by Kenan Malik
My Observer column consists usually of two articles: a longer essay that I republish on Pandaemonium on the Monday, and a short piece that I normally don’t publish here. However, I am away for the next couple of weeks, so will be posting little new material on Pandaemonium. So, I am taking the opportunity to republish some of those shorter pieces, beginning with the short article in my Observer column this week on the drama of cricket. I despair for […]
by Kenan Malik
‘A strange fate befell Muhammad Ali in the 1990s’, Mike Marqusee writes in Redemption Song, his wonderful, illuminating study of ‘Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties’. ‘The man who had defied the American establishment was taken into its bosom. There he was lavished with an affection which had been strikingly absent thirty years before, when for several years he reigned unchallenged as the most reviled figure in the history of American sports.’ The global outpouring of grief, affection […]
Categories: Justice & Liberties, Sport • Tags: boxing, freedom struggles, islam, james baldwin, mike marqusee, muhammad ali, nation of islam, racism, sport, usa, vietnam war
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
by Kenan Malik
This is the full version of the essay on Britishness, patriotism and identity, published last month in the New York Times under the headline ‘On Britishness and Belonging’. How times change. Last week I was at the Lord’s cricket ground in London – the ‘home of cricket’ as England cricket administrators like to boast – to see England play India. I was born in India. Yet, I was cheering on England. Thirty years ago I certainly would not have been. […]
Categories: Britain, Kenan Malik, Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: britain, britishness, cricket, englishness, identity politics, national identity, patriotism, racism, sport
by Kenan Malik
David Papineau is Professor of Philosophy of Science at King’s College, London. He also publishes More Important Than That, a blog about sport (and about ‘How philosophy can illuminate sport and vice versa’). I am delighted to republish on Pandaemonium his latest post, on the social function of amateur values in sport. My thanks to David for contributing here, and do check out his blog. David Papineau Give Me a Defender of Amateur Values, And I’ll Show You a Hypocrite […]
Categories: Sport • Tags: alf tupper, amateur, Class, cricket
by Kenan Malik
This is my latest column for the New York Times, on ideas of Britishness, belonging and identity. (We had to cut the essay slightly because of the space available; I will publish the full version next month.) How times change. Last week, I was at the Lord’s cricket ground in London — the ‘home of cricket’, as England cricket administrators like to boast — to see England play India. I was born in India. Yet I was cheering on England. […]
Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: britain, british asians, cricket, cricket test, identity politics, national identity, patriotism, racism, sport
by Kenan Malik
So, another World Cup, another German victory, another England humiliation. And at the end of it all some (not quite) random thoughts about the tournament. . 1 A fine World Cup, some truly great games, but no truly great team – not even Germany, outstanding though they were, and worthy winners though they are. . 2 Part of what made this tournament so riveting was the way it upset so many received wisdoms and footballing myths. Most of the ‘big’ […]
Categories: Sport • Tags: brazil, england, football, germany, sport, world cup
by Kenan Malik
David Papineau is Professor of Philosophy of Science at King’s College, London. He has also a wonderful new blog about sport, More Important Than That. I am delighted to publish on Pandaemonium his latest essay, on the absurdities of sporting eligibility rules. My thanks to David for contributing here, and do check out his blog. David Papineau Civil society and why Adnan Januzaj should be eligible for England (though he isn’t) Adnan Januzaj is what American sports journalists call a ‘phenom’. […]
Categories: Britain, Sport • Tags: britishness, david papineau, englishness, football, national identity, nationalism, sport
by Kenan Malik
My essay on CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary got me to thinking about my favourite sports books. And, after much torment and tussle, I finally settled on my list of the sporting best in print. And before anyone mentions it, I know that I have missed out Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. It may be everyone else’s favourite sports book, but it’s not mine. If you are intrigued enough to want to read any of the books, click on the cover. […]
Categories: Culture & Books, Sport • Tags: clr james, david storey, muhammad ali, norman mailer, sporting books, sports
by Kenan Malik
Today’s Premiership clash between Chelsea and Liverpool provides a good opportunity for me to write about something about which I have been thinking for a long time – the controversy over racism in English football. Chelsea and Liverpool are the two clubs at the heart of that controversy. Earlier this year, Luis Suarez, Liverpool’s Uruguayan forward, was banned for eight matches for calling Manchester United’s Patrice Evra a ‘negrito’. Suarez insisted that this was colloquial Spanish for ‘mate’. An FA disciplinary […]
Categories: Free Speech, Race & Immigration, Sport • Tags: anti-racism, football, hate speech, racism
by Kenan Malik
How times change. There I was sitting in the Olympic stadium with my daughter. She had red, white and blue braids in her hair and was enthusiastically waving a Union Jack. When I was her age I would far rather have burned the flag than waved it. The Union Jack was then the property of jingoists and Empire loyalists, on the one hand, and of neo-fascists on the other. If I saw a pub or a housing estate with Union […]
Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Sport • Tags: britishness, identity politics, london 2012, multiculturalism, nationalism, olympics, patriotism, sports
by Kenan Malik
As an aspiring teenage middle distance runner I once dreamed of competing at the Olympics. I grew up in the golden age of British middle distance running in the 1970s and 1980s. My hero was Steve Ovett, the bad boy of British athletics, arch rival and arch contrast to Sebastian Coe, the smooth establishment figure, whose destiny it always was to become first a Conservative MP and then the organizer of the 2012 London games. I was never either good enough […]
Categories: Britain, Sport • Tags: bob beamon, london 2012, nadia comaneci, olympics, sports, usain bolt
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