Author Archives: Kenan Malik

DETERRENCE DOES NOT DETER

May 1, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on why deterrence policies fail, was published in the Observer on 28 April 2024, under the headline “For migrants, ‘deterrence’ doesn’t deter. It’s cruelty, not compassion, Mr Sunak”. “It underscores why you need a deterrent.” So claimed Rishi Sunak in response to the Channel tragedy last week that led to the deaths of five migrants off the coast of France, hours after the “Safety of Rwanda Bill”, Sunak’s “deterrent”, passed its final parliamentary hurdle. “Deterrence” has become the magic word to ease through every immigration policy, […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: asylum seekers, australia, channel migrants, eu immigration policy, immigration detention, immigration deterrence, manus island, nauru, stop the boats, turnback policy

LEFT AND RIGHT, FREE SPEECH AND HYPOCRISY

April 24, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on free speech and hypocrisy, was published in the Observer on 21 April 2024, under the headline “Left silences right, right silences left. But censorship stops us pushing for change”. Two conferences in two European cities. Two attempted bans (though only one successful). Two different responses from politicians and the media. All of which tells us something about the state of free speech today. Last Tuesday, Emir Kir, a mayor in Brussels, created international headlines when he tried to ban […]

Categories: Free Speech, International • Tags: anti-woke, anti-zionism, antisemitism, censorship, emir kir, free speech hypocrisy, george soros, germany, ghassan abu-sittah, national conservatives, nigel farage, palestine, yanis varoufakis

FROM DEFIANCE TO FRAGMENTATION

April 17, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Riz Ahmed’s TV trilogy Defiance, was published in the Observer on 14 April 2024, under the headline “Riz Ahmed’s Defiance: how the visceral racism of 70s Britain gave way to a new era of identity politics”. I can still remember the chill I felt on first hearing of the murders of Parveen Khan and her three young children, Aqsa, Kamran and Imran. It was July 1981. In the middle of the night, someone had poured petrol through the letter […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: asian youth movement, blacks and asians, british asians, george young, identity politics, inner city riots, parveen khan, political blackness, racism, racist attacks, riz ahmed, white identity

AGAINST RACISM, AGAINST BLASPHEMY LAWS

April 3, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the need to challenge blasphemy restriction, was published in the Observer on 31 March 2024 under the headline “What a teacher in hiding can tell us about our failure to tackle intolerance”. Three years ago, on 25 March 2021, a teacher from Batley Grammar School (BGS) in West Yorkshire was forced into hiding after a religious studies class he gave led to protests from Muslim parents and to death threats. Today, that incident has been largely forgotten. Except by the teacher. He can’t forget it […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain • Tags: batley grammar school, blasphemy, blasphemy laws, blasphemy restrictions, depictions of muhammad, gatekeepers, hate crimes, hate speech, islam, islamism, muslim action forum, muslims

LONELINESS IS NOT INSIDE YOUR HEAD

March 27, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the roots of the “loneliness epidemic”, was published in the Observer on 24 March 2024, under the headline “We think loneliness is in our heads, but its source lies in the ruin of civil society”. “The hope that political action will gradually humanise industrial society has given way to a determination to survive the general wreckage or, more modestly, to hold one’s own life together in the face of mounting pressures.” American historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch’s pessimistic […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Human • Tags: christopher lasch, loneliness, psychology, social disconnection, social fragmentation

THE TRAGEDY OF HAITI

March 20, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how the history has to the tragedy of today, was published in the Observer on 17 March 2024, under the headline “Plundered and corrupted for 200 years, Haiti was doomed to end in anarchy”. In December 1914, the USS Machias dropped anchor in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Eight US marines disembarked, sauntered to the Banque National de la République d’Haïti (BNRH), removed $500,000 worth of gold belonging to the Haitian government – $15m in today’s money – packed it in wooden […]

Categories: History, International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: aid state, cia, france, francois duvalier, haiti, haitian debt, jake johnston, jean-bertrand aristide, papa doc, us imperialism, usa

FEAR OF DEMOCRACY AS FEAR OF TECHNOLOGY

March 13, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what lies beneath existential fears of AI, was published in the Observer on 10 March 2024 under the headline “Elon Musk v OpenAI: tech giants are inciting existential fears to evade scrutiny”. In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, HG Wells published a novel about the possibilities of an even greater conflagration. The World Set Free imagines, 30 years before the Manhattan Project, the creation of atomic weapons that allow “a man [to] carry about in a handbag […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: ai, algorithmic bias, artificial intelligence, beatrice webb, chaptgpt, democracy, elon musk, hg wells, openai, sam altman, surveillance

ON THE LINE BETWEEN BIGOTRY AND CRITICISM

March 6, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the need to distinguish between criticism and bigotry, was published in the Observer on 3 March 2024, under the headline “Blurring the line between criticism and bigotry fuels hatred of Muslims and Jews”. Where do we draw the line between criticism and bigotry? From the uproar over Lee Anderson’s remarks about the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, being “controlled” by Islamists to the condemnation of slogans used on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, it is a question at the heart of current debates about […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Free Speech • Tags: anti-muslim hatred, anti-zionism, antisemitism, hate speech, ihra, islamism, islamophobia, jews, kenneth stern, muslims

THE DIFFERENCE OF SUNDERLAND

February 28, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on perceptions of Sunderland, was published in the Observer on 25 February 2024, under the headline “Sunderland may not be like London, Cynthia Erivo, but neither is it like the Britain of old”. “A day out of Sunderland is a day wasted.” So claimed Charlie Slater, council leader in the 1970s, and a man known as “Mr Sunderland” to generations of Mackems. Actor and singer Cynthia Erivo is unlikely to agree. On a social media clip taken from an appearance on […]

Categories: Britain, Class • Tags: cynthia eviro, david olusoga, far right, racism, sunderland, white identity, white working class, working class

RHAPSODY IN BLUE AND BLACK AND WHITE

February 21, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the centenary of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, was published in the Observer on 18 February 2024 under the headline “A century on from Rhapsody in Blue, debates about cultural ‘theft’ rage still”. “The future music of this country must be founded upon what are called negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States.” So wrote the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, in […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: albert murray, amiri baraka, black culture, black music, classical music, cultural appropriation, george gershwin, harlem renaissance, high art, james baldwin, jazz, leonard bernstein, music, racism, ralph ellison, rhapsody in blue

CASTING OUT THE UNJEWS

February 14, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the history of ostracism of Jewish supporters of the Palestinian people, was published in the Observer on 11 February 2024 under the headline “Denouncing critics of Israel as ‘un-Jews’ or antisemites is a perversion of history”. William Zuckerman was born in 1885 in the Pale of Settlement, that part of the Russian empire to which Jews were largely confined, a place of poverty and pogroms. His family managed to escape, emigrating to America in 1900. During the First World […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Justice & Liberties, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: 7 october attack, american jewish committee, antisemitism, claudine gay, derek penslar, don peretz, emily dische-becker, eyal weizman, free speech, geoffrey levin, germany, hamas, israel, palestinian solidarity, susan neiman, tablet, un-jews, usa, william zuckerman, zionism

WHY THE WORK OF A ROMANTIC MARXIST DISSENTER REMAINS ESSENTIAL

February 7, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the legacy of historian EP Thompson, was published in the Observer on 4 February 2024 under the headline “What a legendary historian tells us about the contempt for today’s working class”. It is not often that, as a teenager, you get captured by a 900-page tome (unless it has “Harry Potter” in the title). Even less when it is a dense book of history, telling in meticulous detail stories of 18th-century weavers and colliers, shoemakers and shipwrights. […]

Categories: Class, Culture & Books, History • Tags: class consciousness, ep thompson, left, marxism, romanticism, the making of the english working class, the new left, working class

WHY DON’T BRITISH WORKERS HAVE BRITISH HOMES?

January 25, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the cynical use of the slogan “British homes for British workers” was published in the Observer on 21 January 2024 under the headline “‘British homes for British workers’ is an empty, century-old, xenophobic slogan”. “Not a day passes but English families are ruthlessly turned out to make room for the foreign invaders.” “They can’t get a home for their children, they see black and ethnic minority communities moving in and they are angry.” “Millions of ordinary people up and down […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: antisemitism, housing, immigration, margaret hodge, matthew goodwin, racism, social housing, william evans-gordon, working class, xenophobia

A STORY OF MISOGYNY, CONTEMPT AND BETRAYAL

January 24, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the “grooming gangs” scandal, was published in the Observer on 21 January 2024 under the headline “Amid class prejudice and sensitivities over race, Rochdale’s abused girls were failed”. “Child 44” was raped by many men over a long period of time, eventually forced to have an abortion, aged 13. None of her abusers was charged with rape against her; many were not even interviewed. After the termination, the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) seized possession of the foetus […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Race & Immigration, Women • Tags: child abuse, child sexual exploitation, grooming gangs, misogyny, muslims, pakistanis, racism, rape, rochdale, telford, three girls, working class

WHO GETS LISTENED TO AND WHO GETS IGNORED

January 17, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on national scandals and the lack of public accountability was published in the Observer on 14 January 2024 under the headline “What makes a very British miscarriage of justice? Contempt for the ‘little people’”. “It was a scandal hiding in plain sight.” “The result of a series of choices, the sum of state neglect and corporate wrongdoing.” “Most assumed that they had been caught up in a bureaucratic tangle; few guessed that thousands of others were experiencing the […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Justice & Liberties • Tags: amelia gentleman, fujitsu, grenfell fire, kimia zabihyan, mr bates vs the post office, peter apps, post office scandal, theresa may, windrush generation