THE SPECTRE OF LE PEN AND THE SHAME OF THE LEFT
May 1st, 2012 § 2 Comments
The incumbent candidate falters badly. His main opponent fares barely any better. The candidates from so-called ‘fringe’ parties garner more votes than either of the mainstream ones. The far right gains its biggest success. The only thing striking about the first round of the French elections was that there was nothing striking about it. It followed the pattern of almost every election across Europe over the past few years.
This Sunday Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande will slug it out in the second round. Missing, however, will be the politician who delivered probably the most significant result in the first round will, and who arguably will wield the greatest influence upon the French politics in the months to come, whatever the result of the second round: the Front National’s Marine Le Pen. « Read the rest of this entry »
A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 12]: HEGEL AND ROUSSEAU, FREEDOM AND HISTORY
January 8th, 2012 § 4 Comments
In the series of extracts that I am running from my almost-finished book on the history of moral thought, I have reached Chapter 13, which looks at the moral ideas of Hegel, Rousseau and Marx, and at the historicisation of ideas of human nature and morality. This extract is taken from the section on Hegel, Rousseau and the debate about freedom and ‘self-realization’.
POLITICS WITHOUT DEMOCRACY, DEMOCRACY WITHOUT POLITICS
November 11th, 2011 § 3 Comments
It’s startling, and not a little worrying, how quickly the claim that ‘All politicians are useless’ has transmuted into the demand that ‘politicians should be replaced by technocrats who know what they are doing’, a demand that we’re increasingly hearing in response to the Eurozone crisis. From the upheaval in the Eurozone to the ‘Occupy’ movement now spreading across the globe, there are two crises shaping contemporary political debate. The first is, obviously, the economic crisis. The second, perhaps more insidious, crisis is that enveloping democracy. It is insidious because the problem is not the imposition of tyranny or the formal removal of the right to vote. Rather, the relationship between political change and the democratic process has become so strained that the very meaning of both democracy and politics has become skewed. The ease with which people are now demanding the replacement of politicians with technocrats as the way of dealing European instability is one indicator of this. « Read the rest of this entry »
OFF WITH THEIR (NOT SO) SYMBOLIC HEADS
April 28th, 2011 § 3 Comments
It is a family of dysfunctional souls and disreputable characters A family that can boast of friendships with some of the world’s most brutal dictators and with any number of convicted criminals. A family that, in an age that places great value upon equality, democracy, and meritocracy, represents by its very existence the claims of inequality, privilege and unearned power. A family that at a time of austerity and hardship is happy to flaunt its wealth and excess.
By any rational account the British royal family should be the BP of the international stage, a toxic brand treated with derision and contempt. And yet, tomorrow, more than a billion people across the globe are expected to watch the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton (twice the TV audience for the marriage in 1981 of William’s parents, Diana and Charles). How has the royal family managed not only to survive but seemingly to thrive? The answer lies, at least in part, in its ability to surf upon two of the key themes of our age: the rise of celebrity culture and the growing disaffection with politics. « Read the rest of this entry »
NO GOING BACK. THE ARAB REVOLTS AND THE REMAKING OF THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
February 21st, 2011 § 9 Comments
The brutal, blood-soaked response of Arab rulers, especially those in Bahrain and Libya, to the revolts engulfing their nations exposes the desperation of old tyrants clinging to the past. But the revolts themselves reveal the extent to which the Arab political landscape has irrevocably changed.
The ‘strong man’ model of rule that has held sway over much of the Arab world for the past half century has rested primarily on two props: the ability to constrain opposition at home, and willingness of a Great Power, America in particular, to shore up dictatorship. Both the internal and external props of autocracy have become fatally weakened. « Read the rest of this entry »
CAUGHT IN THE POST-MUBARAK WEB
February 16th, 2011 Comments Off
Essays on and analyses of the post-Mubarak world:
Saba Mahmood on the Architects of the Egyptian Revolution
Olivier Roy on why it has not been an Islamic revolution
Juan Cole on how the labour movement drove the protests
This isn’t 1952 but democrats still need to be wary
Eliis Goldberg wonders if it will be a slow motion coup
‘Bread, social justice and freedom. What’s religious about that?‘
Ned Parker on Egypt’s new breed of Islamists
What next for the Muslim Brotherhood after the uprising?
When the Facebook kids met the generals
Nigel Gibson imagines Fanon in Tahrir Square
Jonathan Wright compares Cairo after Mubarak with Cairo after Sadat
Tom Englehardt on the destruction of Pax Americana
Foreign Policy on the winners and losers of the revolution
MORE THOUGHTS ON HATE SPEECH AND THE LAW
February 15th, 2011 § 11 Comments
More from my interview with Peter Molnar on hate speech regulation, the whole of which will be published in the forthcoming book Regulating Hate Speech: Content, Context, and Remedies (Cambridge University Press):
Peter Molnar: Do you think that violent acts committed by hateful motivation deserve stricter punishments?
Kenan Malik: I accept that intentions are not just morally but also legally relevant, and that different intentions can result in the imposition of different sentences. But when we make a distinction between, say, murder and manslaughter, we are making a distinction based on the kind or degree of harm the perpetrator intended. When it is suggested, however, that a racist murderer should receive a greater punishment than a non-racist murderer, a different kind of distinction is being drawn. The distinction here is not between the degrees of harm intended – in both cases the killer intended to kill – but between the thoughts that were in the minds of the respective killers. The distinction is between someone who might be thinking, ‘I am going to kill you because I hate you because you looked at me the wrong way’ and someone who might be thinking ‘I am going to kill you because I hate you because you are black.’
What is being criminalized here is simply a thought. And I am opposed to the category of thought crimes. Racist thoughts are morally offensive. But they should not be made a criminal offence. « Read the rest of this entry »


