Category Archives: Atheism & Religion

AFTER PARIS

November 15, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Solidarity and anger. Those were my immediate emotions, watching the carnage unfold on the streets of Paris. Solidarity with the people of Paris, anger at the depraved, nihilistic savagery of the terrorists. Those remain my main emotions, even now. But, beyond solidarity and anger, we need also analysis. So here are two articles, thinking through some of the issues. The first looks at, and challenges, two popular explanations for why the carnage was unleashed – Western foreign policy, on the […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International, Politics, War on terror • Tags: anti-imperialism, assimilationism, british politics, france, imperialism, islamic state, islamism, jihadism, multiculturalism, syria, terrorism

RADICALIZATION IS NOT SO SIMPLE

October 7, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of my talk entitled ‘The Making of European Jihadis’ that I gave to the International Institute at the University of Michigan this week. (I have not had time to put in the links and references; I will do so soon.) Ifthekar Jaman was born in Portsmouth, on the south coast of England, one of four children. His parents, Enu Miah and Hena Choudhury, were first generation immigrants from Bangladesh, who had come to Portsmouth in 1981, opened […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, War on terror • Tags: europe, france, identity politics, islam, islamic state, islamism, jihadism, left, multiculturalism, racism, radicalization, working class

INTRODUCING… JESUS AND MO

September 30, 2015 by Kenan Malik

It is perhaps appropriate that a new Danish collection of Jesus and Mo cartoons should be published this week, the tenth anniversary of publication of the original Danish cartoons. This is the foreword that I have written for the new collection. Satire can be a deadly business these days. Especially for those satirists who see it as their business to mock religion. And most especially for those who dare to mock Islam. The murderous assault on the Paris office of […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Free Speech • Tags: free speech, islam, jesus and mo

FROM THE ARCHIVES: KAUFMANN ON RELIGION

August 25, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Continuing my series of old book reviews that I am publishing while I am away in South Africa, here is my review of Eric Kaufmann’s Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, originally published in the Observer, 1 May 2010. Review of Eric Kaufmann, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the 21st Century Observer, 1 May 2010 Europe, 2020. The Islamists have stormed to power right across the continent. No English pub can sell alcohol. Every French woman […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books • Tags: demography, eric kaufmann, islam, mark steyn, religion, secularism

BEYOND THE CLICHES ABOUT RADICALISATION

July 22, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Another week, another major speech about the threat of radical Islam and of jihadism, another set of policies to deal with the problem. On Monday, David Cameron gave his latest high profile speech about what he called ‘the struggle of our generation’.The trouble with most of these speeches is that they are rooted in false perceptions of the problem. And the trouble with most of these initiatives is that their real impact is not so much in combating jihadism as […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, War on terror • Tags: british politics, david cameron, identity politics, islamic state, islamism, jihadism, muslims, radicalisation

EVIL AND THE ISLAMIC STATE

July 16, 2015 by Kenan Malik

‘The problem of evil’, Hannah Arendt wrote in 1945, ‘will be the fundamental question of postwar intellectual life in Europe.’ The historical and moral significance of contemporary jihadism is miniscule when compared to that of the Holocaust and the Final Solution. And yet jihadism has raised again the question of evil. Not evil in the sense of genocide but as expressed through acts of barbarity so inhuman that they are difficult to comprehend. The barbarism of Islamic State, in particular, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: anti-humanism, anti-imperialism, evil, freedom struggles, hannah arendt, identity politics, islam, islamic state, islamism, jihadism, left, marc sageman, morality

BRITAIN’S DANGEROUS TRIBALISM

July 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

From ‘Britain’s Dangerous New Tribalism’, my latest column for the International New York Times: This exodus to Syria has led non-Muslims to point an accusing finger at Muslim communities. Last month, the prime minister, David Cameron, condemned those who, though not violent, ‘buy into’ the prejudices of Islamism and ‘quietly condone’ the actions of the Islamic State. A poll published last week found that 56 percent of Britons thought that Islam posed a threat to Western liberal democracy, a figure […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, War on terror • Tags: 7/7, british politics, identity politics, islam, islamism, multiculturalism, war on terror

BACK TO BRADFORD FOR AN OLD DEBATE

June 21, 2015 by Kenan Malik

A Dutch TV company, VPRO, is making a documentary about the Rushdie affair, partly using my book From Fatwa to Jihad as a template. And as part of the documentary it wanted a ‘renunion’ between myself and Sher Azam, the president of the Bradford Council of Mosques in the 1980s and the man who organized the torching of The Satanic Verses at the end of the famous demonstration in January 1989. I was not at the demonstration, but shortly afterwards went […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Free Speech • Tags: bradford, equality, free speech, gay marriage, islam, liberalism, liberties, religious freedom, rushdie affair, sher azam, the satanic verses

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

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

RADICAL ISLAM AND THE RAGE AGAINST MODERNITY

January 28, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of the article on ‘Radical Islam, Nihilist Rage’ published last month in the New York Times. Faced with a horror such as the slaughter of 148 schoolchildren and staff by the Taliban in Pakistan, it is tempting to describe the act as ‘inhuman’ or ‘medieval’. What made the massacre particularly chilling, though, is that it was neither. The killings were all too human and of our time. The Peshawar massacre may have been particularly abhorrent, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International, Justice & Liberties, War on terror • Tags: anti-imperialism, boko haram, frantz fanon, islam, islamic state, islamism, left, pakistan, religion, taliban

HOW A BUNCH OF VICIOUS CHANCERS BECAME MEN OF WISDOM

January 25, 2015 by Kenan Malik

‘The world has lost a revered leader’, claimed US Secretary of John Kerry on the death last week of Saudi King Abdullah, a ‘man of wisdom and vision’, in Kerry’s words. David Cameron praised his ‘commitment to peace’ and ordered flags to be flown at half mast on government buildings. Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, even hailed him as a proto-feminist, a ‘strong advocate of women’. In reality, the man that virtually every Western leader has […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History, International • Tags: arab world, imperialism, islam, islamism, saudi arabia, wahhabism, western policy

RADICAL ISLAM, NIHILIST RAGE

January 5, 2015 by Kenan Malik

My latest column for the New York Times is on radical Islam and about what acts such as the massacre of school children in Peshawar by the Taliban tell us about Islam and about radicalism. Here are the opening paragraphs; you can read the full version in the NYT. Faced with a horror like the slaughter of 148 schoolchildren and school staff members by the Taliban in Pakistan, it is tempting to describe the act as ‘inhuman’ or ‘medieval’. What made […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, International, Justice & Liberties, War on terror • Tags: anti-imperialism, islam, islamism, religion, taliban, western policy

A SNIPPET OF THE QUEST: ISLAM’S LOST TRADITIONS

September 17, 2014 by Kenan Malik

The US and Canadian edition of The Quest for a Moral Compass is now out. I am in New York and Toronto to talk about it. While I am away, I am publishing on Pandaemonium short extracts from the book. This first two snippets were on Aeschylus’ Oresteia and the philosophy of Mo Tzu. This third extract is from Chapter 8, and looks at the battle between the Rationalists and the Traditionalists in early Islamic philosophy. . From The Quest […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: al-ghazzali, al-kindi, history of moral thought, ibn rushd, ibn sina, islam, islamic philosophy, muslim rationalism, religion, theology

FROM THE ARCHIVES: ILLUSIONS OF IDENTITY

August 18, 2014 by Kenan Malik

As I am away for a couple of weeks, I am plundering the archives. This is the second in a series of old book reviews on the themes of race, difference and identity material that I have not previously published on Pandaemonium. This is an interview with Amartya Sen, and a review of his book Identity and Violence, first published in Prospect, August 2006. . Review of Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusions of Destiny (Allen Lane, 2006) Just […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, Multiculturalism • Tags: amartya sen, british politics, identity politics, islam, multiculturalism