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Nesrine MalikThe Guardian |
The most useful lesson of growing up under a dictatorship is that dictatorships are never absolute. Sometimes they are even democracies – ones that...
I would be sceptical of post-election analyses in the wake of what is seen as a shock result. For both sides, voting patterns at this point are a sort...
So here we are. Kemi Badenoch is the leader of the Conservative party. That’s another couple of firsts that the Tories have beaten Labour to. So...
More than a year into Israel’s war in Gaza, it is hard to talk of “escalation”. Because to isolate single moments of military escalation, such...
I began to write this column last week in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. I started it several times, both on the page and in my head, as I...
A common defence of Israel’s belligerence, both within the Palestinian territories and in the wider region, is the claim that it must act in this...
What do you think of when you hear the words “racially aggravated public order offence”? Someone being called the N-word or P-word, perhaps? An...
Once again the gap between politics and media, on one hand, and the general public, on the other, continues to be revealed in its scale. Survey after...
A woman without biological children is running for high political office, and so naturally that quality will at some point be used against her. Kamala...
If you’re not across much of popular culture, the US election may require some interpretation. The Democratic National Convention has been an...
Far-right thuggery. Marauding mobs. The prime minister’s descriptions of those who brought one of the worst episodes of violence on to the...
On Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu received a standing ovation after his speech to US Congress. It was a moment that seemed to usher in a new phase of...
It’s weird isn’t it, this bit? That period right after a new government has taken over with its all-new faces and fresh starts. The imperative to...
It’s always telling, which votes are considered valid and which aren’t. Which ones are “tactical”, which express “legitimate concerns” and...
In Nairobi’s industrial South B district stands the Highway secondary school, alma mater of Rishi Sunak’s father. It was established for Asian...
Last weekend I attended Eid weekend in Ilford, east London, and the festivities were festooned with Palestine insignia. Some children had Palestine...
With the result by all measures a foregone conclusion, this general election campaign is less a contest and more a long coronation for one party, and...
Remember Brexit? For a topic that dominated several years of British political life after 2016, and the last general election, its near-total absence...
The debate format was poorly thought out. How can anything of substance be said in 45-second answers? On the questions that required longer responses...
Elections come with their own logic, a sort of sports analysis. It’s a time that doesn’t naturally lend itself to discussing events or agendas in...
Since its inception, the international criminal court (ICC) has charged 50 people, 47 of whom were African. Its investigations have also been...
If 2020 was the year that Black Lives Matter went mainstream, 2024 was the year it died. Quietly, without even the customary whimper, the trappings of...
In 1988, the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, the most celebrated Arab poet of the modern era, wrote The Trilogy of the Children of the Stones. The poem was...
On a hot day last week, the pavements outside Columbia University were heaving. About 200 protesters were gathered, making a noise that was bigger...
Deciding on what the UK’s place in the world should be has been like watching politicians spin a wheel. Then spinning it again when the option they...
One year ago today, Sudan descended into war. The toll so far is catastrophic. Thousands are dead, and millions are displaced, with hunger and disease...
In Gaza, the six-month milestone has arrived, and with it a perceptible shift. Whatever amnesty the Israeli government was given in the wake of the...
On TikTok, there is a short clip of what an AI voiceover claims is a supposed “ring glitch” in the video in which Princess of Wales reveals her...
Cast your mind back to early 2022, more than two years ago now. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was such a shock, such a break with decades of...
Amid the fallout from last week’s chaos in the Commons, one question has gone largely unexplored: is Labour out of the woods on Gaza? Despite all...
The working life of a delivery app rider is dictated by the tyranny of time. Time between deliveries, the time it takes to make a delivery, the time...
Something odd is happening. A sort of glitch or malfunction. Liberal politicians who refuse to call for a ceasefire in Gaza or halt support for...
Sometimes a disaster is so large that it obscures its own details. Behind the number of dead and displaced in Gaza, for women and girls the conflict...
No matter what profound changes come about in England, one thing always seems to remain the same: the unshakable belief that it is simply a...
It was only a little over six hours of legal argument, but the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel at the international court of...
It may be a small detail, but it tells a big, clarifying story: the Biden administration did not appoint an ambassador to Cairo until March of last...
A new year column brings with it the unspoken obligation to strike some note of optimism and renewal. It’s a tradition, like a pagan ritual,...
I will start this column with a question for you, dear reader. What connects you with your country, and makes you feel it is yours? What gives you a...
In a famous two-frame meme from The Simpsons, Principal Skinner asks himself: “Am I so out of touch?” “No,” he decides, with resolve....
The headline, now increasing in pitch, capital letters and exclamation marks, is that net migration is off the charts. It is soaring. It is at an...