Category Archives: Free Speech

ANTI-MUSLIM BIGOTRY AND FAR-RIGHT TERROR

March 25, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the relationship between anti-Muslim bigotry and far-right terror, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 24 March 2019, under the headline ‘Silencing Islamophobes is as futile a response as banning the Qur’an’. What drove Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch gunman, to commit his heinous acts? It’s a question that has, understandably, occupied much media space . A key debate has been over the role of anti-Muslim hatred and its entrenchment in mainstream society. In an open […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, Politics • Tags: anti-muslim hatred, brenton tarrant, christchurch, douglas murray, far right, far-right terror, free speech, hate speech, immigration, islamism, jihadism, melanie phillips, muslims, terrorism, white nationalism

RUSHDIE’S MONSTERS

March 4, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, a review of the BBC documentary The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the use of predictive algorithms by local authorities.) It was published in the Observer, 3 March 2019, under the headline ‘The Satanic Verses is still creating monsters, even new book-burners’. Sometimes, you just have to shake your head to clear it and look again. Did he really write that? So it was […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: bookburning, british politics, censorship, mobbed azhar, muslims, offence, racism, rushdie affair, salman rushdie, the satanic verses

FROM BOOK TO FATWA

February 15, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie (it was issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini on Valentine’s Day, 14 February 1989). To mark the anniversary, here is an extract from Chapter 1 of my book From Fatwa to Jihad (pp 1-10),which tells the story of how the conflict over The Satanic Verses first arose. . 1 ‘It would be absurd to think that a book can cause riots’, Salman Rushdie told the Indian journalist Shrabani Basu […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: ayatollah khomeini, fatwa, ghayasuddin siddiqui, iran, islam, islamism, muslims, rushdie affair, salman rushdie, saudi arabia, the satanic verses

DOING VIOLENCE TO OUR RIGHTS

February 11, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the clampdown on drill music, was my Observer column this week. It was published 10 February 2019, under the headline ‘Since when was it a police job to impose sanctions on drill musicians?’ The authorities ban musicians from playing without official approval. The police prevent them from performing a song deemed unacceptable. The courts threaten to imprison them when they do play it. All this not in Russia or Iran but in Britain. Last month, two drill musicians, Skengdo […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Free Speech, Justice & Liberties • Tags: 410, censorship, dan hancox, drill music, gang violence, ian macquaid, incitement laws, liberties, music, skengdo and am

DISAGREEMENT IS NOT HATRED

November 26, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the transgender debate, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the war on terror). It was published in the Observer, 25 November 2018, under the headline ‘Debate ends when we label views we simply disagree with as ‘hatred’’. ‘It is better to debate a question without settling it,’ observed the 18th-century French writer Joseph Joubert, ‘than to settle a question without debating it.’ How naive that sounds today. In this age […]

Categories: Free Speech, Justice & Liberties, Women • Tags: bigotry, censorship, feminism, free speech, hate speech, joseph joubert, kathleen stock, maghan murphy, transgender, twitter, women's rights

BLASPHEMY, RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR

October 29, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on a European Court of Human Rights ruling and on changing forms of blasphemy law, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the contrast between the EU’s response to Italy on immigration and the budget). It was published in the Observer, 28 October 2018, under the headline ‘None of us should enjoy the right to have our beliefs shielded from abuse‘. Should it be illegal to call the prophet Muhammad […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Free Speech • Tags: blasphemy, censorship, european court of human rights, free speech, gay news, iqbal sacranie, islam, james kirkup, mary whitehouse, muhammad

A LITTLE MESSAGE FROM TWITTER…

October 26, 2018 by Kenan Malik

So, there I was writing an article on blasphemy and censorship (my Observer column, to be published tomorrow), when an email from Twitter Legal dropped into my inbox. It began: We are writing to inform you that Twitter has received official correspondence regarding your Twitter account, @kenanmalik. The correspondence claims that the following Tweet, is illegal: https://twitter.com/kenanmalik/status/1041253630018502656 The tweet to which it refers was a link to the Jesus and Mo cartoon shown at the top. The email continued: Twitter has […]

Categories: Free Speech, Pandaemonium • Tags: censorship, free speech, jesus and mo, twitter

AFTER THE SATANIC VERSES

October 1, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the legacy of the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on a call to halt the housing of asylum seekers in Sunderland). It was published in the Observer, 30 September 2018, under the headline ‘The Satanic Verses sowed the seeds of rifts that have grown ever wider’. Thirty years ago last week, Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was published. Rushdie was then perhaps the most celebrated […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: british politics, censorship, clash of civilizations, free speech, identity politics, muslims, rushdie affair, salman rushdie, same sex marriage, the satanic verses

A CENSORSHIP LESS VISIBLE

September 22, 2018 by Kenan Malik

These were my opening remarks at a debate on censorship in the theatre, held at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, 20 September 2018. Other speakers included Shereener Browne, Agnieszka Kolek and Anders Lustgarten. One of the problems in discussing censorship is that we often don’t recognize censorship for what it is. There is no longer the Lord Chamberlain marking scripts and cutting out the unacceptable. Instead, we, in effect, ourselves mark them. And that, ironically, makes censorship not more, but less, visible. In all my […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: behzti, censorship, exhibit b, free speech, kehinde andrews, stella odunlame, theatre

FREE SPEECH, CULTURE AND IDENTITY: A GERMAN INTERVIEW

September 14, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This is a translation of part of an interview I gave to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on questions of free speech, multiculturalism and identity. The full interview is here. What restrictions should there be on freedom of expression? Should everyone always be allowed to say everything? It’s widely accepted today that in a plural society freedom of expression needs to be curtailed in the name of tolerance or respect. Otherwise minorities could suffer. I disagree. It’s precisely because we do […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, Multiculturalism • Tags: afd, culture, free speech, germany, hate speech, identity politics, multiculturalism

WHY DEBATE BANNON?

September 10, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the controversy over Steve Bannon’s invitation to the New Yorker festival,, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the Swedish elections). It was published in the Observer, 9 September 2018, under the headline ‘Condemning all debate with Bannon amounts to giving up on politics’. Two memes have become central to much contemporary political debate. The first is that we need to break out of our echo chambers. The second is […]

Categories: Free Speech, International, Politics • Tags: alt right, david remnick, donald trump, far right, free speech, new yorker, steve bannon

SILENCED BY THE WORKPLACE

August 6, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This was the main article in my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 July 2018, under the headline ‘Why are employers allowed to police what we say as private citizens?’ Angela Williamson needed an abortion. The trouble was, she lived in Tasmania. Abortion is legal in the state, but the last abortion clinic closed in December. So, this February, Williamson was forced to travel to Melbourne for her operation. Distressed and angry, she dashed off a few tweets to […]

Categories: Free Speech, International • Tags: abortion, angela williamson, free speech, privacy, public sphere, twitter

BANNED IN PAKISTAN

July 20, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This post is about readers in Pakistan. Unfortunately readers in Pakistan won’t actually be able to read this. Which is what this post is about. Pandaemonium is a WordPress site. This week WordPress received an email from the ‘Web Analysis Team’ of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ‘The webpages hosted on your platform are extremely Blasphemous and are hurting the sentiments of many Muslims around Pakistan’, it read. What particularly seemed to concern the PTA were my articles about Charlie […]

Categories: Free Speech, International • Tags: blasphemy, censorship, charlie hebdo, free speech, liberal hypocrisy, pakistan, racism

‘TROUBLE IS AT THE HEART OF WHAT WE DO’

May 18, 2018 by Kenan Malik

Last week Pater Mayer died. He was a giant of the publishing industry. An American, he was in 1978 given the job of rescuing the venerable British publishers Penguin, which then had become almost defunct. He turned it into a global brand, and a major force in publishing. He transformed publishing in India by founding of Penguin India. Ten years later came the event that was to define both Mayer and Penguin. In September 1988 Penguin published Salman Rushdie’s The […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: ayatollah khomeini, fatwa, free speech, islamism, penguin books, peter mayer, publishing, rushdie affair, salman rushdie, the satanic verses

ON THE ASSASSINATION OF KATIE HOPKINS

April 15, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay was the main part of my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the row over the BBC’s broadcast of Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of blood speech’). It was published in the Observer, 15 April 2018, under the headline ‘Why provocateur Katie Hopkins is the perfect symbol for our tribal age’. I have not seen the play. But I am going to write about it. Which seems an apt metaphor for the current state of […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: free speech, hate speech, immigration, katie hopkins, liberal hypocrisy, the assassination of katie hopkins