Mediaboss Marketing

By Can Bahadr Yce

Since a school board in Tennessee unanimously voted to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus from classrooms, censorship once again has become a topic of conversation. The most recent wave of banning books in states like Texas, which is at an all-time high according to the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom, reminds me of what happened in Turkey over the past few years.

It is one of the most absurd cases of censorship, and it involves Pennsylvania. Between 2016 and 2019, the Turkish government destroyed more than 300,000 books. The number was announced rather proudly by the former education minister. In addition, around 2 million textbooks had been destroyed and reprinted. That includes a 6th-grade textbook, which was barred from schools for referencing the state of Pennsylvania. (

The word Pennsylvania appears in an essay by James Michener.) What is the connection between the Turkish governments censorship policy and an American state? For beginners, Pennsylvania has been a highly polarizing word in Turkish politics for quite a while because Fethullah Glen, who is considered as a nemesis by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, lives in the state.

Glen, a Muslim cleric, is accused by the Erdogan regime of instigating the failed military coup in 2016. Mr. Glen has denied the allegation and Turkey failed to provide evidence of his involvement. While President Erdogan never mentions Mr. Glens name in his public speeches and simply refers to him as Pennsylvania, the word became a part of the political rhetoric and justification for censorship in Turkey. Probably, the majority of Pennsylvania residents have no clue that the name of their state has been an objectionable word in another country.

Even more absurdly, a math textbook was banned for featuring Fethullah Glens initials in a question containing the words from point F to point G. Such anecdotes may sound unreal and ridiculous, but they are real and dangerous. Banning novels, comic books, or textbooks is never a good sign for a society. It indicates authoritarian tendencies, oppressiveness, cruelty, and lack of empathy. Censorship belongs on the wrong side of history.

However, while fighting against it, the consolation of being on the right side of history will not fix our problems. We need to understand where the real danger lies. It is all about normalizingonce people get used to being censored, this will lead them to self-censorship and more oppression. It starts with a single book: whether it is racism, antisemitism, or the assumption of protecting children from sexually explicit material, banning a book creates a climate of fear.

While the government was busy destroying printed materials in Turkey, people dumped books themselves out of fear. This is how censorship works. Even if banning printed books is practically useless in the digital age and makes people curious (Maus is now a bestseller), the act of banning is still a fundamental problem. It can set the norm.Challenging books, of course, is not new in America. It has long been a part of school board meetings. But this time it looks differentbanning attempts are now better organized, more politicized, and polarizing. If it becomes the new normal, politics will eventually deprecate culture.

Preventing young people from reading books that deal with difficult topics is not protecting them. As a professor, I know that books about challenging subjects can make the conversation more stimulating and productive. Young people can learn to think critically from what they read. Learning about different perspectives opens their minds. Banning books is an indication of intellectual decline and lack of self-confidence. Its a threshold; if it is approved by the majority of society and normalized, anti-intellectualism will be emboldened.

This means dark times ahead. And it always starts with a single book.

Can Bahadr Yce teaches history at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA. He was the book review editor of Zaman newspaper. Zaman was seized and shut down by the Turkish government in 2016.

Read the rest here:
Banning books, Pennsylvania, and a strange case of censorship | Opinion - pennlive.com