22 May 24 | Germany, News and features, Russia, United Kingdom
“We are all born free. We all have our own thoughts and ideas, and we should all be treated the same way.”
These words form the first article of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Adopted on 10 December 1948, the document was created to outline and protect every human’s basic right after the bloodshed of the Second World War.
At the same time, George Orwell was completing his classic dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four; published the following year. While fictional, it painted a radically different vision: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”
Following a screening of the final programme of BBC Arena’s series about the life of Orwell, aired in 1984, a panel at WoWFEST: FAHRENHEIT 2024 festival in Liverpool discussed the question: Just how close are we to Orwell’s vision – or are we already there?
Daniel Gorman is director of English PEN, one of the first international bodies that advocated for human rights, of which Orwell was a member. He believes the novel is still key when looking at the challenges facing freedom of expression today: “The book is always relevant but feels particularly feels so with the current creep of authoritarianism. It is a warning.
“It says something about human nature more broadly, about state and power, and as more power is centralised in fewer hands, we could go along with it until we realise it’s too late.”
Against the backdrop of a collapsed Nazi Germany regime and a Soviet Iron Curtain falling across Europe, it was clear who the ideological proponents were around the time of Orwell’s writing. Freedom of expression and human rights campaigner and researcher Sara Whyatt stated now, however, the lines are more blurred.
“We still have the usual suspects like Russia, and Belarus is there, plus situations like now in Georgia with the proposed introduction of the ‘foreign agent’ law in the country.
“It becomes very difficult now though now as it’s an amorphous group of people at play. This is where social media also plays a problematic role”, she added.
Historically seen solely through the lens of states and countries, the destabilising effect of social media on the fight against censorship was a key discussion point in the debate.
“I used to know who to send letters to, and which buildings to protest outside of. Now, I don’t know who the enemy is anymore, and I feel the enemy is all around me through social media. Does that feel real?”, Whyatt continued.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is also about the manipulation of communications, seen now through the difficulty to parse through a barrage of information on social media, with bot farms trying to widely sow confusion with misinformation and disinformation, argued Gorman.
He admitted that social media does sometimes have its positives and gets information out when official sources are limited: “The vast majority of information we’re getting from Gaza is from local journalists through social media, as international journalists haven’t been allowed in, and remember its role in the 2011 Arab Spring also. The problem is always there for information to be abused.”
Dolan Cummings is director of the Manifesto Club, an organisation that challenges what it calls the “hyper-regulation” of public spaces. Like the online space, he believes there’s a problem with freedom of speech and expression in the physical world, citing encroaching laws in the UK.
“I think the view in the UK now is that freedom of association and speech are problems to be managed rather than potential solutions to problems. Not just around political protest but also even bans on things like busking and leafleting are criminalised by public spaces protection orders”, he said.
Naturally a debate concerning a novel also covered the role of censorship against creative expression. Gorman relayed what an exiled author told him when asked why he thought he was targeted in his homeland.
“He said words have power and novels last, and when they work right, they can really upset the workings of power and connect the struggles of human rights. I think we see that with Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
Despite the inspiring words, the panel laid bare both the increasing financial and artistic challenges facing creatives’ freedom of expression in 2024. Whyatt, who is an expert on freedom of artistic expression, explained artistic censorship often involves less obvious, underlying issues.
“Worldwide, governments are strategically placing people they want in broadcasting and cultural institutions, who then choose directly where funding goes.
“There is also self-censorship in the arts too. Venues might like an artist’s work but may reject it due to fear of controversy and a stripping of future funding or grants. In that instance, is it pragmatism or censorship?”
Writer and performance poet Francesca Beard read a poem specially inspired by the Arena documentary and told Index about her fear of AI and tools such as ChatGPT. Although she thinks they have some benefits for her profession, people have to be careful with their use in the future.
She said: “I put my questions into it and see what comes out. It’s good for rhyme and rhythm but it’s very superficial and makes me think ‘well I’m not going to write like that’, so it helps in that way.
“We need human, creative thought though. It’s all our individual responsibility to make sure we’re not too satisfied by it, because if we are then in the future, I’m worried that’s all we’ll be served up for our art.”
There is hope for the future and a chance for humanity to avoid sleepwalking into an Orwellian nightmare, Gorman said, but added financial support is desperately needed.
“We have so many people standing up who value freedom of speech and expression, all really supporting each other, but there needs to be strong investment into things such as civil society, investigative journalism and NGOs, so we can all hold the powerful to account.”
WoWFEST: FAHRENHEIT 2024 continues around Liverpool and online until 30 May 2024
06 Oct 23 | News and features, Opinion, Ruth's blog
This week is Banned Books Week. It should come as no surprise that the topics of censorship, banned books and cancelled authors are a regular theme of discussion at Index on Censorship. In fact we are the UK partner of the global coalition against banned books. The banning of books has repeatedly proven to be a key tool in the arsenal of tyrants and repressive regimes. Control of information and the need for one dominant narrative always leads despots to ban and even burn books. It’s been true throughout history and as much as that concerns me (and it does – a lot) – what worries me more is how pervasive the banning of books is becoming across more democratic countries and what that means for enlightened societies and their peoples.
I truly struggle to comprehend the rationale behind the banning of a specific text or author.
Words can be challenging, thought-provoking and yes, of course, they can even be hateful and inciting. But the answer, surely, is to argue back, to find different authors, to debate and win an argument – not to ban, not to cancel and definitely not to remove from the shelves of our libraries.
The editor in chief of Index, Jemimah Steinfeld, asked the team to write about their favourite banned books as part of the campaign. And as you will have seen I wrote about Judy Blume, one of my favourite authors as a child, I find it ludicrous that anyone would seek to ban books which help young people come to understand their own sexuality or their personal relationships with faith.
But I could have written about a dozen other authors whose words have shaped my worldview but yet inspired such hate and fear that others have sought to ban them. The works of George Orwell were key to helping me develop my own politics – 1984 and Animal Farm confirmed my lifelong commitment to social democratic politics and inspired my personal political campaigns against those on the extremes. Yet these works have been banned repeatedly and not just in repressive regimes but also in some US school districts, unbelievably for being pro-Communist (it really would help if people read the books before they sought to ban them…)
And as a Jewish European woman my politics are grounded, for better or worse, in understanding the horrors of the Shoah. As a student of history I, of course, believe that we must understand our history so that we aren’t destined to repeat it. So the banning of Anne Frank’s diary and the graphic novel Maus by Art Spielgelman, is completely beyond my comprehension. The crucial importance of both of these books isn’t just the subject matter – but the fact that they bring the horrors of a very dark period of our history to life in a format which is accessible to all – including young people. What is there to ban? Unless your real goal is to rewrite Jewish and European history?
Books are the light, they drive challenge and change. They feed our minds and ensure that societies move on and develop. They educate, inform and entertain, even when they are wrong. There are books that I have considered to be of no value, books which I have considered to contain dangerous views and books which I consider to be hateful. But there is no book so dangerous that I don’t think it should be available in an academic library, available to study.
And if you believe on freedom of speech – then that’s the least you should believe too.
05 Oct 23 | Uncategorized
Beijing Coma – Ma Jian
In the lead up to the Beijing Olympics, when China was on a global charm offensive, Ma Jian’s book Beijing Coma was published. Through the central character Dai Wei, a protester who was shot in Tiananmen Square and fell into a deep coma, Ma presented the other side of the country, an insecure nation afraid of its past and struggling with its present. Ma stated that he wrote the book “to reclaim history from a totalitarian government whose role is to erase it”. I raced through it, went to several book talks he gave and, given the epic proportions of the novel, even enquired about buying the film rights. They were available but I was told that was because few studios would dare take on a work so confronting. To this day the book remains banned in China and no film of it has yet to be made. We are the worse off for that. Jemimah Steinfeld
Are you there God? It’s me Margaret – Judy Blume
As the only child of an amazing single parent, books were a core feature of my childhood. A trip to the library was a joy and visits to the bookshop were a special treat. Getting lost in the pages of a book every night was my happy place and my favourite author as a teenager was Judy Blume. Blume writes beautifully and takes the reader on a journey of exploration of a teenage mind – helping you realise you aren’t alone in being challenged by new experiences and feelings. While from an Index perspective I should say that my favourite book was the one most banned – Forever (which I loved), my absolute favourite was actually Are you there God? It’s me Margaret. As the only Jewish kid at my school I related to Margaret’s internal conflict and her personal relationship with G-d. Blume remains a personal heroine and every effort to ban her books confirms why the work of Index on Censorship is so important. Ruth Anderson
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – DH Lawrence
I had to read DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover at school. I hated it. But I did enjoy the ironies that the attempted prosecution of it for “obscenity” totally undermined the state of the obscenity laws at the time and the court case reaffirmed art’s freedom to say pretty much anything it liked, as long as it was judged to be of literary merit (whatever that means). Those who tried to suppress the book only succeeded in fanning the flames of public interest exponentially, beyond who might otherwise have read it without all the hoo-ha and salacious interest whipped up around it. Public interest was the other marker of whether the book should be permitted, so in bringing the prosecution it rather ensured the inevitable failure of the case. The trial has also been highlighted as the start of societal values changing and ushering in the more permissive 1960s. None of this impacted on DH Lawrence, since he’d been dead for 30 years. Publishers had self-censored by holding off publication until Penguin Books took the plunge and British society was probably never the same again. Now, if only a book could have such a societal impact in the 21st century… David Sewell
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
The Satanic Verses was the subject of a fatwa issued by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, which called for the assassination of its author, Salman Rushdie. The novel is Rushdie’s masterpiece: a comic take on the life of Muhammad that also wraps in the British Indian immigrant experience, Bollywood, Sikh separatism and Hinduism. Its ambition is vast and it deserves to be celebrated as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. Its legacy will live well beyond the regime which forced its author into hiding. Martin Bright
Spycatcher – Peter Wright
I was at university in London when Peter Wright’s Spycatcher was first published and Margaret Thatcher’s government banned it. Wright was a former assistant director of MI5, who was annoyed about the security service’s pension arrangements and decided to blow the whistle over its shadier activities in order to recoup some money for his retirement in Australia. In the 1980s, the workings of the security services were shrouded in secrecy and the book caused huge ripples with its stories of Soviet moles and the then advanced technologies that were being used to spy on Britain’s ‘enemies’. I still remember reading the first chapter and finding out that a nondescript building around the corner from my university department I passed every day was used by MI5 for its covert operations. As the book was not banned in Australia or Scotland, its contents gradually leaked and Thatcher’s government was forced to admit defeat and the book ban was dropped. Mark Stimpson
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Look on the shelves of certain school districts in Texas, Michigan and Florida and you’ll find an empty space where The Handmaid’s Tale used to be, after book challenges led to its removal. Atwood’s most famous book might have been published in 1985, but it still has the power to scare self-appointed censors today. The graphic novel, too, is just as excellent and just as hated by censors. In the dystopian Gilead patriarchal structures are taken to the absolute extreme. A woman’s body is not her own – she is judged by her capacity for baby-making. Even her vocabulary is closely monitored. But the way this society was created is even more concerning, with events in the novel inspired by real-world happenings. It’s a book worth reading again and again – it hit home differently when I was a wide-eyed student to how it does now that I’m a mother, and still sends the same chill in a 2023 context. Katie Dancey-Downs
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Harper Lee’s classic 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird explores complex themes of race, justice, and humanity, bringing a degree of warmth to heavy subject matter by using the perspective of child protagonist Scout Finch to invoke a sense of innocence, even while tackling difficult topics. Although the book is considered a modern classic, it has been subject to bans and challenges due to its use of profanity, racial slurs, and adult themes. The language and subject matter may make it an uncomfortable read for some, but the overriding message of tolerance and morality is both important and necessary. Daisy Ruddock
Animal Farm – George Orwell
There’s always a book you read that, when you reflect back on, has made an impression on your whole life. For me it was Animal Farm by George Orwell. I first read the book as a teenager and it made me think about the meaning behind the role of governments and the issues of right and wrong, greed and the corruption of power. When I watched the world news and saw the power and restrictions that states placed on their citizens, a book published in 1945 showed me how the world turns and how little change there can be without true democracy. Cathy Parry
His Dark Materials trilogy – Philip Pullman
The His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman made its way to me through my grandmother. This was how I often got the books that have stuck with me nearly two decades later. I wonder whether she knew what she did would be so frowned upon by those in the US states who took offence to its apparent “anti-Christian” message? His Dark Materials is glorious collection of young adult books, which snuck in complex messages without patronising the readers. In fact, it challenges and provokes the readers in a manner that sent my teenage brain racing. Also how can you not love a polar bear wearing armour? Nik Williams
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
The Ireland that I was born into was a cold house for women. There was no access to abortion, no divorce and marital rape had only recently been outlawed. Since then, public opinion has been reshaped and laws have been liberalised, largely as a result of ordinary women speaking out about their personal experiences. That’s why The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is important. It’s a rare example of a canonical work about the life of a young woman as told in her own words. The semi-autobiographical novel, which was previously banned in Ireland and remains banned in some US states, is a coming-of-age story following a young woman at odds with 1950s US society. It challenges the conventional roles of women and explores the difficult, and still tabooed, subject of mental illness. Jessica Ní Mhainín
07 Jun 17 | Artistic Freedom, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyaGg3Me38k&feature=youtu.be”][vc_column_text]Additional reporting by Mary Meisenzahl
Following similar events in the USA and Australia, the Orwell Foundation sponsored the first start-to-finish live reading of George Orwell’s 1984 in the UK on 6 June.
The Orwell Foundation hosted the 12-hour event at the University College London’s Senate House, the inspiration for the book’s The Ministry of Truth. The reading was also live-streamed to libraries and theatres across the UK. The foundation celebrates Orwell’s writing and reporting.
Tuesday’s event included 68 individuals who read from 1984 throughout the day. The readers were invited based on their embodiment of an aspect of Orwell’s values such as giving a voice to the powerless, making difficult freedom of speech decisions, having their writing banned and/or oftentimes taking a witty or controversial stance. These individuals were journalists, academics, public figures, artists members of the public and members of Orwell’s family.
While the participants read from 1984, actors performed parts of the book. Audience members described the experience as “topical,” “immersive” and “unforgettable”.
Director of the Orwell Foundation, Jean Seaton explained: “In the era of ‘post-truth politics’ and when every personal gesture is subject to commercial surveillance and commodified as data, the book has new resonance.”
Click here to watch the full 1984 reading.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1496835496497-78ff0269-5a00-9″ taxonomies=”4479″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
