Censorship in Australia involves a defined government system, open and accountable. But suddenly we have booksellers withdrawing books from sale because of religious objection. Mary Walsh explains why this type of warped censorship is fundamentally wrong.
Neither newspapers nor religions should become the new censors
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne praised itself for becoming a national censor in a recent article (7 May 2010, p3): AJN probe prompts pulling of hate books.
The article informs readers that its lobbying has resulted in a number of virulently anti-Semitic titles being withdrawn from booksellers’ websites, following investigation by the AJN.
It concerns me greatly that books are being withdrawn from bookseller company websites without any censorship guidelines being independently assessed by the government body whose role it is to censor what readers may have access to…if they choose.
We have a system in Australia for deciding what is unsuitable for public sale: the system does not include publishers or booksellers buckling under pressure from any individual newspaper, religious, or other group.
Apparently The International Jew by Henry Ford states: “Whichever way you turn to trace the harmful streams of influence that flow through society, you come across a group of Jews”. That sentiment sounds very harsh if it is what Henry Ford wrote; however the system of censorship in Australia should never become one where individual religious organisations can impose their particular values on companies.
Both the Bible and the New Testament could qualify for withdrawal from public sale if the issue is that that some material offends any one section of society.
I am concerned that Borders, Angus and Robertson and Dymocks have all been persuaded to take books off the shelf that had obviously passed Australian censorships laws because a group of religious people thought the writing offensive. While the quoted passages are not for the mainstream reader, I would remind those who care about civil liberties that is not the role of religious organisations to dictate to us – or to tell booksellers – what we should be able to read.
Governments do that already! I cried when I watched a banned book being burned on a bonfire just a few years ago in front of Canberra’s Parliament House: The Peaceful Pill Handbook was going up in flames, at the hand of its authors, because it had been banned by the government censor. I felt then we were living under the regime of Nazi Germany and I feel like that again today as I read of this unofficial censorship by one religious group.
Dymocks buying manager Sophie Groom was quoted as assuring interested parties that they will remove the “offending” titles within “the next two business days”…. Brony Lew, general counsel for Redgroup Retail – the parent company of Borders and Angus & Robertson – also confirmed that the publications were being pulled, namely The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The International Jew. According to the AJN article, these two were among “a number of virulently anti Semitic” titles. “The swift action taken by the retailers was welcomed by community leaders,” AJN readers are told.
The really bad news for readers in general is that those three book sellers have the market cornered and so we have effective general censorship protecting Jewish interests at the expense of the rest of us.
I don’t want to read any of the books mentioned and I think they could be quite hateful, but the manner with which they are being withdrawn is wrong!! Wrong! Wrong!
I have news for people such as the President of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, John Searle, who “believes it is this type of material that leads to ongoing problems of vilification and racism within our community.”
It’s not, you know, Mr Searle. The real issue is about freedom of choice for the individual: I could imagine that many people reading those books would be drawn to the plight of the Jewish people because of the language used in some passages.
Banning books, or banning religious cartoons, is not the way to go. Banning only ensures that antagonistic views are aired in underground movements, because some individuals are attracted to the word ‘banned’ in front of any product.
Censorship – if there is to be any at all – should be the province of government by open, public processes, not achieved by religious or fanatic pressure behind the scenes.
– by Mary Walsh, CLA member, Carnegie, Victoria