Banning Books

Banning books is nothing new. Ever since people first started communicating there have been others who try to stop them. The only thing that has changed over time is the reasons for the censorship or outright ban on a piece of work. Whereas once books might have been banned for political, sexual, religious or social , these days literature is the target of would-be-censors for inciting violence.

In July 2006, the Australian Government banned two "radical" Islamic books, Defence of the Muslim Lands and Join the Caravan, they are the only Western country to have done so. These two books were part of a group of eight called the "Books of Hate" that Attorney-General Philip Ruddock wanted to ban. Defence of the Muslim Lands was found to promote and incite terrorism including encouraging martyrdom and Join the Caravan was said to encourage Muslims to engage in fighting. Both books are by a Palestinian-born Islamic radical, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, who was assassinated in 1989. Interestingly, in May 2006 the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions reported that the books did not breach either the Commonwealth Criminal Code of the NSW Crimes Act.

As something of an aside, while researching this topic I came across ten classics that were at one point in time banned, and though it would be interesting to discuss them here. Some of these might be obvious but others might be suprising. All of them, however, are now considered must-reads and a number of them are now on school curriculum's. One of the banned classics, Ulysses, is the focus of an essay by Miri Jassy in the Sydney PEN June 2006 Quarterly (pg 20).

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