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Author Archives: Kenan Malik

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THE DRAMA OF THE RUSSIAN AVANT GARDE

June 12, 2016 by Kenan Malik

In France, the emergence of modernism in art, from Impressionism to Cubism, spanned half a century. In Russia, the avant-garde emerged and disappeared in little more than a decade, from around 1910 to the early 1920s. French avant-garde movements, succeeded each other, in an orderly progress – Impressionism, Pointilism, Fauvism, Cubism. In Russia, a tumult of avant-garde movements – Neo-Realism, Neo-Primitivism, Rayonism, Suprematisism, Constructivism, Non-Objectivism, Futurism –  tumbled forth almost simultaneously, their proponents often challenging each others’ perspectives. From the poetic […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: art, avant-garde, chagall, constructivism, malevich, russian avant-garde, russian revolution, socialist realism, stalin, suprematism

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‘I DON’T HAVE TO BE WHAT YOU WANT ME TO BE’

June 5, 2016 by Kenan Malik

‘A strange fate befell Muhammad Ali in the 1990s’, Mike Marqusee writes in Redemption Song, his wonderful, illuminating study of ‘Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties’. ‘The man who had defied the American establishment was taken into its bosom. There he was lavished with an affection which had been strikingly absent thirty years before, when for several years he reigned unchallenged as the most reviled figure in the history of American sports.’ The global outpouring of grief, affection […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Sport • Tags: boxing, freedom struggles, islam, james baldwin, mike marqusee, muhammad ali, nation of islam, racism, sport, usa, vietnam war

5

WHAT DOES ANTI-ZIONISM MEAN TODAY?

June 2, 2016 by Kenan Malik

My article on anti-Semitism and the left, first published in the International New York Times last month, has drawn some comment. Perhaps the most interesting come from those who take issue not with my points about anti-Semitism, but with my points about anti-Zionism: Many supporters of Israel today deem anti-Semitic any criticism of Zionism on the ground that it denies Jewish self-determination. That, too, is to confuse legitimate criticism of an ideology with illegitimate bigotry. Many respondents have argued that anti-Zionism […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: anti-semitism, anti-zionism, israel, jonathan sacks, left, palestine, zionism

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ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE LEFT

May 29, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of the article I wrote last month for the International New York Times on the controversy about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. (I cannot publish my INYT articles on Pandaemonium until a month after it is published in the newspaper.)  It was originally published under the headline ‘The British Left’s Jewish Problem’. I have slightly edited it to take account of the fact that the original was published before the London Mayoral election. It has, admitted […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: anti-semitism, conspiracy theories, identity politics, jeremy corbyn, ken livingstone, labour party, left, muslims, naz shah

11

CONNECTEDNESS AND DISCONNECTEDNESS

May 25, 2016 by Kenan Malik

In 2010, I spoke at a seminar in Oxford when Timothy Garton Ash launched his Free Speech project to explore the state of free speech in the contemporary world. Now, out of that project has come Garton Ash’s new book, called, unsurprisingly, Free Speech. So, it was a pleasure to be invited to discuss the issues again this week at a Guardian debate, at Conway Hall in London, to launch the book, together with Rowan Williams, Joanna Williams, Jonathan Freedand and, of course, […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: censorship, diversity, free speech, identity politics, timothy garton ash

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PLUCKED FROM THE WEB

May 22, 2016 by Kenan Malik

Another (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. . Why Spinoza Still Matters Steven Nadler, Aeon, 28 April 2016 At a time when Americans seem willing to bargain away their freedoms for security, when politicians talk of banning people of a certain faith from our shores, and when religious zealotry exercises greater influence on matters of law and public policy, Spinoza’s philosophy […]

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WARNING: THIS MAY INJURE YOUR MODESTY

May 19, 2016 by Kenan Malik

Ahmed Naji is an Egyptian novelist and journalist who, in February, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for ‘injuring public modesty’. In August 2014, Akhbar al-Adab, a state-funded literary magazine, had published an excerpt from his third novel, Istikhdam al-Hayah (Using Life), which had been previously approved by Egypt’s censorship authority. In the excerpt, the narrator smokes hashish, drinks alcohol with his friends, and enjoys a sexual relationship with a woman. Hani Saleh Tawfik, a 65-year-old Egyptian, filed a case against Naji, […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: ahmed naji, censorship, egypt, fiction, free speech

BEYOND FEAR AND INDIFFERENCE

May 15, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This essay on Sadiq Khan’s London Mayoral victory, Trevor Philips’new pamphlet on diversity and the public discourse on Islam was published in the Observer, under the headline ‘Muslims are not a ‘different’ class of Briton: we’re as messy as the rest’. ‘It shows it is possible to be Muslim and a Westerner. Western values are compatible with Islam.’ So said Sadiq Khan after his victory as London mayor. Trevor Phillips, former chief of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, takes […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Multiculturalism • Tags: britain, british asians, free speech, identity politics, islam, muslims, sadiq khan, trevor phillips

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THE VIEW FROM NORTH AFRICA

May 11, 2016 by Kenan Malik

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation has published a fascinating poll on attitudes to religion and politics in five North African countries (Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco). It reveals wide differences between the countries in political and religious attitudes – Tunisia being by far the least religious and most liberal, and Libya the most religious and conservative. There are also some depressingly familiar commonalities – particularly conspiracy theories about the creation Daech/IS. Tunisia is, of course, the only democracy among these states, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International • Tags: algeria, egypt, islam, libya, morocco, muslims, north africa, tunisia

13

IN THE FORTRESS OF THE PILGRIMS

May 8, 2016 by Kenan Malik

Herengracht 401 lies at the heart of Amsterdam’s beautiful canal district. For more than 70 years it was home to the artist Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht, known usually just as ‘Gisèle’. During the Second World War it was a place of safety for Jews and others fleeing the Nazis. Today it is home to Castrum Peregrini, originally set by Gisèle in the 1950s as a literary magazine, but which has evolved into a space for exhibitions, discussion and […]

Categories: History, International, Photos • Tags: art, castrum peregrini, freedom struggles, morality, netherlands, photography

4

THE BRITISH LEFT’S ‘JEWISH PROBLEM’

May 4, 2016 by Kenan Malik

A excerpt from my latest column for the International New York Times, on the controversy over anti-Semitism in the British Labour party: Anti-Semitism used to be a problem primarily of the right. It wasn’t that the left had a totally clean bill of health — there is a history of left-wing anti-Semitism — but its firm foundation of universal values and egalitarian principles established a proud tradition of fighting bigotry against Jews. . In recent decades, however, much of the […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-semitism, british politics, identity politics, labour party, racism

13

HOW SHOULD WE LIVE IN A DIVERSE SOCIETY?

May 2, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of my talk at the Castrum Peregrini in Amsterdam on 2 May. (Apologies for the  lack of links and references; I will sort them out in due course when I have more time.) ‘Can Europe be the same with different people in it?’ So asked the American writer Christopher Caldwell in his book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, published a few years ago. It is a question that has been asked with increasing urgency in […]

Categories: Free Speech, Multiculturalism • Tags: anti-semitism, christianity, clash of civilizations, diversity, europe, identity politics, immigration, integration, islam, judeo-christian tradition, karim miske, migration crisis, racism, trevor phillips

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THE STRANGE CASE OF THE VENUS AND THE COVER-UP

April 28, 2016 by Kenan Malik

Back in January, when Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made an official visit to Rome, something strange happened to the statues he might have seen. Giovanni Tiso, a New Zealand-based writer and translator, tells here the story. Rouhani’s visit, and the Venus cover-up, might have taken place three months ago, but it is worth retelling the story, and putting it into context, because this is the kind of casual censorship that in many ways defines our time. As Giovanni writes, ‘this kind […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: art, censorship, italy, nudity

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PLUCKED FROM THE WEB

April 24, 2016 by Kenan Malik

A (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 – the first in an occasional series on Panademonium. . The Assassin’s Veto: Blasphemy and Charlie Hebdo Myra MacDonald, War on the Rocks, 11 April 2016 You don’t need to like Charlie Hebdo. But you should asking why anyone should compromise with the most regressive forces in Islam represented by the men who killed […]

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TALKING ABOUT RADICALIZATION

April 20, 2016 by Kenan Malik

I took part last month in a discussion about ‘Contemporary Understandings of Radicalization’ at King’s College, London. Organised by the King’s College War Studies Society and the Remote Control Project, the other speakers were Shiraz Maher and Claire Lauterbach of Privacy International. Here is my introduction. One of the problems with discussing the concept of radicalization is that it can mean all things to all people. In one sense it simply means ‘the process by which terrorists become terrorists’. But, radicalization, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, War on terror • Tags: islam, islamism, jihadism, left, muslims, olivier roy, radicalization

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WELCOME TO PANDAEMONIUM

Kenan Malik

I am a writer, lecturer and broadcaster. My latest book is Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics.

Pandaemonium is a place for my writings, talks and photography. I also have a separate photography website called Light Infusion. You can (occasionally) find me on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. And you can contact me by email.

Kenan Malik

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