patriotism | Pandaemonium

SPORT, POLITICS AND TAKING THE KNEE

June 16, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the debate over taking the knee, and the relationship between sport and politics, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 13 June 2021, under the headline “We need to separate sport and politics. But also recognise that they’re inseparable”. “Fans don’t want politics brought into football.” Many would agree with Tory MP Lee Anderson’s sentiment. And so, he carried on, in response to England footballers “taking the knee” before a match: “For the first time in […]

Categories: Politics, Sport • Tags: black lives matter, colin kaepernick, culture wars, englishness, football, lee anderson, muhammad ali, patriotism, racism, taking the knee, wilfried zaha

CROWNED WITH NO FALSE PATRIOTIC WREATH

November 19, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on nationalism, patriotism and civic pride, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on academics publishing controversial ideas anonymously). It was published in the Observer, 18 November 2018, under the headline ‘Patriotism is meaningless if it doesn’t embrace acts of defiance’. Nationalism, the French president Emmanuel Macron suggested at last week’s Armistice commemoration in Paris, ‘is a betrayal of patriotism’. The phrase made the headlines, not least because it was seen as a rebuke […]

Categories: Politics • Tags: britain, civic pride, civil society, colin kaepernick, emmanuel macron, langston hughes, nationalism, patriotism

FOR COMMON VALUES, AGAINST PATRIOTISM

June 21, 2017 by Kenan Malik

The British think tank Demos published this week as a special issue of its journal a collection of essays on British identity called ‘Renewal Britannia’. This is my contribution to the collection, entitled ‘Proud to be British?‘ It was August 2012. I was sitting in the Olympic stadium in London with my daughter. She had red, white and blue braids in her hair and was enthusiastically waving a Union Jack. I thought about when I was her age. Then, I […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: britishness, edmund burke, identity politics, national identity, patriotism, racism

THE MANY MYTHS OF IDENTITY, THE MANY WAYS OF BEING ME

August 28, 2014 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

HOW I’VE COME TO PASS THE CRICKET TEST – BUT NOT TO BE A PATRIOT

July 25, 2014 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

I AM TRIBAL ABOUT SPORT, NOT PATRIOTIC ABOUT BRITAIN

August 10, 2012 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