“In Libya, there are no independent broadcast or print media, an anachronism even by Middle East standards.”
“Equatorial Guinea has one private broadcaster; its owner is the president’s son . . . The U.S. State Department reported in 2005 that foreign celebrity and sports publications were available for sale but no newspapers, and that there were no bookstores or newsstands.”
“In Burma, citizens risk arrest for listening to the BBC in public.”
—From Committee to Protect Journalists List of 10 Most Censored Countries.
Banned in Iran
Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody
Banned in Cuba:
Diary of the Cuban Revolution by Carlos Franqui
A Way of Hope by Lech Walesa
Sakharov Speaks by Andrei Sakharov
El Pasado de una Iilusion by Francois Furet
Living in Truth by Vaclav Havel
The Country of 13 Million Hostages by C.A. Montaner
The Magic Lantern by Tomothy Garton Ash
The Art of the Impossible by Vaclav Havel
Toward a Civil Society by Vaclav Havel
Cuba’s Repressive Machinery by Human Rights Watch
L’ile du Docteur Castro by Corinne Cumerlato and Denis Rouseau
1984 by George Orwell
Letter to the Soviet Leaders by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Castro’s Daughter by Alina Fernandez
Persona non Grata by Jorge Edwards
Banned in Malaysia:
Mona Johulan, The Bargaining for Israel: In the Shadow of Armageddon (Bridge-Logos Publishers,
United States)
Mathew S Gordon, Islam (Oxford University Press)
Trudie Crawford, Lifting the Veil (Apple of Gold, United States)
Bobby S Sayyid, A Fundamental Fear of Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism (Zed Books
Ltd, United Kingdom)
Dr Anis A Shorrosh, Islam Revealed – A Christian Arab’s View of Islam (Thomas Nelson Publishers,
USA)
John L Esposito, What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam (Oxford University Press)
Christine Mallouhi, Mini Skirts Mothers & Muslims (Monarch Books)
Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Harper
Collins, UK)
I realize that many of my readers are not going to like my take on Banned Books Week. I do not believe that there are any “banned books” in the United States of America in 2006.
The American Library Association website for Banned Books Week does not list one single book that has been banned by any government entity in the United States of America in 2006. Some books are challenged every year, usually by parents who are concerned that a particular piece of literature is not appropriate for the children or young people to whom it is being taught or made available in the library. Some of these challenges are ridiculous; others have some merit. Saying that a book is not appropriate for a particular age group or even actually removing a book from an elementary school library is not the same as “banning” that book. ALA defines “challenged” as an attempt to ban.
If I say publicly that it is not appropriate to teach Hamlet or Lolita to fourth graders or not appropriate to have those works in an elementary school library, am I attempting to “ban books” or am I suggesting that the selection criteria of the librarians and teachers are poorly suited to the children they are serving? (Actually, I think Hamlet would be fine for kids although some portions of the plot and thematic material would be over the heads of most fourth graders. I’m just picking somewhat random examples.) I attended library school and heard librarians say, with a straight face, that when they chose to not purchase Nancy Drew books or comic books, the process was called “selection,” but when parents or citizens tried to voice their opinions about what should or should not be purchased by the libraries that they support with their taxes, it was “censorship.” Librarians were an elite group of educated professionals who knew how to “select ” library materials; others were yokels who were out to keep information out of the hands of the people, book-banners.
“Censorship occurs when expressive materials, like books, magazines, films and videos, or works of art, are removed or kept from public access.” The truth is, if you use the ALA definition of censorship, librarians “ban” books every day because they cannot purchase every book that is published. They keep those books they cannot or will not purchase from public access. The only difference is that the librarians are assumed to have good motives, to provide as many materials as possible to the lbrary’s patrons, and the public citizens are assumed to have bad motives, to keep materials out of the hands of others. Could we possibly judge each case of citizens questioning or challenging the purchase of certain books or materials on its own merits instead of lumping them all together as instances of book banning?
Truly, no one in the U.S. is completely denied access to any piece of information or literature that he or she wants to read, except in cases of parental oversight or obscenity or financial limitations (can’t afford to buy everything I want to read). Citizens of other countries are not so blessed. Perhaps we should focus on those places where there is true government censorship and attempt to shame them into granting the freedom that we already enjoy here in the U.S.
I like your take just fine! But then…I happen to agree with it. :o)
I’d be a lot more interested in a comprehensive list, that doesn’t just list things that parents have requested recategorized or removed from schools. The list of other countries’ banned books is quite eye-opening, and lists of the books that have actually been either banned by U.S. Customs from entering the country or put under the microscope by state or federal officials for obscenity charges are worth looking at, as well, for the historical perspective and as a reminder that true censorship has occured here in this country. I’d love to have a Banned Books Week that focused on the educational opportunity to examine censorship from an *objective* point of view, but I don’t think the ALA’s campaign qualifies.
I agree. Censorship has taken place in the U.S., and I’d like to see a list of those books and other materials, too. MFS at Mental Multivitamin just wrote about a book called 120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature (Nicholas J. Karolides, Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova). I can see myself reading this book with some interest and benefit.
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Another EXCELLENT book which has been banned in Cuba is Carlos Eire’s book Waiting for Snow in Havana — just published a couple of years ago and won the National Book Award for nonfiction. It’s a book to be read by adults – because of its content.
I am a Young Adult librarian in a public library and tomorrow I will host a program for middle schoolers that discusses Banned Books Week (which is why I ran acorss this site, searching.) I agree with some of what you say, but not all.
It is true that because we cannot put every book published into our collections, librarians select books to include. And it is true (at least for me) that my selections are influenced by my own beliefs about what is ‘good’ or valuable for the kids in this community to read. For my part, I am slow to buy so-called ‘chick lit’ books, for example. But here’s the difference: if a kid walks up to me and asks for a book, I get it for him or her without commentary or restriction. If we don’t own the book, I request it from another library in the system that has it. And almost always if a kid takes the time to walk up and ask me if we can add a book to our collection, I do so. If a book a kid wants seems without to me or a ‘bad’ book for him to read, I ask questions about it. Have you already read it, is it good, what do you like about it, etc. I learn a lot that way. So I do not agree that a librarian selecting books for a collection is in essence “banning” the ones not selected. Banning is denying access.
I do agree with you that the ALA’s description of ‘banned books’ is a little on the excessive side, in that if you don’t read further, you would think there is some national book banning agency or something. In reality the books ‘challenged’ are challenged in only some communities and then they are often not removed from the curriculum or library shelves. But I support the awareness that the ALA gives to the topic, especially in a political climate such as the one we are currently experiencing. Just talking about why anyone would want to ban books — in the US or anywhere — is a worthy exercise. For this issue, I’d rather err on the side of excess.
I find it intersting that no one ever wants to bann the stuff I think is just junk — bad writing, sensationalist, unrealistic, etc. But then that’s the whole point, isn’t it? To have my opinions respected, I have to respect the opinions of others.
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