Freedom to Read Week

According to the Freedom to Read website: Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Freedom to Read Week is organized by the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council.

Freedom to Read Week is February 26 - March 3, 2012.

Each year a Canadian author is awarded the Writers' Union of Canada's 2012 Freedom to Read Award. This year's recipient is Lawrence Hill who was honoured because of "his reasoned and eloquent response to the threat to burn his novel The Book of Negroes," according to Greg Hollingshead, chair of the Writers Union.

The full story was covered in a past entry about Lawrence Hill. A Dutch group called Foundation Honor and Restore Victims of Slavery in Suriname had planned to burn Hill's book to protest the use of the word "negro" in the title. Ironically, the Book of Negroes' title comes from an actual historical document which recorded the names of 3,000 African slaves who were moved from New York to Nova Scotia, then to Africa.

It is not the first time the title has stirred controversy. The Book of Negroes was called Someone Knows My Name in the US and Australia, while in Quebec, it was given the name of the main character and titled Aminata.

More from Down Under

In a previous post Fahrenheit 451: Banned Books: A Strange Protest? you heard about a number of Melbourne University student who had staged a book burning as a protest to the banning of two books from the country.

An article by Christopher Bantick in the Courier-Mail is critical of how the Federal Government has restricted what people can read. The University of Melbourne library was forced to remove the books after they were reclassified otherwise they would have been breaking the law and would run the risk of being prosecuted.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock defends the government's actions, stating,

The Government is keen to ensure that inflammatory material is not used to encourage the naive and impressionable to engage in acts of terrorism.

According to Bantick,

It is hard to imagine a more blatant attack on freedom of speech. Even so, the ban shows something more. This is the Government's fear of opinions contrary to its own narrow social conservatism.

He goes on to challenge the idea that the government has the public good in mind and reminds his readers that Ray Bradbury, in Fahrenheit 451, has forseen the consequence of allowing a government to decide what is good for society. "Because you don't have to burn books, do you, if the world starts to fill up with non-readers, non-learners and non-knowers?"

The vice-chancellor of the University pointed out that by banning the books, the Australian government was limiting the legitimate research of staff and students.

The Council of Australian University Librarians, Australian Library and Information Association, Australian Society of Authors and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, in a joint statement on September 25, noted pithily: "Banning books takes away not only our right to read the opinions of others but also our right to disagree with what they say. We can't refute what we can't read."

While Australians may not be able to obtain a paper copy of these books, ironically they are available online for would-be terrorists.


Defense of Muslim Lands
Join the Caravan

Biography of Abdullah Yusuf Azzam

What would your reaction be to a similar banning in Canada? I'm not sure that anything except pornography is actually banned in Canada besides anything that has been deemed "hate" literature. Are you fearful of would-be terrorists making use of these books in Canada? Since Adbullah Yusuf Azzam was an advisor to Osama Bin Laden, it is likely that the terrorist have already read his writings and we would do well to understand what terrorism is about from this leader's point of view.

A Strange Protest?

Last week students at a Melbourne University, in an attempt to bring attention to a book banning, gathered for a book burning ceremony outside of the library. The small group of students were protesting the federal government sedition laws and the banning of two titles -- Join the Caravan and Defense of Muslim Lands -- by Abdullah Azzam. Pages from a handful of books were burned symbolically.

As reported in one news article, the Classification Review Board found that the books justified Jihad and promoted and incited terrorism.

Student Union president Jessie Giles stated, "These books are relevant to our studies and we have a right to access them ... we're all mature adults here and can make up our own minds." The students are making the materials available online.

What do you think about burning books to make a point?
Do you see any difference between the banning of books that incite terrorism and the banning of hate literature?
What do you think about Canada's stand on hate literature?