Every Letter a Bullet, Every Word a Bomb

Have been thinking a lot about book banning lately. Wrote a column which will appear in the new men's magazine Chrome in October about censorship of books here in Malaysia. As so often happens when you start to dig up information about a topic, you end up with so much more material than you can ever use when you have a word limit. You might have found a substantial part of the elephant and have opinions on all of it, but you can only write about the left ear!

Is there ever a case for banning books? I'm very much against books being banned, even when they progagate ideas that I personally don't agree with. (The omnipresent and ugly Henry Ford book, for example.)

In Britain books are seldom banned. The last case I can remember was Peter Wright's book Spycatcher which was seen as a challenge to Britain's secrecy laws.

A new challenge to Britain's general policy of openess though, comes from the Islamic bookshops. In an article in The Times dated Sat 23rd July, not long after the attacks which took the lives of 52 commuters, Thair Shaik and Dominic Kennedy reported that they found books promoting suicide bombing, terrorism and anti-semitism openly on sale. Australia has been struggling with the same issue.

Suhayl Saadi, the author of Psychoraag wrote:

In power struggles, every letter is a bullet, every word a bomb. So what might the London bombers have read? When I walk into most “Islamic bookshops”, I am struck by apocalypse. Texts of fire and brimstone abound; books of which John Knox would have been proud. Most such shops are run by miserabilist Islamist organisations.

So what should be done about it in this country which prides itself on freedom of expression?

Says Boyd Tonkin writing in the Independent:

Whole decades can pass between one mention of bookshops by a British prime minister and the next. How sad, then, that Tony Blair should refer to the sale of literature only when he aims to censor it. Bookshops joined websites, mosques and "centres" as sources of infection in last Friday's scattergun statement about measures to root out extremism. One suspects that behind the forgivable anger, and less forgivable confusion, in the government response to Islamist terrorism lies New Labour's lingering distrust of free expression and its trouble-making advocates.

And he goes on:

Soundbite-happy politicians may need tuition in Mr Blair's "culture of tolerance" as much as disaffected Muslim youth. And that tolerance, as even premiers ought to know, can only claim any virtue or valency when it resists heavy pressure. ... The Islamist variant of fascism peddled by those targeted "websites" and "bookshops" will be defeated in the open, if at all.

His conclusion which I must say I agree with:

In the battle of ideas, censorship can only ever win a phoney war.

Over to you!