Category Archives: Politics

WHAT MAKES DONALD TRUMP

March 6, 2016 by Kenan Malik

My latest column for Al Jazeera English is about the Donald Trump phenomenon. It was published in Al Jazeera under the headline ‘Politics of Disillusionment and the Rise of Donald Trump’. Last autumn, when I was in the USA, I asked a number of senior Republican Party figures about the possibility of Donald Trump winning the presidential nomination. All laughed out loud. It simply won’t happen, they told me. The Republican Party machine would take care of him. I doubt […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: donald trump, populism, racism, usa

MULTICULTURALISM: THE FINNISH EDITION

March 3, 2016 by Kenan Malik

My book, Multiculturalism and its Discontents, has just been published in Finland by the Eurooppalaisen filosofian seura (Society for European philosophy). I did a short interview with the Society’s journal Niin & Näin to introduce the themes of the book, which I am republishing here. Q: Multiculturalism and its Discontents is a very concise and to-the-point exposé of multiculturalism. What inspired you to publish a book of this kind? KM: Multiculturalism has become one of the most used and abused political terms […]

Categories: Kenan Malik, Multiculturalism, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: immigration, kenan malik's books, morality, multiculturalism, muslims, racism

AFTER THE VOTE, THREE QUESTIONS

December 3, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Parliament voted on Wednesday to extend British airstrikes to targets in Syria. Within hours, British Tornados had taken off on new missions inside Syria. I am writing a longer piece on some of the issues raised that will be published soon. In the meantime, three questions for both sides of the debate (Yes, the questions are largely rhetorical and I hope to address some of these issues over the coming week): . 1 By any rational account, Britain’s decision to extend […]

Categories: Politics, War on terror • Tags: british politics, islamic state, kurds, syria, terrorism, war on terror, western policy

IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY: THREE INTERVIEWS

November 18, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a collection of three interviews that I have recently given on issues of identity and diversity. The first is a short video interview I gave at the Riksantikvarieämbetet (Swedish Heritage Board) conference on the ‘Struggle for Cultural Identity’, which I addressed last week. The second is an interview on Australia Broadcasting Corporation’s Religion and Ethics Report on diversity and multiculturalism in Europe. The final interview is with the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, which I have loosely translated from […]

Categories: Multiculturalism, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: cultural diversity, free speech, identity politics, islam, left, multiculturalism, muslims

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

THE STRUGGLE FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE

November 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of the keynote lecture I gave at the annual conference of the Riksantikvarieämbetet (the Swedish National Heritage Board) in Stockholm this week. The theme of the conference was ‘The Struggle for Cultural Heritage’. ‘The ministry of symbols.’ That’s how Mélanie Joly, the new Minister of Canadian Heritage in Justin Trudeau’s recently elected administration in Ottowa, this week described her portfolio. What kind of symbols? Not the ones promoted by the previous conservative government of Stephen Harper, but, in […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History, Multiculturalism • Tags: aya sofia, cordoba, cultural diversity, cultural heritage, culture, diversity, enlightenment, hagia sophia, herder, identity politics, multiculturalism, romanticism, unesco, will kymlicka

CAN SOCIAL COHESION BE IMPOSED?

November 7, 2015 by Kenan Malik

These are my introductory comments to a debate on ‘Can Social Cohesion be Imposed?’, part of the ‘Diverse or Divided?’ conference organised by the IPPR and Canada House, London. Other speakers in the debate were Julian Baginni, Marina Jimenez and Catherine Fieschi. Let me begin with a newspaper account of life in East London: The Bethnal Green poor are a caste apart, a race of whom we know nothing, whose lives are of quite different complexion from ours, persons with […]

Categories: Britain, Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, britishness, diversity, identity politics, immigration, multiculturalism, social cohesion, working class

DAVID CAMERON AND THE CENTRE GROUND

October 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

The Observer asked a number of commentators whether David Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Party conference last week, in which he staked a claim to the centre ground of politics, will reshape the political landscape. Here’s my response. All the responses (including ones from Michael Heseltine, Shirley Williams, Rob Ford and Stefan Collini) are in the Observer. There is nothing new in ideological clothes-swapping. Under Tony Blair, New Labour won three successive elections with the help of “triangulation” – stealing […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, centre ground, conservative party, david cameron, new labour, tony blair

ON FENCES AND FRACTURES

September 26, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of my Stephen Lissenburgh Memorial Lecture that I gave on 23 September at the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. It was entitled ‘What’s wrong with multiculturalism?’ It is inevitable that my starting point for this talk will be the refugee crisis that now engulfs Europe. For many, the crisis is a crisis because of the numbers coming to Europe. But large though they may be, the numbers are not unprecedented, either comparatively or historically. […]

Categories: Multiculturalism, Race & Immigration • Tags: anti-semitism, assimilationism, british politics, britishness, culture, danish cartoons, diversity, fortress europe, france, handsworth riots, immigration, islam, locke, multiculturalism, muslims, racism

THE POLITICS OF DISENCHANTMENT

September 22, 2015 by Kenan Malik

I will be writing a regular column for Aljazeera English. My first column is about Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. Guardian journalist Seamus Milne hailed it as ‘a political eruption of historic proportions’. The Prime Minister David Cameron claimed it represented a threat to Britain’s national security. Whatever else it may achieve, Jeremy Corbyn’s success in gaining the leadership of the Labour Party, has certainly unleashed the surreal in British politics. To understand more soberly what the leftwing maverick’s […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, jeremy corbyn, labour party, left, tony blair

LEADING THE LABOUR PARTY – TO DO WHAT?

September 9, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This weekend, the British Labour Party will choose a new leader. Below is the full version of my article on Labour Party and the leadership election published last month in the International New York Times. The Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon may be as baffling for those who follow British politics as the Donald J Trump phenomenon is to those who keep an eye on American politics. Both are running for the leadership of parties that have suffered traumatic electoral defeat. Both […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, jeremy corbyn, labour party, left, tony blair

WHAT IS THE LABOUR PARTY FOR?

August 22, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is an extract from my latest column in the International New York Times about the Labour Party leadership contest in Britain. Read the full article in the INYT. In truth, Mr. Blair is neither saint nor sinner. His election victories were as much the product of the exhaustion of the Conservative Party after 18 years in power as they were of his political acumen. And he did not so much rob Labour of its soul as recognize that it […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: british politics, labour party

FROM THE ARCHIVES: TONY BLAIR’S JOURNEY

August 10, 2015 by Kenan Malik

I am in South Africa for the next three weeks, to give the TB Davie Memorial Lecture, and hopefully to do a bit more besides. While I am away, I will be raiding the archives for articles – mainly book reviews – not published before on Pandaemonium. This first ‘From the archives’ review is of Tony Blair’s memoirs, My Journey, memoirs that, in the context of the current Labour leadership contest, have renewed currency. The review was first published in he Norwegian […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Politics • Tags: british politics, iraq, labour party, tony blair

FIFA AND THE CORRUPTION OF RHETORIC

June 17, 2015 by Kenan Malik

My latest article for the New York Times is about the overblown rhetoric on both sides of the debate about the Fifa scandal. It was published under the headline ‘The Corrupt Rhetoric of the FIFA Scandal’: ‘We have fought colonialism and defeated it and we still fight imperialism and we will fight it whenever it manifests itself.” So claimed South Africa’s sports minister, Fikile Mbalula, recently. He was talking not of war or invasion but about the F.B.I.’s investigation into […]

Categories: International, Politics, Sport • Tags: fifa, football, usa

DISAFFECTION IN A FRAGMENTED WORLD

June 14, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This essay was published in the Observer, 14 June 2015, under the headline ‘As old orders crumble, progressive alternatives struggle to emerge’. The ambitions of the Islamists have been checked, those of the left revived. That is how most commentators viewed the results of last week’s Turkish general election. The ruling AKP, whose roots lie in the Islamist tradition, lost its parliamentary majority, in part because of the rise of HDP, a leftwing, secular Kurdish party. However, to view developments in […]

Categories: International, Politics • Tags: arab spring, bjp, egypt, europe, identity politics, india, indian national congress, islamism, kemalism, sectarianism, turkey