Article by Rianna Alania Illustration by Chi Hong Wong
October 3, 2021
When we were children, our elders would often tell us that there is only one thing that no person could ever take from us. That thing is knowledge. It gives us the foundation needed to think critically and form conclusions. This knowledge is power, our own country knows that well when Dr. Jose Rizal's novels awakened the minds of our ancestors. The colonizers found this threatening, and thus they banned Rizal's works from entering the Philippines. Banning Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo is one of the earliest forms of censorship implemented in our country. The act of censorship is the suppression of information done by a ruling body. Governments and even private institutions have a history of censoring the information that their people consume. Whether it is film, literature, music, or art, it prevents the spread of information that everyone has a right to access. Censorship violates at least 3 of the 30 basic human rights listed in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In response to this, Banned Books Week was born. It is an annual awareness event that aims to celebrate our freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 by Judith F. Krug as a push back against censorship that violated our rights to intellectual freedom. In recent years, banning literature has dwindled, though there are still books that remain banned for several reasons, which include obscenity, racism, and false information. In some countries, however, censorship is still a widespread problem. When a person does not have enough reason to get a book banned, they challenge it instead. When there is a challenge against a book, someone attempts to have it restricted. The act of challenging books is popular in schools; this often targets books that contain sexual imagery, violence, and crude language. Religious groups also tend to challenge books that contain LGBTQ+ awareness and positivity.
The following are just a few of the books that have a history of censorship.
“The Hate U Give” (2017), is one of the most challenged books published in modern times. Written by Angie Thomas, it tells the story of Starr Carter, a young girl dealing with the aftermath of her best friend's death at the hands of a police officer. The book brings awareness to the issue of police brutality and wrongful killings committed against members of the African-American community in the United States. While the book gained immense success and debuted at number one on The New York Times’ young adult bestseller list, some people claimed that the book contained an anti-police message. As a result, some school libraries in the US have removed it from their shelves.
Primitivo Mijares was a journalist and a former propagandist working for Ferdinand Marcos until 1975. The following year, he published his tell-all book, “The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos”. Mijares was one of the few people who was able to interact with the former president regularly. The book contained first-hand accounts from the journalist exposing the crimes of the couple and their allies. Unsurprisingly, the book was banned during Martial Law because of its criticisms towards the Marcos regime.
When Lewis Caroll wrote “Alice in Wonderland” in 1865, he probably never thought that this children’s book of his would get banned in China. It was banned in 1931, specifically in the province of Hunan. A Chinese general found it insulting that Caroll gave animals human abilities and attributes. The general expressed that this put animals on the same level as human beings.
Countless movements have been successful due to the number of people who believed. Years of innovation were achieved because of people who were given access to knowledge. Without the opportunity to distribute information, many of these people would have not known that they are capable of change. We must continue to advocate for the freedom to read and fight the limitations put in place by censorship. Knowledge is a spark that lights the way for growth. But without the match that is reading, there is no way to start that fire.
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