Kenan Malik

BEAUTY IS A RARE THING

June 12, 2015 by Kenan Malik

People walked out of his gigs, musicians refused to play with him. For many, Ornette Coleman’s music was unplayable and unlistenable. Of all the great innovators in jazz, Coleman was the one least willing to compromise or to backtrack. John Coltrane observed, in 1961, that the 12 minutes he had spent on stage with Coleman amounted to ‘the most intense moment of my life’. His death this week deprives us of one of the great, truly great, musicians of the […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: jazz, ornette coleman

AN ELEGY TO THE CRANE

June 6, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Oxford may be a city of spires. London is a city of cranes. There is almost no vista unsullied by those markers of urban development. Cranes are the epitome of the industrial, the brutal, the ugly. They are also a symbol of urban change and renewal. And, for all their brutal ugliness, cranes can be surprisingly visually striking, even photogenic. So here is my elegy to the crane. Two of the photos, incidentally, are not of London. I will leave […]

Categories: Photos • Tags: london, photos

I BELIEVE IN FREE SPEECH, BUT…

June 3, 2015 by Kenan Malik

My talk at the Oslo Freedom Forum last week. For more videos of talks from the conference, many of which were moving and inspiring, visit the OFF website.

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: censorship, free speech, islam, liberalism, liberties, oslo freedom forum, racism, talks

AM I WRONG ABOUT HATE SPEECH BANS?

May 31, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Brian Carey, a political theorist based at the Universities of Limerick and Manchester, has responded to my previous post that made a case against the banning of hate speech. I am publishing his response here (he has published it also on his website) together with my reply below. My thanks to Brian for engaging in the debate, and I hope that this exchange is useful in helping to clarify ideas. . Brian Carey Why hate speech should be banned 1 Malik […]

Categories: Free Speech, Justice & Liberties, Race & Immigration • Tags: brian carey, british politics, censorship, free speech, hate speech, immigration, muslims, racism

THINKING THROUGH HATE SPEECH

May 28, 2015 by Kenan Malik

The Oslo Freedom Forum this week was a wonderfully stimulating experience – intense, illuminating and often inspiring, meeting writers, artists and activists who often daily put their lives on the line defending rights and liberties. I gave a talk in the session on ‘The right to offend’. It was an honour to speak alongside the Iranian satirist Kambiz Hosseini, the Venezuelan political cartoonist Rayma Suprani and Zineb El Rhazoui, a columnist for Charlie Hebdo. Moroccan-born El Rhazoui gave a scorching […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: free speech, hate speech, oslo freedom forum, racism

EAST, WEST AND THE RENAISSANCE

May 24, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Last week I published a talk that I had given at the Palais de Beaux-Arts in Brussels. The talk, ‘The many roots of Christian Europe, the many sources of to Islamic world’ was one in a series given to accompany an exhibition, ‘The Sultan’s World: The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Art’, organized by Bozar, the Centre for Fine Arts. It is a groundbreaking exhibition that focuses on the period from the late fifteenth century to the early seventeenth, the period […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History • Tags: art, christianity, europe, ottoman empire, renaissance, titian

ON FREEDOM AND FREE WILL

May 21, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This review of Julian Baggini’s Freedom Regained and John Gray’s The Soul of the Marionette is published in the summer 2015 edition of New Humanist. From Tunisia to Tibet, from Russia to Kurdistan, from Syria to the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo – the quest for freedom is central to people’s lives, a quest so vital that many are willing to give their own lives to ensure its success. For many intellectuals, however, freedom is but an illusion, a self-serving […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Human, Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: determinism, free will, freedom struggles, gnosticism, human agency, john gray, julian baggini, materialism, morality, sam harris

THE PRICE OF FORTRESS EUROPE

May 14, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of my article on the Mediterranean migrant tragedy, first published in the New York Times last month, at the start of the current crisis, under the headline ‘Migrants face Fortress Europe’s deadly moat’. ( I cannot publish my New York Times articles on Pandaemonium until the following month.) Up to 1,200 people are believed to have died this past week when, in several incidents, their flimsy boats foundered in the Mediterranean. These migrants from Syria, […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: european union, fortress europe, immigration, italy, racism

A CATHEDRAL, A MOSQUE, A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS

May 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels on 10 May 2015 on ‘The many roots of Christian Europe, the many sources of the Islamic world’. It was part of a series of talks to accompany an exhibition of ‘The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Art’ entitled ‘L’Empire du Sultan’. I want to begin this talk in two cities at opposite ends of Europe – Córdoba and Istanbul. Córdoba’s Mosque-Cathedral is one of […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History • Tags: christianity, clash of civilizations, cordoba, enlightenment, europe, greek philosophy, hagia sophia, ibn rushd, islam, istanbul, jonathan israel, monotheism, muslim philosophy, muslim rationalism, ottoman empire, radical enlightenment, religion, socrates

A FRAGMENTED KINGDOM

May 8, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is from my article on the British general election published in the International New York Times, 8 May 2015: Before the election, with most commentators expecting an indecisive result, there was widespread discussion about the issue of legitimacy: Would a minority government, or a coalition of disparate parties, have a genuine mandate to govern? Thursday’s result may have prevented the feared constitutional wrangling, but it has raised deeper questions of legitimacy. . ‘I want to reclaim the mantle that […]

Categories: Britain • Tags: british politics, conservatives, election, labour party

LIVING IN DIVERSITY

May 4, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at a conference last month in Oslo on diversity, faith and extremism. How should we live in a diverse society? It is a question that has been asked with increasing urgency in recent years as the question of immigration, and in particular of Islamic immigration, has taken centre stage in public debate. At the heart of this question lies the dilemma of how Western societies should respond to the influx of […]

Categories: Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: assimilation, britain, civil society, cultural diversity, europe, france, free speech, immigration, integration, islam, islamism, jihadism, karim miske, multiculturalism, racism

OPERATIC LINES

May 2, 2015 by Kenan Malik

There seem to be as many cranes in Oslo as in London – every corner you turn leads to a building site. And as in London many of the new buildings are abominations – the kind of anonymous yet narcissistic postmodern architecture that now squats in many of the world’s major cities. The Opera House is different. Designed by Norwegian architects Snøhetta, responsible also for the stunning Bibliotheca Alexandrina, it is a magnificent building, subtle but spellbinding, with its angled […]

Categories: Photos • Tags: oslo, oslo opera house, photos

WRONG ABOUT FREE SPEECH – AGAIN

April 29, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Earlier this week six writers – Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi – withdrew from the PEN American Center’s annual gala on 5 May in protest against the free speech organization’s decision to give the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo its annual Freedom of Expression Courage Award. In an email to PEN, Kushner said she was withdrawing because of Charlie Hebdo‘s ‘cultural intolerance’ and its promotion of ‘a kind of forced secular view’. Carey criticised […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: charlie hebdo, english pen, france, francine prose, free speech, islamophobia, left, liberalism, liberties, michael ondaatje, muslims, peter carey, racism

MARX AND MORALITY

April 26, 2015 by Kenan Malik

To accompany the newly-published paperback edition of The Quest for a Moral Compass, I am running a series of extracts from the book. Previous extracts were on Joshua Greene’s idea of two modes of moral thinking and on whether universalism is merely a form of Western particularism. This extract, from Chapter 13, ‘The challenge of history’, examines Marx’s claim to be a moral thinker. You can buy The Quest for a Moral Compass in most bookshops, through Amazon or from […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: anti-capitalism, capitalism, communism, hegel, history of moral thought, left, marx, marxism, morality, working class

MIGRANTS FACE FORTRESS EUROPE’S DEADLY MOAT

April 22, 2015 by Kenan Malik

My latest column for the New York Times is on the tragedy of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean and the immorality of the EU policy. Here are the opening paragraphs. You can read the full article in the NYT. The image above is by Arianno Vairo from the New York Times. Up to 1,200 people are believed to have died this past week when, in several incidents, their flimsy boats foundered in the Mediterranean. These migrants from Syria, Mali, Eritrea, […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: european union, fortress europe, immigration, italy