Author Archives: Kenan Malik

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

WHAT DETERRENCE LOOKS LIKE

July 5, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay was was first published in the Swedish newspaper Expressen, 2 July 2019. The photos of Óscar and Valeria Ramírez, migrants from El Salvador, drowned in the Rio Grande as they tried to cross into the USA, are haunting and distressing, and have sparked outrage and anger in America. Four years ago, images of the Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach similarly shocked and horrified Europe. These deaths are neither accidents nor isolated cases. They […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: alan kurdi, detention of migrants, european union, fortress europe, immigration controls, immigration policy, libya, mediterranean, migrant deaths, oscar and valeria ramirez, undocumented migrants, usa

THE TROUBLE WITH LIBERALISM

July 1, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the crisis facing liberalism, and why it is not the one that Vladimir Putin thinks it is, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 30 June 2019, under the headline ‘Liberalism is facing a crisis. But it’s not what Vladimir Putin thinks’. ‘What we may be witnessing is the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.’ So wrote Francis Fukuyama in his […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: conservatism, francis fukuyama, individualism, left, liberalism, neoliberalism, vladimir putin, working class

MASS DETENTION – THE LAST TIME AROUND

June 29, 2019 by Kenan Malik

Against the background of the debate about squalor and brutality of the USA’s immigrant detention centres – and whether they constitute ‘concentration camps’, a debate I might engage in sometime – it is worth remembering that America has a long history of mass detention camps. Among the most notorious were the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. ‘The Japanese race’, observed General John L DeWitt, head of the US Army’s Western Defense Command, and a key figure […]

Categories: International, Photos, Race & Immigration • Tags: concentration camps, dorothea lange, internment camps, japanese internment, linda gordon, mass detention, photography, racism, usa

SCIENCE, VACCINES AND DISTRUST WITHOUT REASON

June 24, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on a study of global attitudes to science and to vaccines, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Facebook’s launch of its digital currency Libra.) It was published on 23 June 2019, under the headline ‘A growing lack of trust in authority poses a serious danger to our health’. Virtually every Bangladeshi and Rwandan believes that vaccines are safe. Fewer than half of Japanese or French do so. In Western Europe, one in […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: ebola, trust, vaccination, vaccine hesitancy, vaccines, wellcome global monitor

THE CRIME OF AIDING THE WRONG KIND OF HUMAN

June 17, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the criminalisation of solidarity with undocumented migrants, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 16 June 2019, under the headline ‘Are only certain kinds of people deemed worthy of our compassion?’ When is a Good Samaritan not a Good Samaritan? When he or she helps someone undeserving of our humanity In Arizona on 11 June, a jury was unable to reach a verdict on Scott Daniel Warren, a college lecturer accused of conspiracy to transport and […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: european union, immigration, immigration policy, pia kemp, scott daniel warren, solidarity, undocumented migrants, usa

SEEING WHAT WE WANT TO SEE

June 10, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how we often interpret the news through the lens of what we want to see, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 9 June 2019, under the headline ‘Fake news will thrive as long we are happy to see only what we want to see’. If a gorilla walked right in front of your eyes, you wouldn’t miss it, would you? Actually, half the country probably would. In a classic 1999 experiment, psychologists Christopher Chabris and […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Race & Immigration • Tags: assisted dying, central park five, christopher chabris, daniel simons, ethics, euthanasia, fake news, invisible gorilla experiment, noa pothoven, racism, usa, when they see us, wilding

CLASS REALITIES AND CULTURAL DIVIDES

June 3, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the importance of class as a political issue, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Boris Johnson and lies.) It was published on 2 June 2019, under the headline ‘Forget culture wars. Class is still the defining force shaping British lives’. If you are a woman living in working-class Middlesbrough, you are likely to die seven years earlier than if you were living in affluent Hart in Hampshire. If you are a […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: brexit, british politics, Class, conservatives, john cleese, labour party, working class

WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO SPEAK?

May 31, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the Bristol Festival of Ideas, 21 May 2019, as part of the Coleridge Series. ‘Who has the right to speak?’ It is the key question in debates around free speech. Who should be allowed to speak? What should be permitted to be said? And who makes the decision? Historically, the issues were relatively clear. Censorship was imposed from the top. Its aim was to deflect, contain or deem illegitimate any […]

Categories: Free Speech, War on terror • Tags: anti-terror laws, blasphemy, censorship, corporate censorship, fake news, free speech, gill valentine, hate speech, incitement laws, iqbal sacranie, muslim, offence, prevent, racism, self-censorship, social media, tariq modood, universities

MEN, WOMEN AND THE POLITICS OF ABORTION

May 27, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the gender, politics and abortion rights, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the world’s most expensive drug.) It was published on 26 May 2019, under the headline ‘Men don’t have abortions. That’s no reason not to fight for women’s rights’. The decision by the state of Alabama effectively to ban abortion has refocused attention in America on the issue of reproductive rights. The Alabama law is the most dramatic move in a […]

Categories: Politics, Women • Tags: abortion, abortion bans, alabama, equal rights amendment, equality, usa, women's liberation movement conference, women's rights, women's strike for equality

CAN WE ESCAPE SURVEILLANCE CULTURE?

May 20, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the rise of surveillance culture was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the Brexit Party) It was published on 19 May 2019, under the headline ‘As surveillance culture grows, can we even hope to escape its reach?’ Sometimes, it is the very ordinariness of a scene that makes it terrifying. So it was with a clip from last week’s BBC documentary on facial recognition technology. It shows the Metropolitan police trialling a facial recognition […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: cctv cameras, china, facial recognition, police, privacy, smart cities, surveillance, surveillance culture

THE BEAUTY OF THE OUD

May 18, 2019 by Kenan Malik

The oud has over the years come to be one of my favourite instruments. I discovered it first through the music of Anouar Brahem and of Dhaffer Youssef, both North African, both jazz musicians, though very different in their approach. And through them I came to discover a whole new world of music, one that can be both joyous and sublimely beautiful. The oud is a fretless, pear-shaped, lute-like instrument whose origins go back several thousand years. (There is a […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: adel shams el-din, anouar brahem, chafer youssef, driss el maloumi, hussein mohamed, jazz, munir bashir, music, naseer shamma, oud, rehab azar, said chraibi, tarek abdallah