Tag: australia

CRICKET AND THE CRAVING FOR A QUICK FIX

December 30, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debacle of English Test cricket, was my Observer column this week. It was published 26 December 2021, under the headline “The thrills! The spills! No wonder we’re losing the drama of the epic encounter”. (Oh, and if you don’t already know, England were humiliated in Melbourne.) Perhaps I won’t have woken up this morning to the sound of clattering England wickets in the Boxing Day heat of Melbourne. Perhaps, by the time you read this, England will have […]

Categories: Sport • Tags: australia, ben stokes, cricket, england, formula one, indian premier league, lewis hamilton, max verstappen, miracle of istanbul, muhammad ali, rumble in the jungle, t20, test cricket, the ashes

TALKING IDENTITY IN AUSTRALIA

May 10, 2019 by Kenan Malik

These are audios of two events from my recent trip to Australia in which I discuss the politics of identity. The first is a talk I gave at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. The second is a discussion on Melbourne’s community radio RRR. . What’s wrong with identity politics? A talk at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne . Talking identity on RRR

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Kenan Malik, Politics • Tags: australia, herder, identity politics, immigration, immigration controls, left, racism, universalism, white identity, working class

WHEN THE RIGHT KIND OF MIGRANT IS STILL WRONG

April 15, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the reality of Australia’s points-based immigration system, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on cultural appropriation and cultural gatekeeping.) It was published on 14 April 2019, under the headline ‘A points-based system doesn’t end naked prejudice against migrants’. ‘How long have you been living in Australia?’ I asked the cabbie in Melbourne. Three years, he said. He’d come from India. ‘Do you like it here?’ I asked. No, he said. Why […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: australia, immigration, immigration policy, points based immigration system, racism

THE GREAT OCEAN DRIVE VS THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

April 13, 2019 by Kenan Malik

While in Australia, I spent a couple of days on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. It’s a beautiful coastline, with some spectacular geological features. The first part up to Apollo Bay hugs the coastline and makes for an exhilarating drive. But beyond Apollo Bay, you can barely see the ocean from the Great Ocean Road. This is where many of the geological features are – The Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge, London Bridge, etc – and you nip off […]

Categories: Photos • Tags: australia, great ocean drive, photography, scotland

RETURN TO OZ

March 1, 2019 by Kenan Malik

I will be in Australia again in the first week of April, giving talks in Brisbane, Melbourne and Bendigo, mainly on the politics of diversity and identity. Here is the current schedule: . 1 April Why are we so obsessed by identity? Griffith University Ian Hanger Recital Hall Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University 140 Grey St, Brisbane 19.00 A talk followed by a conversation with Luke Stegemann. The event is organized by Integrity 20. . 3 April Three myths about diversity […]

Categories: Kenan Malik • Tags: australia, talks

DAWN ENCHANTMENT AT YELLOW WATER

December 17, 2017 by Kenan Malik

The Yellow Water billabong. Quiet and serene, it lies on the East Alligator River in the Kakadu National Park in Northern Territory in Australia. In the heat of the day, it feels relatively ordinary. At daybreak it is magical. Watching sunrise, enshrouded in a mist that adds enchantment to the light, and seeing the mist give way to wonder and colour and crocs and snakes and birds and flowers is simply glorious. Together with Uluru at first light, and the […]

Categories: Photos • Tags: australia, photography, wildlife

AT THE OPERA, AT FIRST LIGHT AND LAST

November 26, 2017 by Kenan Malik

It must be one of the most photographed of modern buildings. Yet the Sydney Opera House still elicits a gasp of awe every time one sees it in the concrete. Danish architect Jørn Utzon’s expressionist masterwork is a remarkable melding of form and function, and of architecture and engineering. It is also a wondrous evocation of the imagination. The story of the Machiavellian politics that surrounded its construction, and led eventually to the resignation of Utzon from the project, and […]

Categories: Photos • Tags: architecture, australia, jørn utzon, photography, sydney opera house

WHAT IS RIGHT? WHAT IS LEFT?

November 2, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is a video of a debate on ‘What is right? What is left?’ at the Festival of Questions in Melbourne in October. It was hosted by the Wheeler Centre. Seven of us had two minutes each to answer ‘What is right for immigration?’, ‘…for the economy?’ and ‘…for society?’. Sounds mad, but it was actually an engaging event.

Categories: Kenan Malik, Race & Immigration • Tags: australia, capitalism, debates, Economy, free speech, identity politics, immigration, left, right

UBIRR AND BURRUNGGUY: ART THROUGH THE AGES

October 22, 2017 by Kenan Malik

Ubirr is to Australia as Chauvet and Lascaux are to Europe – perhaps the finest rock art on the continent. It lies in Arnhem Land in the far north, on the edge of the Nadab floodplain, in the traditional lands of the Gagudju people. Today, it is part of the Kakadu National Park. The art at Ubirr spans a period of perhaps 40,000 years from the Paleolithic to virtually the present. None of the art has been carbon-dated, so all […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Human • Tags: aboriginal art, art, australia, burrungguy, indigenous culture, nourlangie, rock art, ubirr

SILENCE, ROMANTICISM AND THE DEBATE ON INDIGENOUS RIGHTS

October 2, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of the article I wrote last month for the New York Times on the debate about Indigenous rights in Australia. (I cannot publish my NYT articles on Pandaemonium until the month after they are published in the newspaper.) It was originally published under the headline ‘The New Voice for Indigenous Australia’. Nothing prepares you for your first sight of Uluru. Amid the vastness of Australia’s arid ‘red centre’, there is something wondrous about this monumental slab […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: australia, culture, indigenous rights, noel pearson, racism, recognition, romanticism, uluru, uluru statement

WHAT VOICE FOR INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA?

September 11, 2017 by Kenan Malik

An excerpt from my latest column for the International New York Times on the debate about Indigenous rights in Australia. It was published under the headline ‘The New Voice for Indigenous Australia‘: The debate about Indigenous peoples seems – at least to me, an outsider – to take place on only two registers: on one hand, silence; on the other, a romanticization of indigenous life. It may seem odd to speak of silence in a nation where the issue of […]

Categories: International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: australia, colonialism, indigenous australians, indigenous culture, noel pearson, racism, romanticism, uluru, uluru statement

BACK TO OZ

September 7, 2017 by Kenan Malik

Yes, I know, I’ve only just returned from Australia. But I am back in October to talk at the Festival of Questions at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne and at Griffith University’s Integrity 20 conference in Brisbane. The details: . The Festival of Questions Wheeler Centre 176 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne 15 October 14.30 What is Right? What is Left? The times, they are … confusing. Trump and Brexit have shaken up traditional definitions of ‘left’ and ‘right’ in politics. […]

Categories: Kenan Malik • Tags: australia, talks

ULURU AND KATA TJUTA AT FIRST LIGHT AND LAST

August 24, 2017 by Kenan Malik

Nothing quite prepares you for your first sight of Uluru. Amid the vastness of the arid landscape of Australia’s red centre, fringed by ill-shapen hills and mountain ranges, there is something wondrous and almost magical about this monumental slab of sandstone, most of which actually lies beneath the ground. The monolith was created more than 500 million years ago, and is a remnant of a vast mountain range formed during the creation of the Australian continent. Much of the surrounding […]

Categories: International, Photos • Tags: australia, indigenous culture, kata tjuta, photography, uluru

FIRST LIGHT

August 13, 2017 by Kenan Malik

Off Byron Bay, where I was speaking last week at the Writers Festival, lies a headland which forms the most easterly point of Australia. The point over which dawn first breaks. There is inevitably something clichéd about images of sunrise. But there was also something dramatic about first light over Byron Bay, a light very painterly in its composition and palette. So, a few images from the break of day over Australia.

Categories: Photos • Tags: australia, byron bay, photography, sunrise

TALKING OZ

August 2, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is an update on the talks I am giving in Australia over the next couple of weeks: . 4-6 August Byron Writers Festival Byron Bay New South Wales I am speaking in three sessions: Friday 4 August, 11am-12pm In conversation with Laura Kroetsch about the themes of my books From Fatwa to Jihad and The Quest for a Moral Compass. Friday, 4 August, 3-4pm ‘Living Ethically’ a discussion with Rebeccca Huntley, Emrys Westacott and Anthony Funnell Saturday 5 August, 2.45 […]

Categories: Kenan Malik • Tags: australia, talks