22 Mar 2009
Completely every developed country has a set of laws concerning publications, their conditions and rules. And it is not a surprise that every constitution contains such similar items as: every member of the society has the equal right to express his point of view, to freedom of speech and self-realization. And by the way it leads to the complete absence of censorship. On the same level with this law or so to say in parallel with it there are a lot of laws, which guarantee every citizen of the country the freedom of conscience, the freedom of religion, including the right to practice any religion individually or in common with other like-minded persons or to ignore all the religions, to choose freely, possess and disseminate religious and other beliefs and act in accordance with them.
In this case under the words «disseminating religious beliefs freely» it should be understood: the propaganda and distribution through books, pamphlets, electronically, via radio, television and other unprohibited by law methods.
However, there are some norms, which forbid some sorts of propaganda or agitation that can easily provoke and stimulate social, racial, national or religious detestation or enmity. Alongside with this promotion of social, racial, ethnic, religious or linguistic superiority is also forbidden.
Thus, the court has a legal cause for the prohibition of any kind of literature, if the text contains available propaganda and appeals to hatred and hostility directed against social balance. However, for determining the existence of the books, or just in certain texts, the appeals to detestation and enmity, or propaganda of superiority, it is necessary to conduct special studies, with the participation of both sides (not only the religious leaders, whose books about religious dogmas are subjected to the rapt research, but also the representatives of other leading religions, as well as linguists and professionals philologists. Because the questions of religion freedom are so vital and serious the research should be conducted at a very high level.
It may seem strange enough, but the proceeding situation becomes convenient and suits well to the “offended” side. So, by the example of situation between radicals and opposite states, the first one get a ground and reasons to blade these countries for the struggle against Islam world. Moreover, this is a fact that such bans just make advertising for the extremists and their ideas, create for them in the eyes of young unformed people the aureole of martyrs persecuted for the «true faith». This fight against extremism will soon become a parody of itself.
But speaking about prohibited literature it is necessary to remember about the existence of other prohibited questions, so called acute angles. Together with the great amount of extremist literature and against a background of developing and growing of youth movements and groupings, appearance of incredible amount of publications, containing the information about terrorist attacks and violence in the guise of whether historical data or total propaganda, frank fascist manuals with the scenes of cruelty, demonstration of Nazi or similar symbolism and at last blunt pornography catastrophically destroy the immature minds of people.
The lists of banned books exist in many countries. And in every state the reasons for prohibition can be different. It may be a moral component, religious or even political base. For example, in Germany and France the publication of works under Adolf Hitler’s authorship and their distribution are strictly banned. In Europe, the taboo on fascist literature has a great effect. In most European and North American countries Nazi literature and racist nature is also forbidden. But at the same time the list of prohibited books and publications varies under different circumstances. For example, in Britain the book “The Big Breach” of a former British intelligence officer Richard Tomlinson has been out of law for several years. Special Services found that these memoirs reveal some important state secrets and must be classified as secret.
But sometimes forbidden books look like frank nonsense.
In the year 1986 in Turkey year a very famous encyclopedia «Britannica» was removed from sale and turned into paper mass «as a means of promoting separatism». At the beginning of the 90 years in the U.S. in some states more than 50 books were prohibited. Among them – «Adventures of Huckleberry Finn » and «The Adventures of Tom Sawyer» by Mark Twain, « The Catcher in the Rye» by Jerome David Salinger, « The Grapes of Wrath» by John Steinbeck, « One Hundred Years of Solitude» by Gabriel García Márquez, «1984» by George Orwell. For example, the book by Mark Twain came under the ban due to its «racist orientation». However, if any of these books was forbidden for distribution in some libraries, for example, in Texas, it did not mean that it could not find in another state. One of the most famous prohibitions in the United States was the restricting of «Lolita» sale, written by Vladimir Nabokov. With regard to the contemporary literary works, the latest forbidden books in Christian schools in the United States and Great Britain and Australia are the world-famous novels about Harry Potter. According to the view of many religious organizations, the epopee written by Joanne Rowling arouses among children unhealthy interest to the occultism. But, despite the fact that in the U.S. while prohibiting a wide variety of classic works, each year the American Library Association conducts a week of prohibited books; every person who has reached the adulthood can take part in it and read aloud the banned literature.
Speaking about pornography, it must be mentioned that laws and their executors as best as possible try to make a censorship of such publications. But this does not work correctly as the wide network of mass media and not functioning system of age limitation continue to ravish the youth.
All in all the increasing permissiveness in literature and mass media, declassification and revealing of the information flow, devaluation of censorship and moral principles, that has been built during thousands of years, has a great fatal affect on the minds of people. More strict registration, control, research and evaluation are vitally important nowadays. It can help in prevention of social, interracial, religious and other conflicts.
Bibliography
Pamela A. Boker. The Grief Taboo in American Literature: Loss and Prolonged Adolescence in Twain, Melville, and Hemingway. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
Katie Baillie. Exploring Taboos in Children’s Literature: Do They Still Exist? April 2007. School of creative Arts, Film and Media. University of Portsmouth. 17 December, 2008. http://dissertations.port.ac.uk/198/01/BaillieK.pdf
Sarah McNicol. Forbidden Fruit
The Censorship of Literature and Information for Young People. 2008. Brown Walker Press. 17 December, 2008. http://www.brownwalker.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1599424800
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