The Burnt Books of History

Beginning September 27th the American Library Association is hosting their annual Banned Books Week, celebrating the right to “read what you want.” Events are held all over the United States; book displays, readings from commonly banned books, as well as other types of festivities are being held at various libraries around the country.

It’s commonly thought that book burning is an obsolete tradition, yet in May 2008, copies of the New Testament of the Bible were burned in Israel for “conflicting” with local beliefs. Even here, in the land of freedom, the United States of America, Books are still banned today.

“Ultimately, it’s both unethical, immoral and un-American,” says Draconis Kenjishiya, a Hudson Valley student, “being both an infringement of freedom of speech and our right to read and look at what we want to.”

The concept of banning books has been in existence for centuries, going back as far as 213 BC with Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Haung’s order to burn all philosophy books not written by him. The Emperor who followed (Qin Shi Haung’s son) destroyed those which his father had spared.

This devastated Chinese culture, causing them to lose thousands of books of history and philosophy. This, however, was not the last time that books would be burned.

400 years later, the scrolls of Alexandria were burned by Diocletian. The Books of Arianism were burned for heresy by the first Council of Nicaea in 325. Abelard was forced to burn his own book in 1121 in France after it too was deemed a heresy.

For thousands of years, books and scrolls and parchments have been burned, shredded, completely destroyed because they were considered “improper” for one reason or another. Even now, books are banned for this reason.

In 1996, for example, a telecommunications bill was passed by Congress prohibiting the making of “indecent” material available to the general public. The bill was deemed unconstitutional a year later, but was still a frightening scare to the public.

Many high school libraries around the country have banned fiction books, most of which were best sellers, for dealing with themes of homosexuality, violence or the supernatural. These are only some of the many themes that are common on the “banned books list.”

“...So many people would [be repulsed by] the ‘bad’ parts, when all it is sex, drug use, homosexuality, magic, violence, the supernatural, monsters and prejudice,” says Jo Meyers, a Hudson Valley freshman who is very vocal on the topic of civil rights. “While some of these things may be ‘bad,’ they are all facts of life.”

Throughout history there have been thousands of accounts of violations of free speech and several consider the banning of books to be the worst of it.

In 1980 in Midland, Michigan, Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” was banned from classrooms because of its portrayal of Shylock, a Jewish character. Many of Shakespeare’s plays have been “cleansed” of rude or crude words and phrases to make them more “appropriate.”

Even Mark Twain, “the father of American literature,” has suffered the pains of having his books banned. “The Contdventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” have been banned from various American public libraries over the years for reasons such as being “rough, coarse and inelegant.”

“The idea of the U.S in the first place was liberty and independence and freedom, not power and oppression,” argues Meyers, “There are better things to ban.”

It isn’t difficult to agree with this last statement. For example, the “Where’s Waldo?” books are some of the most challenged and banned books of all time. While most see them as a children’s book for entertainment and to exercise the mind, others can only wonder what else might be hidden within the pages of the books.

Along with “Where’s Waldo?”, several other children’s and Young Adult books are facing censorship issues. “Harry Potter,” “Lord of the Rings” and “Twilight” are all popular series that are commonly banned for the themes they carry.

Prejudice, racism, magic, religion, mental illness, sex, drugs, rape, alcohol and feminism are just some of the more frequent themes that cause a book to be banned. Puberty, suicide, violence and the supernatural also make the list.

According to the American American Library Association Banned Books Week webpage, Banned Books Week (BBW) celebrates the freedom to choose or to express one’s opinion even if it might be considered unorthodox or unpopular. BBW stresses the importance of providing the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. The American Library Association Banned Books Week webpage also adds that “intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.”

“I think that if people want to read them, the books should be available according to popular demand,” says Samantha Perrotta, a Hudson Valley senior, on the subject.

There is a widespread fear among both readers and writers alike that if the censorship and banning of books continues as it does today, someday books may be banned all together. This could lead to the banning of several other forms of art, diminishing culture as a whole.

For more information on Banned Books Week, visit http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.cfm.