Tag: free speech

TO SAY THE UNSAYABLE

August 18, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Salman Rushdie and free speech, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 14 August 2022, under the headline “Where Salman Rushdie defied those who would silence him, today too many fear causing offence”. “A poet’s work,” one of the characters in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses observes, is “to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.” “And if rivers of blood flow from […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: ayatollah khomeini, censorship, fatwa, free speech, islam, muslims, offence, peter mayer, salman rushdie, the satanic verses

OFFENDING THE GATEKEEPERS

June 15, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on attempts to ban the film The Lady of Heaven, was my Observer column on 12 June 2022. It was published under the headline “Film bans are less about offence, more ‘community leaders’ showing who’s boss”. “Birmingham will not tolerate the disrespect of our Prophet… You will have repercussions for your actions.” So claimed a leader of a Muslim protest against the film The Lady of Heaven. There were similar protests in cities from Bradford to London. Fear of “repercussions” led the cinema chain […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Free Speech • Tags: censorship, charlie hebdo, fatimah, free speech, gatekeepers, gurpreet kaur bhatti, hanif kureishi, hudud, islam, mf husain, muslims, offence, roshan muhammad sakih, salman rushdie, sharia, shia, sunni, the lady of heaven

FORGETTING THE LESSONS OF FREE SPEECH STRUGGLES

February 2, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the history of free speech and the lessons we are in danger of forgetting, was my Observer column this week. It was published 30 January 2022, under the headline “Freedom of speech was too hard won to be cavalier now about censorship”. If the great campaigners for free speech of the past, such as Baruch Spinoza or Mary Wollstonecraft or Frederick Douglass, were alive today, “they would surely declare the 21st century an unprecedented golden age”. So suggests Jacob […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: antisemitism, censorship, charlie hebdo, der sturmer, eleanor roosevelt, free speech, hate speech, jacob mchangama, nazism, social justice, the satanic verses, weimar republic

ON THE FLAUNTING OF DOUBLE STANDARDS

October 19, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on immigration, free speech and double standards, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 17 October 2021, under the headline “Whether freedom of speech or fairness to migrants, some principles are sacred”. “Why is hypocrisy so odious?” asked the political theorist Judith Shklar almost half a century ago. Hypocrisy, she argued, is a necessity, a recognition that we are human and imperfect and that we cannot but transgress. The calling out of hypocrisy, Shklar observed, can often be more […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration, Women • Tags: channel migrants, chimamanda ngozi adichie, double standards, feminism, free speech, gender critical feminism, home office, hypocrisy, immigration policy, judith shklar, michelle donelan, no platform, priti patel, priyamvada gopal, selina todd, transgender

FREE SPEECH AND POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY

May 18, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the government’s plans for free speech, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Michel Barnier’s immigration comments.) It was published on 16 May 2021, under the headline “Challenge bigotry by all means, but outlaw it? I’d rather not”. “Blacks are genetically less intelligent.” “Muslims do not belong in this country.” “It is right to discriminate against gays.” Three bigoted statements. According to a new draft law, the Online Safety Bill, social media companies […]

Categories: Britain, Free Speech • Tags: censorship, free speech, gavin williamson, higher education (freedom of speech) bill, michelle donelan, online harm, online safety bill, prevent, social media, tories, universities

PROTESTS & POLICING AFTER THE PANDEMIC

March 16, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the government’s new policing bill, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the new government policy of “unlevelling down”.) It was published on 14 March 2021, under the headline “If you thought the right to protest was inalienable, then think again”. The next time you take part in a protest, don’t shout too loudly, don’t get in anybody’s way and don’t cause a commotion. Best to sit quietly in a corner […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: cressida dick, free speech, police, priti patel, protests, reclaim these streets, right to protest, rights, sarah everard

THE WOKE AND THE UNWOKE

February 16, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the polarisation between “woke” and “anti-woke” arguments, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 14 February 2021, under the headline “Woke warriors on the march? Don’t forget the bigotry of the ‘unwoke’”. Want to rid an Oxford college of a statue of an imperialist? That’s “wokery”. Too many immigrants? Blame the woke. Insufficiently appreciative of the British empire? You’re in the “Woke Orthodoxy”. Want to strangle Andrew Neil’s new radio station even before it airs? That’s the “woke warriors”. Joe […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: anti-semitism, anti-woke, anti-zionism, brian eno, british empire, cecil rhodes, cynical theories, david baddiel, frankfurt school, free speech, james lindsay, ken loach, nigel biggar, racism, unwoke, white privilege, whiteness, winston churchill, woke, wokeness

FREE SPEECH, BIG TECH AND BROKEN POLITICS

January 19, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the fallout from Donald Trump’s banishment from social media, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on ingrained prejudices about migrants and the poor.) It was published on 17 January 2021, under the headline “Control Facebook and mend broken societies… If only it were that simple”. London is full of “Pops”. From the area around City Hall to parts of the Olympic Park, there are dozens of “privately owned public spaces”. Places that […]

Categories: Free Speech, Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: alexei navalny, big tech, censorship, donald trump, facebook, free speech, parler, poland, social media, twitter

RESPECT AND TOLERANCE, PEOPLE AND IDEAS

December 15, 2020 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the changing meanings of respect and tolerance, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the revelations at the Grenfell inquiry.) It was published on 13 December 2020, under the headline “Ideas can be tolerated without being respected. The distinction is key”. Should Cambridge University academics and students “tolerate” or “respect” the views of others with which they might disagree? Should we tolerate Millwall fans booing players taking the knee? Should gender-critical feminists who argue for […]

Categories: Free Speech, Philosophy & Ethics, Women • Tags: cambridge university, censorship, football, free speech, les ferdinand, millwall, racism, respect, salil tripathi, taking the knee, tolerance, transgender, twitter

CENSORSHIP AND THE VOICE OF PRIVILEGE

July 21, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the importance of free speech for those without power, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Shamima Begum and British citizenship.) It was published on 19 July 2020, under the headline ‘It’s the powerless who suffer when free speech is threatened’. The cartoon shows a bearded man in paradise, reclining on a couch in a tent, with a virgin on either arm. God pokes his head in. ‘Do you need anything?’ he asks. ‘Yes, […]

Categories: Free Speech, Justice & Liberties • Tags: arab world, cancel culture, censorship, charlie hebdo, free speech, freedom struggles, joking about jihad, naked hattar, privilege

THE EPIC OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

June 27, 2020 by Kenan Malik

José Clemente Orozco, along with Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, is one of the triumvirate of Mexican muralists deeply influential on 20th century art. Orozco was not as fine a painter as Rivera, but there is a greater ambiguity in his work. The Epic of American Civilization is probably his most celebrated work. It was commissioned by Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, after recommendation by two of its art historians, Artemas S Packard and Churchill P Lathrop. Painted between 1932 […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: art, dartmouth college, free speech, jose clemente orozco, mexican art, murals, the epic of american civilization, usa

THE IMPORTANCE OF A LIT FEST IN DHAKA

November 2, 2019 by Kenan Malik

I am speaking next week at the Dhaka Lit Fest, something I am particularly looking forward to. In a place like Bangladesh, more known in the West for poverty and terror, a literary festival might seem a luxury, a bauble for the rich and cosmopolitan. It is anything but. It is precisely in a country like Bangladesh that such an event becomes so important. Between 2013 and 2016, a series of horrific murders of freethinking and atheist bloggers by Islamists shocked […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International, Kenan Malik • Tags: bangladesh, dhaka, dhaka lit fest, free speech, lahore lit fest

THE ILLIBERALISM OF THE PHILOSOPHER OF LIBERALISM

September 9, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on John Locke, Baruch Spinoza and the meaning of tolerance, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on politics as drama.) It was published on 8 September 2019, under the headline ‘Why western liberals have long picked the wrong historical hero’. Lost in the library of a small American college has lain a text by one of England’s foremost philosophers that no one knew he had written. ‘Reasons for tolerateing Papists equally with […]

Categories: History, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: catholicism, enlightenment, free speech, jonathan israel, liberalism, locke, radical enlightenment, religious freedom, spinoza, tolerance

CARTOONS TOO DANGEROUS

June 15, 2019 by Kenan Malik

A version of this is published in the Observer, 16 June 2019. What does a newspaper do if it publishes an anti-Semitic cartoon? Determine that it won’t do so again? Or stop publishing cartoons? The New York Times appears to have taken the second route. In April, its international edition (which is distinct from its US edition) ran a syndicated cartoon by the Portuguese cartoonist António Moreira Antunes that depicted the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as a guide dog leading a blind Donald Trump […]

Categories: Free Speech • Tags: cartoons, free speech, new york times

WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO SPEAK?

May 31, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the Bristol Festival of Ideas, 21 May 2019, as part of the Coleridge Series. ‘Who has the right to speak?’ It is the key question in debates around free speech. Who should be allowed to speak? What should be permitted to be said? And who makes the decision? Historically, the issues were relatively clear. Censorship was imposed from the top. Its aim was to deflect, contain or deem illegitimate any […]

Categories: Free Speech, War on terror • Tags: anti-terror laws, blasphemy, censorship, corporate censorship, fake news, free speech, gill valentine, hate speech, incitement laws, iqbal sacranie, muslim, offence, prevent, racism, self-censorship, social media, tariq modood, universities