The required balance
I want to take a more extended look at that gloating statement from “Family First.” The scare quotes are because it’s really from Bob McCoskrie, just as statements from “The Catholic League” are always really from Bill Donohue.
Family First NZ has successfully applied for an Interim Restriction Order on the book Into The River by Ted Dawe – a book laced with detailed descriptions of sex acts, coarse language and scenes of drug-taking. The book came to public attention after it took top prize in the 2013 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. Award organisers hastily sent “explicit content” stickers to booksellers after the book’s win. The latest decision of the Censor will also now be reviewed by the Board of Review.
“In a strongly worded Order, the President of the Film and Literature Board of Review Dr Don Mathieson QC has accepted the concerns of Family First and the hundreds of families who wrote directly to the Censor’s office to protest the content, themes and availability of the book,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.
“The Order says that the classification of Into the River under the Act is a matter of wide public concern, that it was debatable and a matter of independent public interest whether the Chief Censor acted lawfully, and that it was highly arguable whether the Classification Office had reached the correct conclusion.”
They’re pissed off that the “Chief Censor” (what a title!) lifted an age restriction on the book. They want that mofo restricted, dammit.
“The Censor has tried to argue that freedom of expression was not taken in to consideration by the Board and that this freedom trumps the protection of young people. It is preposterous and down-right insulting for the Censor to suggest that the Board failed to achieve the required balance between the rights of the public have to be protected from the injurious impact of material deemed objectionable to young persons and children and the competing right that such persons have access to this material.”
There are rights of the public to be protected from the injurious impact of material deemed objectionable to young persons? I don’t think there are, you know – I think those are “rights” that Bob McCoskrie made up. Those rights bear a disquieting resemblance to the “right” of people in Bangladesh and India and Pakistan to be protected from the injurious impact of material deemed to “hurt religious sentiments.” There is no “right” to be protected from things you think are oooky.
“The author and his supporters in the Library service are focused on the ‘rights’ of adults to write this sort of offensive material under the guise of ‘freedom of expression’. But the Bill of Rights states that ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘freedom to access information’ considerations do not automatically trump the laws that were written to allow censorship to be applied to protect the public good.”
Does it? Really? Or is that just something Bob McCoskrie made up again. It sounds made up.
“We are also aware that the Censor has received over 400 emails of complaint about their latest decision from concerned kiwi parents. Their desire to protect their children must also be respected.”
Family First is now preparing their submission for the Film and Literature Board of Review. The 400+ complaints made to the Censor will form part of their submission.
Bullies on the march. Lock up your books.
As someone who has struggled with writing a (middle-grade) children’s novel for years, I can only imagine what it must feel like to have your book banned. To know that there are people who don’t just dislike your work (it’s a big world), but who want to make it disappear. As though you’d never written it.
I don’t know. I wish the church would ban my book. Then people would buy it. But being banned by the government is just awful.
Funny, all this has prompted hundreds of (tongue firmly in cheek) suggestions that the bible should be banned, together with lists of exactly why.
Actually, Rob, the Bible is one of the most banned books of all time. It was frequently banned by the Catholic Church, which was willing to burn people for translating it into a common language where it could be read by ordinary people rather than filtered through the church (job security, anyone?). I’ve talked to Christians who point to it being banned so many times as evidence of them being persecuted by secular society, because they don’t know their history very well. It horrified the church leaders when it was translated into a language everyone could read.
Yeah. Wycliff – oooh he was a very bad man.
Iknklast, indeed you are right about that. Of course the Church was quite right about that. Look what happened when the Bible was translated. Protestants everywhere!
It would be amusing to see the bible assessed using the same objective analytical standards that our censors use for other works, free from the default “It’s religion, so it’s ok” bullshit that religious fundies insist on. I suspect some passages would have a hard time passing.
We privacy researchers have an antidote to “ook”, which is “ick”. If something makes you feel ooky, how icky would you feel if someone banned it?
It is not – as you might have gathered – an exact science.
Does everyone’s profession seem stupid when you explain it or is it just mine?
Latsot, I’ve had five jobs and 2.5 professions so far in my working life. They all sound silly when reduced to one sentence for a lay audience. I also demand that you change your defined reactions above above to “if something makes you feel icky, how ooky would you feel? Everyone knows it’s ick and ook, not ook and ick!
Rob, I might know what I’m talking about.