Read a banned book

We all know about countries that censor or ban books. Remember Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses deemed sacrilegious by the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran.

Khomeini put out a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s life and Rushdie had to go into hiding.

Here in Trinidad and Tobago, a couple of radio announcers once added fuel to some parents’ fires by questioning a scene from a CXC book where two children bathed naked by a river. After that bacchanal, Ian McDonald’s novel The Humming-Bird Tree “slipped” off of the CXC reading list.

Last year, the ALA reported John Green’s Young Adult (YA) novel Looking for Alaska headed the list of banned books for 2015.

Parents objected to the loose lifestyle and lack of morals among the high school students in a boarding school. Parents complained about drug use, drinking and sexual interest as their reasons for banning the book.

Green reacted to the ban with shock, stating that he meant for the novel to point out how detrimental empty lives are. Green is responsible for getting more teenagers to read than any other author.

Banned books usually reflect the issues society is facing. That’s why 2016 is shaping up to be a year in which books about transgender issues are being targeted.

Flash back to 2001 when Harry Potter by JK Rawlings headed the Banned Book Week list because parents said it dealt with the occult.

Huckleberry Finn has been banned in many schools because of the N-word.

Hop on Pop by Dr Seuss has been a challenged book in Canada because of letters of complaint claiming that it promotes violence to fathers. China banned another Dr Seuss book, Green Eggs and Ham, because Maoist China in 1965 deemed it a portrayal of early Marxism not in line with the evolution of communism. China did not lift the ban until 1991.

Seuss’s book Yertle the Turtle recently “crawled back onto the banned book lists,” ALA reports, because it violated a school ban on political messages with its line “I know up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom, we too should have rights.” Then, Seuss’s The Lorax got banned in California because Californians felt it portrayed loggers as environmentally unfriendly.

Certainly you have noticed a pattern by now. People take a line or scene from a book out of context and condemn a great book unfairly.

Sexual content and politics are two big reasons for banning books.

Khaled Hosseini’s books The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, And the Mountains Echoed have been banned in Afghanistan and most of the Middle East because they do not adhere to political doctrine.

Back in the US, Toni Morrison’s magical realism novel Beloved, a striking book about slavery, ended up banned because of violence and Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell was banned because of its portrayal of the South.

My favourite classic, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, got banned in 1996 from Texas schools because it conflicted with community values.

This is a vague complaint that generally has no substance. The list goes on an on. The point is you can do your part to stand up for freedom of speech by reading a book that has been u n f a i r l y d e eme d inappropriate.

Go ahead; be a brave reader.