04. On Censorship
Special dispatch on book banning in Kuwait and our thoughts on censorship
#BannedinKuwait #WeChooseWhatWeread
“I said, ‘Okay, what will you do with my three or four thousand books? Where do they go?’… The publisher worked so hard. He published three thousand copies on the first day of release… ‘Will you send it back?’.
She replied that they could be sent back to the publishers. But if not, the Ministry has the right to take the books.
‘Where do you take them?’
“‘To the incinerator’”
This is a conversation as recalled by Soud Alsanousi in an interview with Ali Khajah during the 2016 Nuqat Conference on The Seventh Sense: Powering the Creative Economy. The conversation took place between Alsanousi, the author of the book Fe’ran Umi Hessa (Mama Hessa’s Mice) that was pulled off of bookshelves in Kuwait a day after publication, and an employee at the Ministry of Information. For five months after the ban, Alsanousi hopelessly questioned the Ministry and its censorship committee as to why his book was banned. Despite the international acclaim attributed to Fe’ran Umi Hussa, and the fact that the book is sold widely across in the Middle East — from sidewalks in Egypt to bookstores in Mecca — the book is forbidden in the country it addresses with care and concern. Alsanousi and the audience are left with a frustrating and unanswered question — is the public order in Kuwait perceived to be too fragile to handle critical thought? What justifies censorship to such a large and isolated scale?
The restrictive censorship laws and complicated political bureaucracy constantly threaten literary and cultural life in Kuwait despite being a place with; a robust and historical appreciation for literature and theatre, national and international award-winning writers, and a seemingly growing cultural infrastructure. Even with a relatively high margin of political freedom, especially in reference to the geographical location of Kuwait, the unjustified numbers of banned books indicate a decline in freedom of expression and thought. In the past five years 4,390 books have been blacklisted by the Ministry of Information including titles such as Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera”, Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, a book of letters and sermons by Ali ibn Abu Talib “Nahj al-Balagha”, books by Kuwaiti authors such as Bouthayna Al-Essa’s “Maps of Wandering”, Abdullah al-Busais’ “The Taste of the Wolf” and (much, much, much) more.[1]
Writers have traced the controversial history of literary censorship in Kuwait to 1998 where four books (by Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, Ghassan Kanafani, Nawal El Saadawi and Adonis) were allowed at Kuwait’s annual Book Fair causing the subsequent resignation of the entire government[2]. The dependent nature of the government on the approval of democratically-elected Parliament means that censorship is often used as a tool that allows for easy protection from accountability and potential questioning by the parliament members. The 1998 incident marked a shift in the concerns of the Ministry of Information’s censorship committee, the degree of censorship in literature had to appease parliamentary members too.
History teaches us that banning books has been used a as a political tool to restrict people’s mind.[3] The paradox in the current case is that information, in vast amounts, is easily available through online mediums — uncensored and free for anyone with an internet connection. These accessible alternatives are not without their shortfalls. Authors and other content-producers face a platform where intellectual property rights are seldom respected. Ironically, the lack of filtering and free-for-all nature of social media gives leeway to incendiary racial, sectarian, and tribal rhetoric. To the Ministry of Information, we ask, where is the protection of public morality from the hate speech seen on a daily basis?
Freedom is an important condition for creative work; whether in literature, film production, photography, philosophy and so on. Giving up the power to choose what we read entails giving up on the essential ability of the human mind to make understandings of one’s own reality. Books are one form of many different mediums for the creative, reflective, and undeniably inquisitive nature of the human mind. Censorship of books on unclear grounds is a blatant disrespect to literature and its contributions to humankind, the progress of thought, and critical exchange.
In the question and answer segment of a panel moderated by Dr. Alanoud AlSharekh on the topic of censorship and self-censorship (Powering the Creative Economy, 2016) a member of the audience shed light on the paradoxes of censorship in films in Kuwait. Censorship affects a society beyond solely the artist. Scenes that the Ministry’s censor turn a blind eye to, including acts of violence, war, and aggression, can desensitise and normalise one extreme end of human nature. Keeping in mind the inconsistencies of censorship in Kuwait (i.e. Arabic books being banned while their English equivalents are allowed in bookshops), what dictates which images, tales, and ideas are censored and what is left behind?
In the same panel discussion, the panellist Sofana Dahlan, draws attention to the importance of self-censorship and the training of the mind to tell what is right from wrong. “We educate but we don’t teach how to think” and if there is no will to establish a culture of critically engaging with ideas and information, an authoritative big brother-esque form of censorship takes control.
Moving forward into a complexly connected world that is spearheaded by rapid technological advances, a world where innovation and creativity embody the idea of productivity, how will we be able to progress when the inquisitive nature of the human mind is caged by a medieval technique of control under the mask of maintaining the values of a culture?
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Read and watch more about the book banning:
English
- Book Banning in Kuwait: How, Why, & What Comes Next by Layla AlAmmar
- ‘Literary Massacre in Kuwait’: The State of Book Banning by Abrar Alshammari
- From Orwell to ‘Little Mermaid’, Kuwait Steps Up Book Banning by Rod Nordland
- Screenshots of the Ministry of Information’s reports on banned books can be found on this twitter account
عربي
- كويتيون يتذمرون من الحظر المتكرر لبعض الكتب!
- بثينة العيسى وتطلعات المبدعين — من ندوة ساهم في التشريع بمجلس الأمة الكويتي — نوفمبر ٢٠١٦
- ما الذي تخشونه؟! — حسن العيسى
[1] http://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/4390-books-banned-in-five-years/
[2]https://arablit.org/2016/11/23/leading-kuwaiti-writers-saud-alsanousi-and-bothayna-al-essa-on-pushing-back-against-a-season-of-censorship/
[3] For more information on book burning throughout history: http://www.freedomtoread.ca/links-and-resources/bannings-and-burnings-in-history/#.W6s1ihMzbOQ
