Tag: usa

CULTURE WARS CAN MAKE YOU BLIND TO SOCIAL CHANGE

June 23, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how the fog of culture wars can obscure the degree to which societies have become socially liberal, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 21 June 2020, under the headline ‘Culture wars risk blinding us to just how liberal we’ve become in the past decades’. ‘Prime minister Boris Johnson stirs culture war over Churchill statue.’ So ran a recent New York Times headline. The Washington Post agreed. As ‘counter protesters’ took to the streets to ‘protect’ statues and as controversy […]

Categories: Britain, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: black lives matter, british politics, culture wars, immigration, racism, social liberalism, statues, usa, working class

RACISM IS A PROBLEM, WHITE PEOPLE ARE NOT

June 16, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on racism and ‘white privilege’, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 14 June 2020, under the headline ”White privilege’ is a distraction, leaving racism and power untouched’. The transformation has been bewilderingly swift. Six years ago, most Americans thought that police killings of black suspects were ‘isolated events’. Now, three out of four accept that there exists a systemic problem. Support for Black Lives Matter has risen more in the past two weeks than over the past two years. And […]

Categories: Class, International, Race & Immigration • Tags: african americans, black lives matter, identity politics, police killings, police racism, racism, usa, white guilt, white privilege, working class

A PRICE WORTH PAYING?

December 7, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This is a link to my talk on the cost of current immigration policy at the Brainwash Festival in Amsterdam. The talk was given on 26 October and broadcast on the Dutch channel NPO on 1 December.

Categories: Race & Immigration • Tags: amsterdam, brainwash festival, european union, fortress america, fortress europe, immigration policy, usa

‘AN AMERICA WE REFUSED TO LOOK AT’

September 14, 2019 by Kenan Malik

‘A wart-covered picture of America by a joyless man’, wrote the photographer and critic Minor White. ‘A sad poem by a very sick person’, snorted Popular Photography. The object of their scorn was The Americans, a collection of images of American life by the photographer Robert Frank, who died last week, aged 94. It is difficult today to recognize how revolutionary was Frank’s work when it was first published 60 years ago. His style, his mode of observation, his subject matter […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Photos • Tags: photography, robert frank, usa

THE OPIOID CRISIS AND THE EXPLOITATION OF PAIN

September 2, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the opioid crisis in America, its roots and its lessons, was published in the Observer on 1 September 2019 under the headline ‘America’s opioid catastrophe has lessons for us all, about greed and racial division’. (I have restored a couple of paragraphs that I had to remove for reasons of space in the Observer.) ‘We’ll build a wall to keep the damn drugs out.’ So insisted Donald Trump at a rally last year to launch the White […]

Categories: International, Science & Technology • Tags: big phrama, david herzberg, donald trump, free market, johnson & johnson, medicine, opioid crisis, pharmaceutical companies, purdue phrama, racism, usa, war on drugs, working class

SINGING TO THE MOON

July 20, 2019 by Kenan Malik

Every newspaper and media outlet over the past week seems to have put out a soundtrack to accompany this week’s anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission. But most of the songs they have chosen (Fly Me to the Moon, Moondance, Marquee Moon, Walking on the Moon, etc) have little relation to the moon landings or even to the moon itself. While the moon landing had enormous impact on popular culture, including music, there are not that many tracks that […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: apollo 11, moon landing, music, space race, usa

MIGRANT DETENTION AND MORAL DISGRACE

July 8, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on whether migrant detention centres should be described as ‘concentration camps’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Tory policy and attitudes to the homeless.) It was published on 7 July 2019, under the headline ‘Whatever we call them, wherever they are, detention centres are a disgrace’. They are held in wire cages, with standing room only, sometimes for months. Adults have to wear the same clothes for weeks. Children have no washing […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: boer war, concentration camps, europe, european union, holocaust, migrant crisis, migrant detention, morality, nazi death camps, undocumented migrants, usa

WHAT DETERRENCE LOOKS LIKE

July 5, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay was was first published in the Swedish newspaper Expressen, 2 July 2019. The photos of Óscar and Valeria Ramírez, migrants from El Salvador, drowned in the Rio Grande as they tried to cross into the USA, are haunting and distressing, and have sparked outrage and anger in America. Four years ago, images of the Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach similarly shocked and horrified Europe. These deaths are neither accidents nor isolated cases. They […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: alan kurdi, detention of migrants, european union, fortress europe, immigration controls, immigration policy, libya, mediterranean, migrant deaths, oscar and valeria ramirez, undocumented migrants, usa

MASS DETENTION – THE LAST TIME AROUND

June 29, 2019 by Kenan Malik

Against the background of the debate about squalor and brutality of the USA’s immigrant detention centres – and whether they constitute ‘concentration camps’, a debate I might engage in sometime – it is worth remembering that America has a long history of mass detention camps. Among the most notorious were the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. ‘The Japanese race’, observed General John L DeWitt, head of the US Army’s Western Defense Command, and a key figure […]

Categories: International, Photos, Race & Immigration • Tags: concentration camps, dorothea lange, internment camps, japanese internment, linda gordon, mass detention, photography, racism, usa

THE CRIME OF AIDING THE WRONG KIND OF HUMAN

June 17, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the criminalisation of solidarity with undocumented migrants, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 16 June 2019, under the headline ‘Are only certain kinds of people deemed worthy of our compassion?’ When is a Good Samaritan not a Good Samaritan? When he or she helps someone undeserving of our humanity In Arizona on 11 June, a jury was unable to reach a verdict on Scott Daniel Warren, a college lecturer accused of conspiracy to transport and […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: european union, immigration, immigration policy, pia kemp, scott daniel warren, solidarity, undocumented migrants, usa

SEEING WHAT WE WANT TO SEE

June 10, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how we often interpret the news through the lens of what we want to see, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 9 June 2019, under the headline ‘Fake news will thrive as long we are happy to see only what we want to see’. If a gorilla walked right in front of your eyes, you wouldn’t miss it, would you? Actually, half the country probably would. In a classic 1999 experiment, psychologists Christopher Chabris and […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Race & Immigration • Tags: assisted dying, central park five, christopher chabris, daniel simons, ethics, euthanasia, fake news, invisible gorilla experiment, noa pothoven, racism, usa, when they see us, wilding

MEN, WOMEN AND THE POLITICS OF ABORTION

May 27, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the gender, politics and abortion rights, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the world’s most expensive drug.) It was published on 26 May 2019, under the headline ‘Men don’t have abortions. That’s no reason not to fight for women’s rights’. The decision by the state of Alabama effectively to ban abortion has refocused attention in America on the issue of reproductive rights. The Alabama law is the most dramatic move in a […]

Categories: Politics, Women • Tags: abortion, abortion bans, alabama, equal rights amendment, equality, usa, women's liberation movement conference, women's rights, women's strike for equality

THE POLITICS OF THE SPACE RACE

January 7, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the politics of the space race from Sputnik to Chang’e-4, was the main article in my Observer column this week. It was published in the Observer, 6 January 2019, under the headline ‘Power politics always drives space conquest. China’s coup is no different’. Nasa had rejected it as too difficult and costly an undertaking. Last week, China declared ‘mission accomplished’ after landing a spacecraft, Chang’e-4, on the far side of the moon. It was a remarkable endeavour. As the […]

Categories: International, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: chang'e-4, china, cold war, john f kennedy, moon landing, nasa, soviet union, space exploration, space race, sputnik, usa, yuri gagarin

BLOOD, SOIL AND CITIZENSHIP

November 5, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on notions of citizenship, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on bootlegging and Bob Dylan). It was published in the Observer, 4 November 2018, under the headline ‘Myths about shared culture have no place in the citizenship debate’. What links Mike Leigh’s new film, Peterloo, to Donald Trump’s threat to deprive children born to undocumented migrants of the right to US citizenship? It might seem an odd question, best left to Only Connect fans. But answering […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: 14th amendment, birthright citizenship, britain, citizenship, Class, donald trump, eric kaufmann, france, jus sanguinis, jus soli, michael walzer, mike leigh, peterloo, usa

THE FRAUD OF FOREIGN AID

September 3, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about foreign aid, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the left on both sides of the Atlantic) It was published in the Observer, 2 September 2018, under the headline ‘As a system, foreign aid is a fraud and does nothing for inequality’. The five poorest countries in the world, measured by GDP per capita, are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Uganda, Tajikistan and Haiti. One might […]

Categories: Britain, International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: aid, british politics, china, development, european union, foreign aid, global poverty, global south, migration, poverty, usa