Author Archives: Kenan Malik

PROTECT PEOPLE’S LIVES, NOT THE MING VASE

June 26, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Labour Party election policy, was published in the Observer on 23 June 2024 under the headline “Improving people’s lives should be Labour’s first priority. Not that Ming vase”. This should be an election at the heart of which are the issues of poverty, inequality, precarity and low pay. It is, after all, a campaign in which the cost of living, the state of public services, the price of austerity and the failure of politicians and institutions to […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: charles booth, child poverty, food banks, food insecurity, gig economy, job insecurity, joseph rowntree, labour party, low pay, lynsey hanley, ming vase strategy, poverty, social housing, two child benefit limit, welfare sanctions

IS “FAR RIGHT” A REDUNDANT LABEL?

June 19, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on whether the label “far right” still has any meaning, was published in the Observer on 16 June 2024 under the headline “Far-right policies don’t become palatable just because mainstream politicians adopt them”. Far right? Hard right? Radical right? Or just plain right? The success in the recent EU elections of parties such as Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, or RN, (the rebadged Front National), and Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), has generated a debate about whether the […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: afd, demonisation, far right, giorgia meloni, hard right, immigration, marine le pen, matthew goodwin, populism, racism, radical right, rassemblement national, ursula von der leyen

IN FOOTBALL AS IN POLITICS, THE ELITE PLAY VICTIM

June 12, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Manchester City “declaring war on the football elite”, was published in the Observer on 9 June 2024 under the headline “Playing the victim card is how elites game the system. Just look at Manchester City”. If you want a metaphor for the state of contemporary politics, you could do worse than keep an eye on the football. Not Euro 24, the tournament that begins at the end of the week, though it should be gripping, but rather […]

Categories: Sport • Tags: abu dhabi, english premier league, financial fair play, football, manchester city, psr, qatar, roman abramovich, saudi arabia, sheikh mansour, uefa, working class

LOW-VALUE DEGREES OR LOW-VALUE PEOPLE?

June 5, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the argument against “low value degrees”, was published in the Observer on 2 June 2024, under the headline “The affluent can have their souls enriched at university, so why not the poor as well?”. “We must crack down on low-value university degrees.” Who claimed that and when? It might have been Rishi Sunak last October. Or Sunak last July. Or Sunak the previous August. Or Nadhim Zahawi five months earlier. Or Michelle Donelan in November 2020. Or Gavin Williamson in May 2020. Or Damian Hinds the previous year. […]

Categories: Academia, Britain • Tags: apprenticeships, education, humanities, low-value degrees, poverty, rishi sunak, stem, universities

REACTIONARY STEREOTYPES RECAST AS DIVERSITY

May 29, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the promotion of diversity can replay reactionary stereotypes of the working class, was published in the Observer on 26 May 2024 under the headline “Job ads aimed at the ‘benefits class’ may be well-meant, but smack of contempt”. Imagine the scene. It’s a small organisation within the creative industry – an arts centre, perhaps, or a theatre group. Around a table sit people trying to craft a job ad for a senior management role. All recognise the need for […]

Categories: Britain, Class • Tags: benefit class, charles murray, criminal class, demonisation, george osborne, henry mayhew, ipp, problem families, skivers, stereotypes, the bell curve, tony blair, underclass, working class, working class stereotypes

A EULOGY TO A FOOTBALL ROMANTIC

May 22, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, a tribute Jürgen Klopp, was published in the Observer on 19 May 2024 under the headline “Jürgen Klopp brought not only victories but a fan’s passion for the game”. “It’s not so important what people think when you come in”, Jürgen Klopp observed on being unveiled as Liverpool manager in October 2015. “It’s much more important what people think when you leave.” Today is the day Klopp leaves. It is the final day of the Premier League season in England, and Manchester City will probably […]

Categories: Sport • Tags: english premier league, esl, european super league, football, football romanticism, jurgen klopp, liverpool fc, manchester city, pep guardiola, premier league, romanticism, sheikh mansour

CLASS, NOT NATIONALITY, DEFINES EXPLOITATION

May 15, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on globalisation and exploitation, was published in the Observer on 12 May 2024 under the headline “National sovereignty is little defence against the global hunt for profits”. “Do you think you could live on £4.87 an hour?” Liam Byrne, the chair of the Commons business and trade committee, asked Peter Hebblethwaite, the chief executive of P&O Ferries, last Tuesday. “No, I couldn’t,” Hebblethwaite replied. “Why do you think that your staff should have to live on that?” Byrne continued. […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: dp world, dubai, exploitation, free ports, globalisation, grant shapps, minimum wage, neoliberalism, p&o, quinn slobodian, rishi sunak, trade unions, workers rights

IMPRISONED BY THE POLITICS OF DEMONISATION

May 8, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the scandal of IPP prisoners, was published in the Observer on 5 May 2024, under the headline “Unfair jail sentences – one more example of demonising society’s ‘morally unfit’”. David Blunkett acknowledged last week that it was the “biggest regret” of his political life. As home secretary under Tony Blair in 2001, Blunkett was the architect of the “imprisonment for public protection” scheme, or IPP. Under the IPP system, offenders were given a sentence (or “tariff”) proportionate to the […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties • Tags: demonisation, injustice, ipp, new labour, prisons, respect agenda, richard sennett, tony blair, ungripp

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