Author Archives: Kenan Malik

I BELIEVE IN FREE SPEECH, BUT…

March 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

I took part this week in a debate at London’s Queen Mary College on the motion ‘This House believes in the right to offend’. Speaking with me for the motion was Pater Tatchell. Oposing the motion was Brian Klug and Anshuman Mondal. (I debated Mondal on this issue online last year.) Here are my introductory comments. Oh, and we won the debate. One of the ironies of debating free speech is that no one is actually against it. Anshuman Mondal […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: avijit roy, censorship, free speech, offence, religious freedom

STILL TO BOLDLY GO?

March 9, 2015 by Kenan Malik

There have been many tributes to Leonard Nimoy and to Star Trek in the wake of his death last week. Few have captured the spirit of wonder and discovery represented by the series or the role of Spock as ‘the conscience of Star Trek‘ as well as this essay by the writer Leigh Phillips; nor the loss of that spirit over the past three decades, and the growth of anti-modernist sentiment, of philistinism and of hostility to Enlightenment ideas. ‘The Romulans […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Science & Technology • Tags: enlightenment, jonathan israel, nasa, radical enlightenment, space travel, spinoza, spock, star trek

VOTE, VOTE, VOTE

March 7, 2015 by Kenan Malik

The Israeli elections are coming up. The British elections are coming up. But before all that there’s a different kind of vote: for the annual 3 Quarks Daily Politics and Social Science blogging award. For those who don’t know, 3 Quarks Daily is a wonderful web-based magazine/portal which annually hosts an award for the best online writing on politics and social science. There are this year 29 nominees, one of which is my essay ‘Assimilationism vs multiculturalism’. 3QD readers get to […]

Categories: Kenan Malik, Pandaemonium • Tags: 3 quarks daily, competitions

FIVE TALES OF GOOD AND EVIL

March 5, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Today being World Book Day, I am publishing five extracts from my book The Quest for a Moral Compass, that explore five books from the ancient and medieval worlds, some well-known, some almost forgotten, but all of which have helped shape our thinking about right and wrong, good and evil – Homer’s Iliad, a foundation stone of Ancient Greek culture; the Mahabharata, the first of the two great epics of Hinduism; Mozi, the only work we have of ancient China’s […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: book of job, chinese philosophy, christianity, greek philosophy, hay ibn yaqzan, history of moral thought, homer, ibn tuff, iliad, islamic philosophy, judaism, mahabharata, mo tzu, morality

THE MAKING OF WANNABE JIHADIS IN THE WEST

March 1, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This essay was published in the Observer, 1 March 2015, under the headline ‘The search for identity draws jihadis to the horrors of Isis’. First it was Shamima Begum, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, three schoolgirls from Tower Hamlets who smuggled themselves to Syria during their half term holiday. Then it was ‘Jihadi John’, the IS executioner who was unmasked by the Washington Post this week as the Kuwaiti-born Londoner Mohammed Emwazi. The stories of the three schoolgirls and of […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, War on terror • Tags: identity politics, islam, islamic state, islamism, jihadi john, jihadism, left, radicalisation, western policy

BE PRAGMATIC, LEGITIMISE TERROR

February 25, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Shortly after the attack on the free speech meeting in Copenhagen earlier this month, I gave an interview to Anton Geist of the Danish newspaper Information. It was published last week. Here is a rough translation (my interview was given in English, so parts of this have undergone a double translation, from English to Danish and back to English again). If we say it’s wrong to give offence, we provide terrorists with their arguments by Anton Geist, Information, 21 February 2015 A […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: andrew brown, copenhagen attack, denmark, free speech, hanif kureishi, islamism, lars vilks, liberalism, liberties, muslims, rushdie affair, self-censorship

WHAT’S IMMORAL ABOUT ALLEVIATING SUFFERING?

February 23, 2015 by Kenan Malik

My latest column for the New York Times is on the debate about ‘three parent babies’, published in the NYT under the headline ‘The Three-Parent Baby’s First Step’. Here are the opening paragraphs. You can read the full article in the NYT. The British Parliament can be an archaic, backward-looking institution, wedded to tradition, and not known for taking a revolutionary stance. Yet its members have just made a groundbreaking decision, one that no other legislature has so far been willing to […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: biotechnology, britain, ethics, mitochondrial transfer, playing god, three parent baby

ISTANBUL THROUGH A DIFFERENT EYE

February 21, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Yener Torun is an Istanbul-based architect with a wonderful eye for the colours and forms of a city. His Instagram photos are stunning, revealing not simply what a city can look like, but also what we often do not see. Yener generously allowed me to republish some of his photos on Pandemonium. So here, through the eye (and lens) of Yener Torun, is Istanbul as few will have have seen it, not the Istanbul of ancient buildings, grand mosques and tradition, but […]

Categories: Photos • Tags: istanbul, modernism, photography, yener torun

THE FAILURE OF MULTICULTURALISM

February 17, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is an essay about multiculturalism in Europe that I wrote for the latest issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, which has a series of features on ‘The Trouble with Race’. 1 Thirty years ago, many Europeans saw multiculturalism – the embrace of an inclusive, diverse society – as an answer to Europe’s social problems. Today, a growing number consider it to be a cause of them. That perception has led some mainstream politicians, including British Prime Minister David Cameron […]

Categories: Britain, International, Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: assimilationism, britain, british asians, europe, france, germany, handsworth riots, identity politics, immigration, islam, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, turkish migrants, working class

JACOB LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT MIGRATION (5)

February 15, 2015 by Kenan Malik

I have been running a series of posts about Jacob Lawrence and his depiction of the Great Migration. Lawrence was one of America’s most important twentieth century painters, and the Great Migration, the exodus of African Americans from the Southern states to the Northern cities from 1915 onwards, one of the pivotal events of American history. Lawrence portrayal of that exodus, an epic work of 60 panels, is his most famous work, a work as much of historical memory as […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Race & Immigration • Tags: african americans, art, harlem renaissance, jacob lawrence, the great migration, usa

PANDAEMONIUM: THE ESSENTIAL LIST

February 13, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Pandaemonium is four years old. (The birthday was actually last month, but I’m never good with dates…) I thought that it was time I updated my list of ‘essential readings’ from the blog that I publish on my Introduction page. So, for those who have not read them yet, here are 21 essays, talks and reviews from over the past four years that I think best set out my arguments and ideas. And if you want even more, there is […]

Categories: Pandaemonium • Tags: pandaemonium

BRITAIN AND FRANCE, CENSORSHIP AND IDENTITY

February 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

I took part in a discussion at the Institut Français in London featuring the French film-maker Karim Miské, whose debut novel Arab Jazz, a noirish policier set in a Parisian banlieue, has just been published. The discussion, in the shadow of the Charlie Hebdo killings, focussed on questions of Islam, identity, free speech and the differences between British and French social policy. Also taking part in the discussion were the translator Ben Faccini, Jo Glanville, director of English PEN, and the journalist Suzanne […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, Multiculturalism • Tags: anti-semitism, assimilationism, britain, censorship, charlie hebdo, france, free speech, identity politics, islam, jihadism, multiculturalism, muslims, national identity, racism, secularism

THE MISADVENTURES OF THE BLACK SQUARE

February 7, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Adventures of the Black Square. It is a brilliant title for an exhibition about twentieth century abstract geometric art. The black square is Kazimir Malevich’s Black Quadrilateral, first displayed in 1915 in the 0.10 The Last Futurist Exhibition in St Petersburg; its adventures, the artistic reworking of that seminal concept through the following century. ‘One of the greatest legacies of the black square’, writes Iwona Balzwick, curator of the exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery, ‘was that it landed like a […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: abstract art, alexander rodchenko, art, dora maurer, el lissitzky, gaspar gasparian, geraldo de barros, helio oiticica, lyubov popova, modernism, nasreen mohamedi, postmodernism, vladimir malevich, werner mantz

UNITED AGAINST ABORTION

February 4, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This week the High Court in Belfast granted a judicial review of Northern Ireland’s abortion law. The 1967 Abortion Act, which legalised abortion in England, Scotland and Wales – or, to be more precise, provided a legal defence for those carrying out the operation in certain circumstances – specifically excluded Northern Ireland from its provisions. Today, abortion is legal in Northern Ireland only if a woman’s life is at risk or if pregnancy would have an adverse effect on her […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Women • Tags: 1967 abortion act, abortion, britain, ireland, northern ireland, religion, women's rights

JACOB LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT MIGRATION (4)

February 1, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Continuing my posts republishing the paintings from Jacob Lawrence’s Great Migration series, I have reached panels 31-40. Lawrence was one of America’s most important twentieth century painters, though one who has rarely received great public recognition, and the Great Migration, the exodus of African Americans from the Southern states to the Northern cities from 1915 onwards, one of the pivotal events of American history, though again not often recognized as such. Lawrence’s portrayal of that event, and of its existential impact, […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Race & Immigration • Tags: african americans, art, jacob lawrence, the great migration, usa