Tag: free speech

ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND ACADEMIC COWARDICE

July 22, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This is in response to the decision of the University of Cape Town to ‘disinvite’ Flemming Rose, former cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten responsible for publishing the Danish cartoons, from giving this year’s TB Davie Lecture on Academic Freedom. Last year, I was honoured to be invited to the University of Cape Town to give the 2015 TB Davie lecture. It was a privilege to have been able to become part of the history that is the TB Davie lecture, a history of resistance […]

Categories: Academia, Free Speech, International • Tags: academic freedom, danish cartoons, flemming rose, free speech, islamophobia

CONNECTEDNESS AND DISCONNECTEDNESS

May 25, 2016 by Kenan Malik

In 2010, I spoke at a seminar in Oxford when Timothy Garton Ash launched his Free Speech project to explore the state of free speech in the contemporary world. Now, out of that project has come Garton Ash’s new book, called, unsurprisingly, Free Speech. So, it was a pleasure to be invited to discuss the issues again this week at a Guardian debate, at Conway Hall in London, to launch the book, together with Rowan Williams, Joanna Williams, Jonathan Freedand and, of course, […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: censorship, diversity, free speech, identity politics, timothy garton ash

WARNING: THIS MAY INJURE YOUR MODESTY

May 19, 2016 by Kenan Malik

Ahmed Naji is an Egyptian novelist and journalist who, in February, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for ‘injuring public modesty’. In August 2014, Akhbar al-Adab, a state-funded literary magazine, had published an excerpt from his third novel, Istikhdam al-Hayah (Using Life), which had been previously approved by Egypt’s censorship authority. In the excerpt, the narrator smokes hashish, drinks alcohol with his friends, and enjoys a sexual relationship with a woman. Hani Saleh Tawfik, a 65-year-old Egyptian, filed a case against Naji, […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: ahmed naji, censorship, egypt, fiction, free speech

BEYOND FEAR AND INDIFFERENCE

May 15, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This essay on Sadiq Khan’s London Mayoral victory, Trevor Philips’new pamphlet on diversity and the public discourse on Islam was published in the Observer, under the headline ‘Muslims are not a ‘different’ class of Briton: we’re as messy as the rest’. ‘It shows it is possible to be Muslim and a Westerner. Western values are compatible with Islam.’ So said Sadiq Khan after his victory as London mayor. Trevor Phillips, former chief of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, takes […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Britain, Multiculturalism • Tags: britain, british asians, free speech, identity politics, islam, muslims, sadiq khan, trevor phillips

THE CASE FOR FREEDOM WHERE IT IS MOST FRAGILE

March 20, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This is an article I wrote last month for the International New York Times on what attitudes to identity and free speech among Sri Lankan audiences can teach those in the West. (I cannot publish my INYT articles on Pandaemonium until a month after it is published in the newspaper.) The article was originally published under the headline ‘A Sri Lankan Lesson in Free Speech’. I gave a talk last month at the Galle Literary Festival in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. This […]

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

OF ANGELS AND DEVILS, OF MONSTERS AND MYTHS

February 28, 2016 by Kenan Malik

A new edition of my book From Fatwa to Jihad will be published next year, for which I am writing an Afterword to bring the story up to date. So, it seemed a good time to repost two videos I made about the current book for Faculti, a website that publishes videos of authors and academics talking about their work. The first film is a reading from the final section of From Fatwa to Jihad, the second an exploration of the […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Kenan Malik • Tags: free speech, islam, islamism, kenan malik's books, rushdie affair, the satanic verses

COMING SOON (WELL, NEXT YEAR…)

February 26, 2016 by Kenan Malik

It is seven years since From Fatwa to Jihad was first published. The themes at the heart of the book – Islam, multiculturalism, free speech – are even more relevant now than they were in 2009. And in those seven years much has happened – from the emergence of IS to the ‘no platform’ debates, from the Charlie Hebdo killings to the migration crisis – that has pushed the debate on. So, next year there will be a new edition […]

Categories: Kenan Malik • Tags: free speech, islam, kenan malik's books, multiculturalism, racism, rushdie affair

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

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

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

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