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Showing posts with label Kenan Malik. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kenan Malik. Show all posts
The Observer 📰 Written by Kenan Malik. Recommended by Barry Gilheaney.

With 99 players born in France but just 23 playing for Les Bleus, the tournament highlights how lines of nationality are blurred

It’s a “Love Letter to England”. Written by James Graham, the man whose play Dear England transformed the image of Gareth Southgate from a mediocre national manager into an icon of Englishness, the 90-second film, designed to rouse support for the team at the World Cup, is tub-thumping in a restrained, very Southgate way.

Narrated by Ian McKellen at his most sonorous, it concludes: “We know who we are”. Yet, if this World Cup has shown us anything, it is how complicated it can be to define “who we are”.

Michael Olise, one of the world’s best forwards, was born in west London and played for Reading and Crystal Palace before joining the German giants Bayern Munich, but may win the World Cup with France. Born to a British-Nigerian father and Franco-Algerian mother, he celebrates the fact that he is the product of “four countries… which all enrich me”.

When England took on DR Congo last week, facing them was Aaron Wan-Bissaka, born in Croydon and currently playing for West Ham. 

Continue @ The Observer.

This World Cup Shows How Contradictory And Messy It Is To Define Who We Are

Observer ★ Written by Kenan Malik. 
Recommended by Barry Gilheany. 

‘Anti-Zionism is one of the modern forms of antisemitism,” said the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in 2019, for which claim he won considerable praise from Jewish groups and Israeli leaders. 

Last month Charles Kushner, the US ambassador to France, echoed the sentiment (“In today’s world, anti-Zionism is antisemitism – plain and simple”) in an open letter to Macron. He was not, though, praising the French president, but lambasting him for “public statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward recognition of a Palestinian state” and accusing him of helping “endanger Jewish life in France”.


It is a good illustration of how confused and contentious has become the question of what it is to be antisemitic. A generation ago, the issue seemed relatively straightforward. There were no formal definitions of antisemitism but there was a broad acceptance that it referred to acts or expressions of bigotry or discrimination against Jews. Today there are formal definitions aplenty – most notably the “working definition” adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA), which has been embraced by governments, universities and civil institutions on both sides of the Atlantic – but with little clarity about what it actually means.

Continue @ Observer.

Reframing Criticism Of Israel As Antisemitism Fails Jews As Much As Palestinians

Christopher Owens ✍ “A people come to this/Beyond the age of reason/A people fed on famine/A people on their knees, and/A people eat each other/A people stand in line/Waiting for another war and/Waiting for my valentine.” - The Sisters of Mercy

On Monday 11th March, it was announced that a settlement had been reached between Douglas Murray and Guardian News & Media Limited.

It was in relation to a column penned by Kenan Malik that was published on 11th August. Discussing the recent riots that had engulfed Britain, Malik drew upon an interview that Murray gave to John Anderson in 2023 where he laid out his thoughts on Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups organising a demonstration for Remembrance Day. The predictable rhetoric used by Murray will be familiar to anyone who has read his numerous columns over the years.

Unfortunately, because the clip that Malik drew upon had been uploaded on the 6th August, Malik made the critical (albeit understandable) error of thinking that

...the clip, which was on...John Anderson’s site before being deleted a couple of days after it was uploaded, was a teaser for a current interview, the full version of which had still to drop" and that "...after digging around, I realised it was from a previous iv, I rewrote the opening to my column before it was published online. It was, though, too late for the print version. My mistake & I put my hands up. 

As a result, the print version of the Observer carried the original column which read that the interview had been recorded not long after the riots and the implication was that Murray was voicing support of the racist attacks.

Unquestionably a bad mistake to make and, seemingly, an open and shut case for Murray. After all, the Guardian (of which the Observer is the sister paper) has not had a good reputation over the past decade: from insisting that Covid critics be silenced through to spreading misinformation and allegations of staff writers being linked to IRA activities and bullying, its lofty reputation belies these sordid elements. As a result, the paper is considered a joke publication in certain circles and the chance to see it taken down a peg would undoubtedly be of great satisfaction to those people. Likewise, the Guardian can't claim to be a defender of free speech when it takes legal action to shut down parody headline generators.

Still, let’s look a little closer at this case.

One of the key lines in the joint statement was that print column “…has caused Mr. Murray considerable distress."

Normally such a statement would be laughable as Murray is a public speaker and should be well used to less favourable interpretations of himself and his views, especially when you consider how he has written about how, in the modern era, "...truth is less important than feelings and that feelings can ordered into hierarchies of legitimacy." Seemingly, it’s not just enough to be incorrectly labelled a racist rabble rouser. You have to feel stressed about it as well.

Indeed, Murray has been at the centre of controversy for years: his appearance at the Belfast Book Festival in 2017 saw calls for the event to be cancelled and the person scheduled to interview him was subjected to variations on the phrase "how dare you give a platform to someone like Murray". Therefore you would think that he and, by extension, the publications that he writes for would be well used to such pressure.

However, this article in the Spectator categorically states that the paper was put under pressure to drop Murray. Obviously, such tactics that are used in an attempt to drum anyone out of their line of work are wrong and thus (I would presume) Murray was able to show that there was potential financial damage from Malik's erroneous claim in the printed version of the Observer.

This puts me in mind of the Katie Hopkins/Jack Monroe libel case where, according to Dominic Ponsford, "...Monroe did not have to prove actual damage (such as financial loss or psychological harm) it was enough that she believed the harm to her reputation was severe". Which has led to criticism of the reformed libel laws where, it has been alleged, the bar to proving damages is incredibly low.

One of the many complaints about the Guardian over the last number of years is that it lies by omission. Yet, with Malik admitting that he had got it wrong and amending the online version of the column accordingly, it would seem that this was an issue that could have been resolved without the need to resort to litigation as, after all, Murray didn't deny that the quotes attributed to him were correct. Considering his column from last year where he wrote in defence of forgiveness, wouldn't it have been more appropriate to use a right of reply to not only deny the claim but also to take the moral high ground on the matter?

Sadly, Murray doesn't have a great track record for this.

Just look at the case of Sunny Hundal.

In 2009, he wrote a blog post about the English Defence League where he quoted another blog that referenced Murray having dinner with Robert Spencer (well known for his anti-Islamic views) and some unnamed English Defence League members who (it was implied) were involved in street level violence and had been invited by someone else.

Clearly a provocative claim, which led to Hundal writing if Murray could “…perhaps confirm or deny any of this?" This was a clear invitation for Murray to set the record straight. Instead, he brought in the lawyers and, a few months later, Hundal was forced to print an apology/clarification. Interestingly, for the blog that Hundal referenced, Murray supplied them with a clarification and that seemed to be end of that.

So how did the man who approvingly quoted Hannah Ardent on the idea of forgiveness reflect on this case? Here’s how:

...some years ago Sunny had to pay out and publish a wholesale apology to me after libelling me on his website. On that occasion he published outright falsehoods, though his more typical style has been to settle for selective quotation, misquotation and misrepresentation. In what must have been a highly embarrassing process for Sunny, as I remember it he then had to declare current and future earnings to me in order to reach some reasonable financial settlement. During that process it became entirely clear that Sunny did not have a career. His main organ of distribution was a pointless self-published website which earned him no money. He occasionally earned small fees for intermittent blogs for the Guardian. But in no way did this add up either to a salary or a funded career.

The smugness and contempt for the plebs (i.e. people who aren’t career journalists) emanating from that quote is truly sickening and rich coming from someone who has derided Sinn Fein for their litigious attitudes.

But is it surprising that this is the same person who called for the University of Southampton to be defunded because they were scheduled to hold a conference on Israel that he didn’t like (which was scrapped) and wasn’t happy that arrests weren't made over repugnant responses to 7th October?

Not at all but it is ironic coming from a director of the Free Speech Union.

One of the refrains from Murray’s followers has been that free speech doesn’t cover lying.

Let’s break that down.

Firstly, as Malik freely admitted the error was his fault, it cannot be stated that he was deliberately lying. He was mistaken.

Secondly, libel laws are an area oft debated among free speech advocates. Andrew Doyle makes an eloquent case for them here while Anthony McIntyre (who faced two actions from Allison Morris over columns she didn’t like) has quoted Grayling’s famous remark that if we . . . 

Give any government, any security service, any policing authority, any special interest group such as a religious organisation or a political party, any prude or moraliser, any zealot of any kind, the power to shut someone else up…they will leap at it . . . 

. . . as a motto that TPQ lives and breathes every day.


Spiked have written extensively about opposing libel laws, with Brendan O’Neill pointing out that the likes of Thomas Paine and William Lovett were tried for seditious libel: expressing an opinion. Looking to America, O’Neill writes:

In a 1964 Supreme Court ruling in the US, in which the New York Times and the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King had a libel ruling against them overturned, the justices defended difficult debate against the punishing, censorious instinct of libel law. They said political discussion should be ‘uninhibited, robust and wide open’ and will very often include ‘vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials’. There must even be the ‘breathing space’ for ‘erroneous statement’, they said, because punishing erroneous statement too harshly could limit political expression in the round.

Unfortunately, Britain’s libel laws do not take any of this into consideration and it’s worth remembering that Lance Armstrong, Sonia Sutcliffe and Jeffrey Archer are three prominent examples of people who have won libel cases against various newspapers only to be uncovered as liars and hypocrites later on.

So yes, free speech absolutists would agree that lies should not be subject to court proceedings and, as already stated, Malik has admitted the error so no lying went on.

To conclude, I consider the libel case instigated by Douglas Murray to have been unnecessary. Not only has it led to demonisation of Kenan Malik by numerous people who are clearly unfamiliar with Malik’s writings. He is certainly not anti-white nor anti-working class nor woke. It suggests that Murray is more interested in scoring points in the culture war against the discredited Guardian Media Group than honest conversation and forgiveness.

But with Murray facing a lawsuit, maybe he’ll change his mind if the verdict doesn’t go his way.

This Reddit post served as a basis for some of the points raised in this article.

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.

The Law Is Still An Ass

The Guardian ðŸ–‰ Written by Kenan Malik. Recommended by Barry Gilheany.

22-September-2024

Yes, I’ve been called a “coconut”. When Marieha Hussain wrote the word on a placard she carried on a Palestine march last November, it was to deride Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman, the then prime minister and home secretary, for their obnoxious immigration policies and their support for Israel’s war in Gaza. But it is a term used also to disparage those on the left whose political views are deemed too “white”.

Hussain’s placard, one side of which depicted the faces of Sunak and Braverman superimposed on coconuts under a palm tree, landed her in court, charged with a racially aggravated public order offence. Last week she was cleared, the judge accepting it as legitimate “political satire”.

“Coconut” – meaning being brown or black on the outside but white on the inside – is a cheap, distasteful term of abuse, but not one that should be policed by the state (though Hussain is not the first person to find herself in court for using the word). Both its use by antiracists and attempts by the authorities to criminalise that use raise wider questions about the policing of speech and the character of antiracism.

“The laws on hate speech must serve to protect us more,” Hussain reflected after her court victory, “but this trial shows that these rules are being weaponised to target ethnic minorities.” There is, in fact, a long history of hate speech laws being used to criminalise minorities. The 1965 Race Relations Act introduced Britain’s first legal ban on the incitement of racial hatred. Among the first to be convicted, and imprisoned, under its provisions was the Trinidadian Black Power activist Michael X.

Continue reading @ The Guardian.

Too White - Too Black - Too Woke 🗡 Politics By Labelling Is A Disease Of Our Times

Kenan Malik ✒ writing in The Guardian. Recommended by Christopher Owens.


Forty years ago, a US historian claimed that social changes were severing communal bonds. He was right

‘The hope that political action will gradually humanise industrial society has given way to a determination to survive the general wreckage or, more modestly, to hold one’s own life together in the face of mounting pressures.” American historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch’s pessimistic prognosis of the shifting relationship of individuals to society and to each other in The Minimal Self was published 40 years ago. It might have been written yesterday.

From the late 1970s, Lasch published a series of books, most notably The Culture of Narcissism, The Minimal Self and The Revolt of the Elites, that prefigured many contemporary debates, about culture wars, the rise of a “liberal elite”, the corrosiveness of individualism, the encroachment of the market into social life, the creation of a celebrity culture, the rise of a “therapeutic” mindset.

Lasch’s early writings in the 1960s were deeply inflected by Marxism. Over time, his sulphurous critique of liberalism and of the impact of the market led him towards more familiar conservative themes, especially the defence of tradition, a critique of feminism and a wariness of progress. 

Continue reading @ The Guardian.

We Think Loneliness Is In Our Heads, But Its Source Lies In The Ruin Of Civil Society

From The Guardian ➤ This is a transformational moment. Let’s use it to challenge structural injustice, not to elicit or wallow in guilt.

By Kenan Malik

 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 far from feeding Donald Trump’s base, the flames consuming US cities have diminished the stature of the president while, so far, not exacerbating the polarisation of the nation.

The attitudes not just of the public but of major institutions, too, have metamorphosed. The NFL, which for the past four years has condemned players “taking the knee” to the national anthem in protest at racist killings, now acknowledges it was wrong. Nascar, that most Trumpian of US sports, has banned Confederate flags. Corporation after corporation has publicly affirmed support for Black Lives Matter.

In Britain, too, the ground has shifted. From nationwide mass protests to a new national conversation about statues and history, from footballers and politicians taking the knee, to Yorkshire Tea telling a critic of Black Lives Matter “Please don’t buy our tea again”, public life seems irrevocably changed. When demonstrators toppled the statue of slaver Edward Colston in Bristol, only a minority of Britons supported their actions. A majority, however, thought the statue should be taken down legally, something unimaginable even a few months ago.

Continue reading @ The Guardian.

'White Privilege' Is A Distraction, Leaving Racism And Power Untouched

From The Guardian a piece calling out political correctness.

By Kenan Malik
When a professor loses his job for mockery, and a film is attacked for political correctness, both sides should take notice.

‘In retaliation, Ayatollah Khomeini should tweet a list of 52 sites of beloved American cultural heritage that he would bomb.”

So wrote Asheen Phansey, an adjunct professor at Babson College in Massachusetts. He added that cultural sites to target might include the Mall of America and the “Kardashian residence”. Not the funniest of jokes (and not helped by the fact that Khomeini died more than 30 years ago) but definitely a joke and a response to Trump’s tweet that America would target 52 Iranian sites, including those of cultural significance, if Tehran did retaliate for the assassination of General Qassem Suleimani.

It led to an inevitable outpouring of outrage on Twitter from conservative snowflakes. By the end of the day, Phansey was no longer teaching at Babson … 

Much is made today of liberals demanding action against those using offensive language or making politically incorrect jokes. The Babson case shows conservatives are equally easily offended … 

The Babson case also shows the dangers of the left demanding censorship of offensive speech. It’s not just speech the left thinks is politically incorrect that will get censored.

Continue reading @ The Guardian.

Left And Right Should Learn To Take A Joke, Not Censor Them

Kenan Malik on the dangers inherent in Identity Politics.

The term was once used in the battle against oppression. Not after Christchurch
 
‘You turned the issue on its head,” someone said to me after I gave a talk on identity politics in Melbourne last week. “I’ve never thought of it that way round.” It always was on its head, I said to her. It’s just that we’ve never noticed.

I’ve been in Australia over the past week talking, among other things, about the politics of identity. The issue has, in the wake of the Christchurch mosque massacres, acquired new resonance …

… There is, though, in Australia as elsewhere, a strange disjuncture in such discussions. There is a heated debate about identity politics, which focuses primarily on the left, and on whether it makes sense to adopt such politics. There is an equally heated, but separate, debate about white identity and white nationalism …

… Where reactionaries adopted an identitarian outlook, radicals challenged inequality and oppression in the name of universal rights. From anti-colonial struggles to the movements for women’s suffrage to the battles for gay rights, the great progressive movements that have shaped the modern world were a challenge to the politics of identity, to the claim that an individual’s race or gender or sexuality should define their rights, or their place in a social hierarchy. 

Continue reading @ The Guardian.

If Identity Politics Is A Force For Good, How Does White Nationalism Fit In?

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