Author Archives: Kenan Malik

WAITING TO BE ARRESTED AT NIGHT

August 20, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This review of Tahir Hamut Izgil‘s Waiting to be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide was published in the Observer on 13 August 2023 A group of Uyghur friends are having a late-night chat. “I wish the Chinese would just conquer the world,” one says suddenly. “Why do you say that?” another asks, surprised. “The world doesn’t care what happens to us,” the first man replies. “Since we can’t have freedom anyway, let the whole world taste subjugation. […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International • Tags: china, tahir hamut izgil, uyghurs

ON BECOMING A WOKE VILLAIN

August 16, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how I became the centre of a minor controversy by speaking to civil servants, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 13 August 2023, under the headline “How I became a ‘woke’ villain with treacherous views too heretical for civil servants’ ears”. When I speak to civil servants next month about my book Not So Black and White, it will be, according to former home secretary Priti Patel, “an extraordinary betrayal of the voters who elected us to […]

Categories: Free Speech, Kenan Malik • Tags: censorship, civil service, dan kaszeta, immigration, priti patel, steven edginton

THE WARFARE OF THE CRADLE

August 9, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the new conservative natalism, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 6 August 2023, under the headline “Conservative calls for women to have more babies hide pernicious motives”. “I’ve done my bit by having six children, so now you do yours”, Jacob Rees-Mogg demanded of GB News viewers recently. Not so long ago, politicians were panicking about overpopulation. Now many worry that there are – or will be – too few people in the world. “There is […]

Categories: History, Politics, Women • Tags: benefit sanctions, conservatism, falling birthrates, giorgia meloni, identity politics, immigration, miriam cates, muslims, natalism, national conservatives, racial science, racism, theodore roosevelt, two child benefit limit, victor orban, white decline

SEEPING INTO THE MAINSTREAM

August 2, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how far-right ideas seep into mainstream even if far-right parties lose in elections, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 30 July 2023, under the headline “The far right don’t need to win elections to spread their malign ideas”. The Spanish elections last week did not unfold as many had predicted. The coalition of the centre-right People’s party and the far-right Vox failed in its bid for power, largely because the Vox vote plummeted, while the incumbent […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: afd, brexit, brothers of italy, european way of life, eurowhiteness, far right, giorgia meloni, hans kundnani, marine le pen, viktor orban, vox

THE SAUDIS PLAYING A GAME LONG ESTABLISHED

July 26, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Saudi sportswashing, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 23 July 2023, under the headline “Saudis don’t need the money that flows in modern sport, but they do crave the kudos”. Jordan Henderson has been captain of Liverpool FC for eight years. He is a senior member of the England squad. He has been one of the most a vocal champion of LGBT rights within football. “I do believe when you see something that is clearly […]

Categories: International, Sport • Tags: football, gay rights, hypocrisy, jamal khashoggi, jordan henderson, lgbt rights, mbs, premier league, saudi arabia, sportswashing

THE AMBIGUITIES OF MILAN KUNDERA

July 19, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This tribute to Milan Kundera was published in the Observer on 16 July 2023, under the headline “It’s in Milan Kundera’s ambiguities and contradictions that we find his truths”. The novelist, Milan Kundera once observed to fellow-writer Philip Roth, “teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question”. He feared that in a world in which people “prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than ask… the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: central europe, europe, european, milan kundera, national identity

FRANCE AND AMERICA, RACE AND RACISM

July 12, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the different approaches of France and America to issues of race and racism, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 9 July 2023, under the headline “France has been laissez-faire on race, the US proactive. Clearly, neither of them has it right”. Should public policy be “race conscious” or “colour blind”? Should it target the specific inequalities faced by minority groups or treat all citizens equally without any reference to individuals’ racial and cultural backgrounds? The […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties, Race & Immigration • Tags: affirmative action, assimilationism, black middle class, black working class, france, identity politics, inequality, multiculturalism, nahel merzouk, racism, universalism, usa, william julius wilson

TALKING NOT SO BLACK AND WHITE

June 29, 2023 by Kenan Malik

I have been taking part in a number of podcasts and interviews, talking about the themes of Not So Black and White. Below are three of my most recent ones, focussing mostly on the issues of race and class. The We Society podcast with Will Hutton The Popular Show podcast with James Smith ABC’s Late Night Live interview with Philip Adams Interview with Philip Adams

Categories: Kenan Malik, Not so Black and White

“THE ENEMY IS PUTIN, NOT PUSHKIN”

June 22, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on why the Ukraine war should not lead us to boycott Russian culture, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 18 June 2023, under the headline “We can revile Putin’s violence in Ukraine, but we’re not at war with Russian culture”. On 4 September 1939, the day after Britain had declared war on Germany, the BBC Proms opened with extracts from Richard Wagner’s works including The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Götterdämmerung, Tristan and Isolde, Tannhäuser and Die Walküre. Later concerts that year included works […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International • Tags: cultural boycott, culture, elizabeth gilbert, hanif kureishi, herder, russia, russian culture, sensitivity readers, ukraine war, vladimir putin, wagner

MORAL OUTSOURCING FROM HUMANS TO MACHINES

June 15, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the problem of blaming machines for human decisions, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 11 June 2023, under the headline “Fantasy fears about AI are obscuring how we already abuse machine intelligence”. Last November, a young African American man, Randal Quran Reid, was pulled over by the state police in Georgia as he was driving into Atlanta. He was arrested under warrants issued by Louisiana police for two cases of theft in New Orleans. Reid […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: ai, ai bias, artificial intelligence, chatgpt, facial recognition, moral outsourcing, moral panic, rumman chowdhury

TRAMPLING OVER BORDERS TO STOP THE BOATS

June 8, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how anti-immigration policies trample over the sovereignty of poorer nations, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 4 June 2023, under the headline “The EU pays Africa’s brutal militias to lock up migrants. Britain wants to follow suit”. “Please help, today one person self dead by petrol because hopeless.” Sally Hayden received the text in October 2018. The Irish Times journalist was one of the few outsiders trusted by refugees locked up in Libya. The text was about Abdulaziz, who […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: eu immigration policy, immigration policy, libya, robert jenrick, sally hayden, stop the boats

FREE SPEECH ADVOCATES DENYING FREE SPEECH

June 1, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on “free speech advocates” who seek to restrict free speech, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 28 May 2023, under the headline “If you defend free speech, you must defend it all and not silence those you disagree with”. Normally, I’m keen for this column to be widely read. This time, though, I hope not too widely. I’d be happy if it doesn’t catch the attention of Jacob Rees-Mogg or of government officials. I’m due to […]

Categories: Academia, Britain, Free Speech • Tags: censorship, dan kaszeta, free speech, free speech union, gender critical feminism, jacob rees-mogg, prevent, trans rights, universities

PROTEST AND DEMOCRACY

May 25, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on why democracy cannot function without protest, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 21 May 2023, under the headline “Once we ask the Lee Anderson question, our democracy is on a slippery slope”. “I’ve looked at your website and it says you embrace democracy,” Tory MP and Conservative Party deputy chair Lee Anderson said to Graham Smith, chief executive of the anti-monarchist campaign group Republic, during a Parliamentary Select Committee hearing last week. “If you embrace democracy so […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Britain • Tags: democracy, trade unions, right to protest, policing, lee anderson, anti-union laws, public order act

ON IMMIGRATION, NEUROTIC POLITICIANS AND A MORE RELAXED PUBLIC

May 18, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on why the public is more liberal about immigration than are politicians, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 14 May 2023, under the headline “It’s no longer ‘the will of the people’ to turn our back on asylum seekers”. “It is designed to meet the will of the British people in a humane and fair way.” So wrote the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, about the government’s Illegal Immigration Bill in […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: channel migrants, illegal immigration bill, immigration panics, immigration statistics, rwanda deportation scheme, suella braverman

THE LEGACIES OF THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS

May 14, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This review of Christopher Clark’s Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848-1849 was published in the Observer on 7 May 2023 “We are standing at a turning point in Europe’s fortunes”, warned the Prussian diplomat Joseph von Radowitz in February 1848. He was speaking of the year in which revolution spread through Europe at startling speed. In January, Sicily erupted in revolt against the Bourbon king Ferdinand II. Six weeks later, an insurrection in Paris overthrew the French king […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History • Tags: 1848 revolutions, christopher clark, liberalism, marxism, radicalism