Ban book-banning

ADULTERY, animal cruelty, bigamy, cannibalism, deceit, egomania, incest, intolerance, slavery, violence – this is a list of the contents of not the latest best-selling novel. Rather, it is a select list of some of the things found in the Bible.

Yet, no authority or civil society organisation in this country would dare call for a ban of that book from our nation’s schools.

Under no circumstances must officials in this country allow the practise of book-banning – once a facet of colonial rule – to resume.

Whereas this practice was once done by colonial authorities in the Caribbean to suppress “occult” books alongside explicitly political works such as communist and trade unionist material, this week the authorities were asked to ban books that advanced ideas of equality, diversity and the fundamental human rights of the LGBTQI community.

On Tuesday, president of the Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO) Pundit Lloyd Mukram Sirjoo said the mere presence of a single book featuring LGBTQI characters at a local bookshop was a problem.

“The book should be a no-no in this country,” he said amid an online uproar triggered apparently by social media postings.

“I would support banning that book. As once a seed is planted, it could be very disruptive to our societies and communities and many of us could lose our children.”

The IRO president has already lost children looking on, given that many of them are queer.

Opponents of equality tend to argue, against all the available evidence, that the entire LGBTQI community is a myth, an “import” from North American culture.

The irony is, however, that the real import here is the copying of current postures being adopted in various states in the US where book-banning has resurged this year, with the American Library Association (ALA) recording a doubling of censorship efforts in 2022, to 1,269 across 32 states: the highest level for decades.

Pen America, which lobbies for free expression, counted more than 2,500 cases in the last school year.

These drives to remove vital and relevant books from schools have targeted mainly African-American authors alongside books touching upon gender and sexual orientation. The areas leading the charge include states like Texas, Oklahoma and Florida.

Minister of Education Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly has pointed out no change has been made to the school booklist for the academic year 2023/2024.

But denominational boards, some of whom are gearing up to challenge recruitment processes amid a simultaneous review of the governing Concordat, have already made it clear they will not allow certain titles.

Yet, the risks posed by such discrimination – not limited to hate crimes and breakdowns in the well-being of LGBTQI children – are too detrimental to allow bigotry, under the guise of book bans, to take root and fester.