Author Archives: Kenan Malik

THE ART & POLITICS OF CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

December 8, 2017 by Kenan Malik

The latest issue of Art Review carries, under the headline ‘The truth about “cultural appropriation”‘, an edited version of my recent talk on cultural appropriation at London’s Rich Mix. Here is an extract: One of the key arguments of many such critics is that one speaks through one’s identity; that one speaks, as writer Nesrine Malik has put it, ‘as a’: ‘as a woman’, ‘as a Muslim’, ‘as an immigrant’. And those who are not ‘as a’ must take their cue […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: amiri baraka, cultural appropriation, culture, dana schutz, emmett till, henry taylor, identity politics, kamila shamsie, racism

LESS A DEBATE THAN POLITICAL TROLLING

December 3, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of an article published in the Observer, 3 December2017, under the headline ‘When crude tweets set the global agenda we are surely in a new age of politics’. The most powerful leader in the world tweets like a teenage Nazi on 4chan whose sole aim is to create outrage. Three retweets of anti-Muslim hatred first tweeted by the deputy leader of a British neo-Nazi group do indeed cause global outrage. British politics becomes consumed by […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, Politics • Tags: alt right, anti-muslim hatred, donald trump, far right, islamophobia, muslims, racism, twitter, usa

DAS UNBEHAGEN IN DEN KULTUREN

November 30, 2017 by Kenan Malik

My first book in German was published this week: Das Unbehagen in Den Kulturen. It is a translation of my 2013 book Multiculturalism and its Discontents (and the German title a nod to Sigmund Freud’s Das Unbehagen in der Kutur). Here is the opening section of the talk I gave in Berlin on Saturday, which explores the changing context of the debate on multiculturalism: There is something odd about discussing multiculturalism today. The whole context of the debate has changed over […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Kenan Malik, Multiculturalism • Tags: identity politics, immigration, kenan malik's books, multiculturalism

AT THE OPERA, AT FIRST LIGHT AND LAST

November 26, 2017 by Kenan Malik

It must be one of the most photographed of modern buildings. Yet the Sydney Opera House still elicits a gasp of awe every time one sees it in the concrete. Danish architect Jørn Utzon’s expressionist masterwork is a remarkable melding of form and function, and of architecture and engineering. It is also a wondrous evocation of the imagination. The story of the Machiavellian politics that surrounded its construction, and led eventually to the resignation of Utzon from the project, and […]

Categories: Photos • Tags: architecture, australia, jørn utzon, photography, sydney opera house

IN SEARCH OF THE COMMON GOOD

November 23, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of the RICS Harris lecture that I gave on 14 November 2017 on ‘The public interest and the common good’. The public interest. The public advantage. The public good. The common good. These are all phrases that seem indispensible, phrases which we all use, and of which we have an instinctive understanding, yet the meanings of which are all contested and seemingly impossible to define. These phrases are often used interchangeably. Many philosophers and political thinkers would […]

Categories: History, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: aquinas, aristotle, common good, enlightenment, ethics, greek philosophy, history of moral thought, individualism, liberalism, locke, mo tzu, public interest, social contract

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #29

November 19, 2017 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. . How Britain did Gaddafi’s dirty work Ian Cobain, Guardian, 9 November 2017 As the CIA and MI6 built relationships with Libya, the two agencies assisted Libyan spies in the kidnapping of Gaddafi’s enemies. Two leading figures in the Libyan opposition who had fled the country were kidnapped, one from Hong Kong, one from […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

RETHINKING THE CHALLENGE OF ANTI-MUSLIM BIGOTRY

November 15, 2017 by Kenan Malik

In 1997 the British anti-racist organisation the Runnymede Trust published its highly influential report Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All. The report both brought to public consciousness the reality of anti-Muslim bigotry and framed it in terms of ‘Islamophobia’ – indeed, it played a significant role in establishing the term as legitimate and important. Twenty years on, the Runnymede Trust has brought out a follow-up report Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, which is a stock-take on current views, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-racism, british politics, diversity, free speech, gill valentine, hate speech, iqbal sacranie, islam, islamophobia, multiculturalism, muslims, offence, racism, runnymede trust

FROM THE SATANIC VERSES TO THE AGE OF ANGER

November 9, 2017 by Kenan Malik

There is a long and thoughtful essay by James Ley in the Sydney Review of Books entitled ‘The Pleasure of Hating’ that reviews my From Fatwa to Jihad in parallel with Pankaj Mishra’s The Age of Anger. Here is an extract; the whole essay is well worth reading. . Extract from ‘The Pleasure of Hating’ by James Ley Sydney Review of Books, 24 October 2017 There is ultimately something a little lopsided about Mishra’s despairing argument in Age of Anger, which […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Politics • Tags: From Fatwa to Jihad, kenan malik's books, pankaj mishra, the age of anger, the satanic verses

HOLLOWING OUT DEMOCRACY AND LAW

November 5, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This article was published in the Observer, 5 November 2017, under the headline ‘In Spain, democracy and law are being reduced to hollow shells’. Eight former ministers of the ousted Catalonian government are in prison,awaiting charges of sedition and rebellion. A European arrest warrant has been issued for the apprehension of former Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, now holed up in Brussels. For supporters of the government, such strong-arm tactics in response to Catalonia’s declaration of independence is a necessary defence of the rule of law. For […]

Categories: International, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: carles puigdemont, catalonia, democracy, rule of law, spain

WHAT IS RIGHT? WHAT IS LEFT?

November 2, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is a video of a debate on ‘What is right? What is left?’ at the Festival of Questions in Melbourne in October. It was hosted by the Wheeler Centre. Seven of us had two minutes each to answer ‘What is right for immigration?’, ‘…for the economy?’ and ‘…for society?’. Sounds mad, but it was actually an engaging event.

Categories: Kenan Malik, Race & Immigration • Tags: australia, capitalism, debates, Economy, free speech, identity politics, immigration, left, right

PLUCKED FROM THE WEB #28

October 29, 2017 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. . Catalonia and European democracy Richard Youngs, Carnegie Europe, 6 October 2017 The EU clearly prioritizes the rule of law over participative democracy. The union ostensibly aspires to transcend traditional concepts of national sovereignty, yet it is a club of national governments. This helps account for the EU’s tepid response to the brutality of […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

IN SUPPORT OF OSMAN KAVALA

October 26, 2017 by Kenan Malik

Imagine a seminar in Washington. Around the table are Bernie Sanders supporters and alt right activists, fans of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump voters, auto workers and Wall Street bankers, abortion activists and Evangelical Christians. And all discussing the question of America’s political future, civilly and articulately, with deep disagreements but also with mutual respect. It would be difficult to imagine this in Washington. Still less that a similar seminar could take place in Istanbul. Yet, when I gave a […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: armenia, censorship, free speech, kurds, liberties, osman kavala, turkey

UBIRR AND BURRUNGGUY: ART THROUGH THE AGES

October 22, 2017 by Kenan Malik

Ubirr is to Australia as Chauvet and Lascaux are to Europe – perhaps the finest rock art on the continent. It lies in Arnhem Land in the far north, on the edge of the Nadab floodplain, in the traditional lands of the Gagudju people. Today, it is part of the Kakadu National Park. The art at Ubirr spans a period of perhaps 40,000 years from the Paleolithic to virtually the present. None of the art has been carbon-dated, so all […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Human • Tags: aboriginal art, art, australia, burrungguy, indigenous culture, nourlangie, rock art, ubirr

FROM THE SATANIC VERSES TO CHARLIE HEBDO

October 19, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is a talk I gave to the Integrity 20 conference in Brisbane, on 19 October 2017. On 14 February 1989, Valentine’s Day, the Ayotollah Khomeini issued his infamous fatwa against Salman Rushdie. It was a brutally shocking act that forced Salman Rushdie into hiding for almost a decade. 26 years later, on 7 January 2015, came an even more viscerally shocking act, when two gunmen forced their way into the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, sprayed […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, Free Speech, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: censorship, charlie hebdo, free speech, identity politics, islamism, left, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, salman rushdie, the satanic verses

THE PIANO AIN’T GOT NO WRONG NOTES

October 15, 2017 by Kenan Malik

‘The piano ain’t got no wrong notes’, Thelonious Monk once observed. Born 100 years ago this week, Monk was there at the beginnings of bebop in the 1940s, though he probably has never received the acclaim bestowed upon fellow bebop pioneers such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. It is common to describe Monk’s playing as ‘angular’, ‘splintered’ and ‘percussive’. And it is – complex, sometimes dissonant, with its odd accents, sudden changes and silences. But yet… ‘The piano ain’t got […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: bebop, jazz, music, thelonious monk