaccination, pfizer, pharmaceutical companies, trust, vaccine hesitancy, vaccines

IN PRAISE OF THE DOUBLE BASS

November 14, 2020 by Kenan Malik

The double bass is well established as an instrument in jazz – l love Charles Mingus, Paul Chambers, Ray Brown and Scott LaFarro in particular – but one rarely talks about it in the classical tradition. I’ve only recently discovered it, both music specially created for the double bass, and music transcribed from cello pieces. And it’s every bit as gorgeous, dramatic and soul-stirring as in jazz. So, a few performances showing off the classical double bass. . Dominik Wagner […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: dominik wagner, double bass, francois rabbath, joelle leandre, lauren pierce, music, xavier foley

TERROR, HYPOCRISY AND ILLIBERALISM

November 10, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on responses to Islamist terrorism, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Poland, abortion and the power of polar protest.) It was published on 8 November 2020, under the headline “Fanatics have no right to censor critics. But neither does Emmanuel Macron”. Letters complaining about newspaper articles are unexceptional. Not so letters from the Élysée Palace. Last week, the Financial Times published, after the killing of teacher Samuel Paty in Paris and of churchgoers in Nice, an article by its […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, War on terror • Tags: blasphemy, censorship, charlie hebdo, emmanuel macron, farhad khosrokhavar, financial rimes, france, islamism, jihadism, racism, samuel paty, secularism, terrorism, vienna attaack

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #77

November 8, 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. . Ding-dong, the jerk is gone. But read this before you sing the Hallelujah ChorusThomas Frank, Guardian, 8 November 2020 Biden’s instinct, naturally, will be to govern as he always legislated: as a man of the center who works with Republicans to craft small-bore, business-friendly measures. After all, Biden’s name is virtually synonymous with […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

THE PUTNEY DEBATES AND NEGLECTED HISTORY

November 3, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the Putney Debates and British history that is neglected, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on immigration and deterrence.) It was published on 1 November 2020, under the headline “It’s true, we ignore parts of our history – and not just about our colonial past”. Last week marked the anniversary of the beginning of one of the key events of British history. If you missed it, it’s not surprising. The Putney debates barely have […]

Categories: Britain, History • Tags: christopher hill, democracy, english civil wars, english revolution, equality, henry ireton, john lilburne, katherine chidley, levellers, new model army, oliver cromwell, putney debates, richard overton, wars of the three kingdoms

MAKING EMPIRE ETHICAL

October 31, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This is a review of Priya Satia’s Time’s Monster, published in the Observer, 25 October 2020. In his celebrated “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, written in 1963 while in prison for having taken part in a banned march against segregation, Martin Luther King Jr describes receiving a letter from a “white brother in Texas” who had told him that “all Christians know that the coloured people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History • Tags: anti-colonialism, british empire, colonialism, enlightenment, ethics, imperialism, james mill, john stuart mill, priya satia, thomas macaulay, time's monster

WHAT FOOTBALL TELLS US ABOUT GLOBALISATION

October 27, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on football and globlisation, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Facebook and transparency.) It was published on 25 October 2020, under the headline “Money fosters the cosmopolitan joy of our football but also its soullessness”. If you want to see the dilemmas of globalisation playing out, forget Brexit or the US elections. Watch a game of football (though in Britain, of course, you can’t actually watch a game in a stadium these […]

Categories: Politics, Sport • Tags: english premier league, european premier league, football, globalisation, heysel tragedy, identity, inequality, jurgen klopp, liverpool fc, mohamed salah, pep guardiola

ON BEING WHITE AND ON BEING WORKING CLASS

October 20, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about the “white working class”, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 18 October 2020, under the headline “Being white won’t hold boys back. Being working class just might”. White, working-class boys fare badly at school. About that, almost everyone is agreed. More contested is the reason why. Last week, the first witnesses gave evidence to the commons select committee on education’s investigation into “Left Behind White Pupils From Disadvantaged Backgrounds”. The hearing made […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Race & Immigration • Tags: brexit, education, identity politics, inequality, left behind, racism, schools, white privilege, white working class, working class