مــعــرض الــكــتــاب الــمــمــنــوع

استجابة لدعوة الزميل عاجل من خلال مدونته بالكويتي الفصيح، ننطلق معه اليوم ومن خلال المدونة في حملة ضد الرقابة التعسفية التي تفرضها وزارة الإعلام (أو التضليل، لا فرق) على ما يسمى مجازاً معرض الكتاب العربي و على الكتب التي تعتقد أنها لا تصلح لعيون الشعب الكويتي البريء... كتب لم تمنعها حتى الرقابة السعودية، وكل ذلك تحت ستار الدين والعادات والتقاليد البالية

ولكي لا نشعر أننا وحدنا في دولة الهم والغم نعاني من هذا التعسف، إليكم مقال للكاتب والمؤلف فيليب بولمان يتندر به على ضحالة التفكير التي يعاني منها كل من يحاول فرض الوصاية والرقابة على المجتمع، وكيف أن منع الكتب يساهم مباشرة في الترويج لها

The censor's dark materials


Censorship is a terrible thing. So thank goodness it never works, says Philip Pullman

When I heard that my novel The Golden Compass (the name in the USA of Northern Lights) appeared in the top five of the American Library Association's list of 2007's most challenged books, my immediate and ignoble response was glee. Firstly, I had obviously annoyed a lot of censorious people, and secondly, any ban would provoke interested readers to move from the library, where they couldn't get hold of my novel, to the bookshops, where they could. That, after all, was exactly what happened when a group called the Catholic League decided to object to the film of The Golden Compass when it was released at the end of last year. The box office suffered, but the book sales went up – a long way up, to my gratification.

Because they never learn. The inevitable result of trying to ban something - book, film, play, pop song, whatever - is that far more people want to get hold of it than would ever have done if it were left alone. Why don't the censors realise this?

In the case of The Golden Compass, the reason the book was challenged is listed as "Religious Viewpoint", a reason that appears in connection with only one other book in the top five, a picture book called And Tango Makes Three. This is based on the true story of a pair of male penguins in New York's Central Park Zoo, who for a time formed a couple and hatched the egg of a mixed-sex couple who were unable to hatch two at once. This, if you can believe it, was challenged for six different reasons: "Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group."

Religious Viewpoint? Penguins?

I hope the authors have done very well out of the increased sales they'll have enjoyed, but this kind of thing only invites the rest of the world to consider the American public demented.

In fact, when it comes to banning books, religion is the worst reason of the lot. Religion, uncontaminated by power, can be the source of a great deal of private solace, artistic inspiration, and moral wisdom. But when it gets its hands on the levers of political or social authority, it goes rotten very quickly indeed. The rank stench of oppression wafts from every authoritarian church, chapel, temple, mosque, or synagogue - from every place of worship where the priests have the power to meddle in the social and intellectual lives of their flocks, from every presidential palace or prime ministerial office where civil leaders have to pander to religious ones.

My basic objection to religion is not that it isn't true; I like plenty of things that aren't true. It's that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.

واللي ما يعرف أو ماله خلق يقرا انجليزي، الفقرة المظللة بالأصفر مترجمة كما يلي... بس على الطاير

في الواقع عندما يأتي الموضوع إلى أسباب منع الكتب، فإن الدين هو أسوأ الأسباب جميعها.. فالدين تكون عظمته عندما لا يتلوث بالسلطة، فهو مصدر أساسي للإلهام والراحة النفسية والعلم والمعرفة والأخلاقيات. لكن عندما يضع الدين يده على مقاليد السلطة السياسية والإجتماعية فإنه سرعان ما يتلوث ويتعفن، وتنبعث رائحة الإضطهاد الكريهة من كل كنيسة ومعبد ومسجد ومن جميع دور العبادة التي يسيطر عليها كهنة وشيوخ وفقهاء يملكون قوة التحكم في حياة العباد الإجتماعية والفكرية، ومن كل قصور الرئاسة ووالوزارات التي تخضع قيادتها المدنية لأهواء القيادة الدينية