Every Book Matters
Sep. 11th, 2021 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutterIsn't it interesting how we talk about "burning" a disc when the intent is to preserve something - information, stories, images, music or any kind of creative or intellectual content - for posterity. But when we talk about burning books, it's another story!
The story that sparked today's entry has to do with a project entitled "Redonnons a la Terre" in which the Conseil scolaire catholique Providence in 2019 removed about 30 books deemed offensive to indigenous folk from the shelves of their school libraries and burned for "educational" purposes, apparently in some misguided attempt at a gesture of reconciliation. But this was only the beginning. In the end, close to 5000 books were removed and destroyed as part of the initiative:
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/book-burning-at-ontario-francophone-schools-as-gesture-of-reconciliation-denounced/wcm/479bc35d-856a-42f3-9df3-44ff7b392a8a/
I first read about the book burning in the National Post article but Radio Canada gets the credit for first reporting it. Here's one of their articles, complete with examples and illustrations:
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1817537/livres-autochtones-bibliotheques-ecoles-tintin-asterix-ontario-canada
Nor has outrage been confined to Canada's borders. Here is some reaction from the U.K.:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/534350-burning-books-canada-ontario/
All I can say is "Gracious Providence!" In effect, they burned the truth in hopes of achieving reconciliation. Moreover, it seems a little ironic that this was a Catholic school board when the Catholic church is the only major church which has not issued any apology for the horrors wrought by Canada's residential schools system.
Book burning is nothing new, of course, and neither is censorship of other kinds. In Fahrenheit 451, all books are ordered burned while dissenters "become" books, reciting themselves to other bibliophiles. In Widowland, an alternate history type of novel by C.J. Carey, censorship is taken to a whole new level. The heroine's job is to rewrite some of the great works of literature in order to remove or "correct" any references to strong female characters. It has elements of Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale and the Testaments but there's more humour in it and a more upbeat ending.
In recent times, many libraries and other organizations have recognized that not all life stories or life experiences can be easily learned about from a book. So we have the "Human Library" concept, where you can "borrow" a person for a scheduled chat about their story. Again, people become books, in a way. Perhaps they've lived in a war zone, coped with a life-changing accident or illness,or travelled the world. Perhaps they've faced significant racism, homophobia or some other form of discrimination. Perhaps they have gone up in space, done some interesting research or made a significant discovery. Often the human "books" are interesting because they can tell us about something that many or most of us don't know about but would like to understand more about. That, I think, is a very positive development.
But I digress. Censorship is increasingly giving way to a depressingly homogenized political correctness. We musn't offend anyone. We mustn't do anything that might constitute cultural appropriation. So we just don't talk about it at all. We sweep it under the rug or toss it into the flames and pretend that it doesn't exist - that it NEVER existed. Have we ever solved any of our problems that way?
I'd say no. And the good news is that it seems I'm not alone.
The story that sparked today's entry has to do with a project entitled "Redonnons a la Terre" in which the Conseil scolaire catholique Providence in 2019 removed about 30 books deemed offensive to indigenous folk from the shelves of their school libraries and burned for "educational" purposes, apparently in some misguided attempt at a gesture of reconciliation. But this was only the beginning. In the end, close to 5000 books were removed and destroyed as part of the initiative:
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/book-burning-at-ontario-francophone-schools-as-gesture-of-reconciliation-denounced/wcm/479bc35d-856a-42f3-9df3-44ff7b392a8a/
I first read about the book burning in the National Post article but Radio Canada gets the credit for first reporting it. Here's one of their articles, complete with examples and illustrations:
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1817537/livres-autochtones-bibliotheques-ecoles-tintin-asterix-ontario-canada
Nor has outrage been confined to Canada's borders. Here is some reaction from the U.K.:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/534350-burning-books-canada-ontario/
All I can say is "Gracious Providence!" In effect, they burned the truth in hopes of achieving reconciliation. Moreover, it seems a little ironic that this was a Catholic school board when the Catholic church is the only major church which has not issued any apology for the horrors wrought by Canada's residential schools system.
Book burning is nothing new, of course, and neither is censorship of other kinds. In Fahrenheit 451, all books are ordered burned while dissenters "become" books, reciting themselves to other bibliophiles. In Widowland, an alternate history type of novel by C.J. Carey, censorship is taken to a whole new level. The heroine's job is to rewrite some of the great works of literature in order to remove or "correct" any references to strong female characters. It has elements of Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale and the Testaments but there's more humour in it and a more upbeat ending.
In recent times, many libraries and other organizations have recognized that not all life stories or life experiences can be easily learned about from a book. So we have the "Human Library" concept, where you can "borrow" a person for a scheduled chat about their story. Again, people become books, in a way. Perhaps they've lived in a war zone, coped with a life-changing accident or illness,or travelled the world. Perhaps they've faced significant racism, homophobia or some other form of discrimination. Perhaps they have gone up in space, done some interesting research or made a significant discovery. Often the human "books" are interesting because they can tell us about something that many or most of us don't know about but would like to understand more about. That, I think, is a very positive development.
But I digress. Censorship is increasingly giving way to a depressingly homogenized political correctness. We musn't offend anyone. We mustn't do anything that might constitute cultural appropriation. So we just don't talk about it at all. We sweep it under the rug or toss it into the flames and pretend that it doesn't exist - that it NEVER existed. Have we ever solved any of our problems that way?
I'd say no. And the good news is that it seems I'm not alone.
