Category Archives: Justice & Liberties

LESSONS IN NOT TALKING TO ONESELF

February 22, 2016 by Kenan Malik

An excerpt from my latest column for the International New York Times on what attitudes to identity and free speech among Sri Lankan audiences can teach those in the West. It was published under the headline ‘A Sri Lankan Lesson in Free Speech’. The festival provided a space for engagement with a wide variety of ideas in a way that does not often happen in a place like Jaffna. It opened with a discussion of Tamil literature, which has a […]

Categories: Free Speech, International • Tags: free speech, identity politics, sri lanka

WHY THE LAHORE LITERARY FESTIVAL?

February 18, 2016 by Kenan Malik

The Lahore Literary Festival opens on Friday. Or perhaps it doesn’t. There has been over the past twenty four hours considerable confusion as to whether the authorities will allow it to go ahead, or for how long. Local papers have been reporting that the Lahore District Coordination Officer had apparently revoked permission for the Festival to be staged. Other reports suggest that it will be a two-day not a three day event. The Festival organizers have tweeted that it may indeed […]

Categories: Free Speech, International • Tags: free speech, freedom struggles, lahore literary festival, pakistan

‘I KNEW I WAS WITNESSING A TERRIBLE EVIL’

February 11, 2016 by Kenan Malik

Today marks 50 years since the South African apartheid government declared District Six, in the heart of Cape Town, a ‘whites only’ area from which all non-whites would be forcibly removed. District Six was one of the most mixed areas in Cape Town, home to freed slaves and immigrants, labourers and artisans. It was a rundown area, overcrowded, many houses without running water or sewage. But District Six was also Cape Town’s cosmopolitan heart, an area in which blacks and […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: apartheid, cape town, district six, noor ebrahim, racism, south africa

FREE SPEECH AND DOUBLE STANDARDS

February 4, 2016 by Kenan Malik

The Canadian journalist Duncan Pike interviewed me recently for an article he was writing for the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression on the question of free speech and double standards. It centred around the upcoming trial of Anjem Choudary for ‘inviting support’ for the Islamic State. The article is a very good exploration of the problems and dilemmas of free speech double standards. My thanks to Duncan Pike both for interviewing me and for allowing me to republish his article on Pandaemonium. […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: anjem choudary, charlie hebdo, douglas murray, free speech, free speech double standards, islamism, liberal hypocrisy, terrorism

TALKING OF FREE SPEECH…

January 21, 2016 by Kenan Malik

Last year I gave a talk at the Oslo Freedom Forum on free speech and self-censorship. I also gave an interview to Google Ideas. It has now been published as part of a series of Google Ideas interviews from the Oslo Freedom Forum called Censored. Here is the original speech I gave, followed by the Google Ideas interview. . .

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: censorship, free speech, google ideas, islam, liberties, oslo freedom forum, racism, self-censorship

BIGOTRY, DEBATE, CENSORSHIP AND THE LEFT

January 17, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of my last column for the International New York Times on Maryam Namazie, Donald Trump and censorship, originally published on 21 December 2015. Donald J Trump and Maryam Namazie are divided by more than the width of the Atlantic. One is a reactionary, with bigoted ideas seemingly about everyone from Mexicans to Muslims. He is also currently a leading candidate to be the next president of the United States. The other is an Iranian feminist, […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: censorship, donald trump, free speech, islamism, islamophobia, left, maryam namazie, populism, racism

RECOLONIZED BY THE PAST

January 13, 2016 by Kenan Malik

My latest column for Al Jazeera English is about the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ in Oxford. It began as a campaign at the University of Cape Town to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes that stood on the campus. For the protestors, the statue represented everything that Rhodes himself stood for: racism, colonialism, plunder, white supremacy, and the oppression of black people. Last April, a month after the protests began, the university authorities removed the statue. By then, the protests had moved […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties • Tags: anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, cecil rhodes, imperialism, racism

CHARLIE HEBDO, ONE YEAR ON

January 7, 2016 by Kenan Malik

It is a year today since Islamist gunmen burst into the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people, including eight of the magazine’s staff. A few days after the attack I was interviewed by the BBC. ‘Don’t you think’, the interviewer asked, ‘ that the degree of solidarity expressed towards Charlie Hebdo represents a turning in attitudes to free speech?’ ‘I doubt it’, I replied. ‘There may be expressions of solidarity now. But fundamentally little will change. If anything, […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: censorship, charlie hebdo, france, free speech, garry trudeau, hate speech, islam, islamism, laicite, left, racism, secularism

TRUMP, NAMAZIE, ISLAM, FREE SPEECH AND THE LEFT

December 21, 2015 by Kenan Malik

An excerpt from my latest column for the International New York Times, which looks at the controversies surrounding Donald Trump and Maryam Namazie and what they tell us about free speech, Islam and the left. For the full article see the INYT. In the strange world of contemporary radicalism, however, many look upon Ms Namazie almost as they regard Mr Trump: as an ‘Islamophobe’. Student groups at several universities, including the University of Warwick and Trinity College Dublin, have attempted […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Free Speech • Tags: donald trump, free speech, left, maryam namazie, safe space

EXTREMISM AND THE LAW

October 21, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Back in 2008, I gave a talk at an Index on Censorship conference on ‘Extremism and the Law: Free Speech in an Age of Terror’ in which I suggested that: One of the most significant shifts in recent years has been the mutation of the notion of ‘extremism’ from being a description of a political claim to being a quasi legal term. From the BNP to Hizb ut-Tahrir to Buju Banton’s homophobic lyrics, to label speech as extremist is to label it […]

Categories: Free Speech, War on terror • Tags: censorship, counter-extremism, free speech, war on terror

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

SOUTH AFRICA AND THE EROSION OF HOPE

September 23, 2015 by Kenan Malik

From my latest column for the International New York Times, which was entitled ‘What Happened to South African Democracy?’: As the failure to transform the lives of the poor has eroded support for the party, many ANC politicians have turned to the politics of ethnicity and identity to strengthen their base. It is a development that has long been evident, but that has really gathered strength under the leadership of South Africa’s current president, Jacob G Zuma. Mr Zuma has unashamedly […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: anc, apartheid, south africa

THE BROKEN RAINBOW: THOUGHTS ON SOUTH AFRICA

September 3, 2015 by Kenan Malik

These are some initial thoughts on the current state of South Africa, and how it has arrived at this point, emerging from various discussions I had with activists and academics while I was out there. I write, of course, as an outsider. But sometimes an outsider’s perspective can be quite useful, especially as I’ve engaged with many of issues at the heart of South African politics – such as race, class, identity, social change – though in a different context. […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: anc, apartheid, democracy, freedom struggles, identity politics, jacob zuma, nelson mandela, nonracialism, racism, south africa

APARTHEID, THEN AND NOW

August 30, 2015 by Kenan Malik

District Six lies at the heart of Cape Town, along the flank of Table Mountain, and just south of the city centre. It was so-called because it was the sixth municipal district in Cape Town. In it lived freed slaves and immigrants, labourers and artisans. It was a rundown area, overcrowded, many houses without running water or sewage. But District Six was also Cape Town’s cosmopolitan heart. In a nation defined by ‘aparthood’ it was an area in which blacks […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties, Photos • Tags: anc, apartheid, cape town, district six, freedom struggles, racism, south africa

FREE SPEECH IN AN AGE OF IDENTITY POLITICS

August 13, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of my TB Davie Memorial lecture that I gave at the University of Cape Town on Thursday 13 August. It is truly an honour and pleasure to be able to deliver this lecture, and to be able to follow the speakers who have gone before me, speakers such as Walter Sisulu, Wole Soyinke, Edward Said and Noam Chomsky. It is an honour, too, to be the fiftieth speaker in this great series. But being the fiftieth speaker raises […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: academic freedom, black identity, censorship, free speech, identity politics, left, moral autonomy, offence, pluralism, racism, therapeutic society, trigger warnings, universalism, universities