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. . Social distancing is a privilege Rama Ayyub, Foreign Policy, 28 March 2020 Ghanshyam Lal, a migrant laborer who works in a Mumbai tannery, has been feeding a family of eight on his daily wage of $3 a day. He told me he didn’t care about the virus as much as he did about […]
Categories: Pandaemonium
by Kenan Malik
This essay, on why the devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic in not equally shared, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 5 April 2020, under the headline ‘Whether in the UK or the developing world, we’re not all in coronavirus together’. The virus does not discriminate’, suggested Michael Gove after both Boris Johnson and the health secretary, Matt Hancock, were struck down by Covid-19. The virus does not. But societies do. And in so doing, they ensure that the […]
Categories: International, Politics • Tags: alexandra, bjp, community, coronavirus, covid 19, dharavi, discrimination, india, informal settlements, johannesburg, lagos, makoko, migration, mumbai, nationalism, nigeria, poverty, slums, south africa
by Kenan Malik
Bill Withers, who died lat week, was one of the most underrated songwriters of his generation. Everyone knows his popular songs – ‘Lean On Me’, ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’, ‘Lovely Day’ – but it is in his lesser-known works that his craft really shines. He was, as the Beach Boy’s Brian Wilson observed in a tweet, a‘songwriters’ songwriter’, a story teller as much as a writer of songs. So, here are some of his less well-known recordings, which bring out both his […]
Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: bill withers, funk, music, soul
by Kenan Malik
This essay, on decency and politics, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the mess that is the free speech debate.) It was published on 29 March 2020, under the headline ‘Our basic decency is clear. But a good society needs more than decency’. ‘It may seem a ridiculous idea but the only way to fight the plague is with decency.’ So says Dr Rieux, a central character in Albert Camus’s 1947 novel The […]
Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: big state, camus, common good, coronavirus, selfishness, socialism, solidarity
by Kenan Malik
Some people view photography as a realist medium, a means of faithfully recording the world as it is. All photography, however, even the most realist forms such as photojournalism, necessarily distorts, remakes, is partial, frames the image from a certain perspective, tells a particular story. In my photography, I see ‘fidelity’, in so far as it has any meaning, as capturing a particular mood or sense or idea evoked by a place or a moment or a phenomenon, rather than […]
Categories: Photos
by Kenan Malik
This essay, on what the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare about policy towards low-paid workers, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 March 2020, under the headline ‘Coronavirus exposes society’s fragility. Let’s find solutions that endure once it’s over’. In a crisis, a society often reveals both its best aspects and its worst. So it is with Covid-19. On the one hand there is the selfishness of hoarding, on the other the selflessness of mutual aid groups. On […]
Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: boris johnson, coronavirus pandemic, gig economy, insecure work, low pay, matt hancock, poverty, rishi sunak, unskilled workers, welfare system, working class
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. . Why the coronavirus has been so successful Ed Yong, Atlantic, 20 March 2020 The new virus certainly seems to be effective at infecting humans, despite its animal origins. The closest wild relative of SARS-CoV-2 is found in bats, which suggests it originated in a bat, then jumped to humans either directly or through […]
Categories: Pandaemonium
by Kenan Malik
This essay, on how metaphors shape our thinking, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the miscarriage of justice over the Lockerbie bombing.) It was published on 15 March 2020, under the headline ‘Like a moth to a flame, we’re drawn to metaphors to explain ourselves’. The selfish gene. The Big Bang. The greenhouse effect. Metaphors are at the heart of scientific thinking. They provide the means for both scientists and non-scientists to understand, […]
Categories: Culture & Books, Language, Science & Technology • Tags: computers, george lakoff, lera boroditsky, linguistics, mark johnson, matthew cobb, metaphors, neuroscience, paul thobodeau, psychology, the idea of the brain
by Kenan Malik
I have neglected Light Infusion, my photographic site, in recent years. So I am in the process of getting it back into order; it will probably take next few weeks. In beginning to sort it out, I’ve been going back over my archive of photos. And I thought it might be entertaining (at least to me) to pick out my favourites from the past ten years. So, this is one photo per year over the past decade. The choice is […]
Categories: Photos
by Kenan Malik
This essay, on EU border control policy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on free speech at universities.) It was published on 8 March 2020, under the headline ‘Detention, torture and killing … how the EU outsourced migration policy’. ‘But what else can we do?’ So asked many people after a video emerged of Greek border guards attempting to capsize a small rubber dinghy full of migrants, and firing shots towards it. The incident […]
Categories: Race & Immigration • Tags: european union, greece, immigration controls, janjaweed, lesbos, libya, migrant crisis, migrant deaths, moria, omar al-bashir, sudan, turkey
by Kenan Malik
McCoy Tyner, one of the great jazz pianists, died last week. A cornerstone of John Coltrane’s seminal 1960s quartet, he was, with his his rich percussive style, as influential as Coltrane in shaping the jazz of following half century. Tyner, Coltrane once observed, ‘holds down the harmonies, and that allows me to forget them. He’s sort of the one who gives me wings and lets me take off from the ground from time to time.’ As a tribute to Tyner, I thought […]
Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: jazz, jazz piano, mccoy tyner, music
by Kenan Malik
This essay, on last week’s violence in Delhi, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece onaudiobooks) It was published on 1 March 2020, under the headline ‘The violence in Delhi is not a ‘riot’. It is targeted anti-Muslim brutality’. In August 1958, gangs of white youths began systematically attacking West Indians in London’s Notting Hill, assaulting them with iron bars and meat cleavers and milk bottles. One policeman reported a 300-strong mob shouting: ‘We will kill all […]
Categories: International, Politics • Tags: bjp, citizenship amendment act, delhi, hindu nationalism, india, kapil mishra, muslims, notting hill riots, racism, riots
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. . The disappeared Aura Bogado, Reveal News, 18 February 2020 A massive Department of Justice seal towers over the bench, flanked by giant windows that allow a glimpse of the downtown skyline. At one table, an attorney representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement faces the judge. Every 10 minutes or so, a new young client […]
Categories: Pandaemonium
by Kenan Malik
This essay, on how mainstream politics helps nurture far-right beliefs, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the costs of Jeff Bezos’ philanthropy) It was published on 23 February 2020, under the headline ‘Beware the politics of identity. They help legitimise the toxic far right’. ‘Hate is a poison that… is responsible for far too many crimes’, said the German chancellor Angela Merkel after the killing of nine people in a far-right terror attack […]
Categories: International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: afd, christopher caldwell, douglas murray, far right, germany, hanau, identity politics, racism, sam harris, terrorism, white identity
by Kenan Malik
I will be in America at the beginning of April, speaking at the American Association of Geographers conference in Denver on 6 April and in a debate on globalization and culture at the International Affairs Symposium at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon on 8 April. If you’re in either Denver or Portland (or San Francisco where I will also be) and want to get in touch, drop me a line. . The painting is ‘Flag’ by Jasper Johns.
Categories: Kenan Malik
Pandaemonium