An epoch in time came to pass when individual rights were selected and established in the United States Constitution by our founding fathers. The Bill of Rights, which includes the first ten ten amendments to the Constitution, grants freedom of speech primacy as its first amendment.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Although the United States Constitution established these rights over 200 years ago, Americans have not been able to fully secure freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. These principles alone cannot defend themselves. They require the continuous support and the unrelenting efforts of the people to insure their integrity.
The development of man has been reliant upon the intellect since the dawn of time and man's means to attain and pass on knowledge has been reliant upon his creative and artistic output. Communication of thought is necessary to the evolution of man’s existence. Regardless of those in and out of power who’ve tried to stifle the growth and independence of different people through censorship of this output, freedom and liberty continue to prevail leaving tyranny as strong as its principles are weak.
Censorship has its roots in the oppression of free thought in both the religious and political arenas. Liberty has been called to battle against oppression, ignorance, superstition, fear of change, vested interests, and most of all power through the ages. Those members of society opposing established beliefs were persecuted as blasphemous, heretical, seditious, and traitors. Going against the mainstream of knowledge and ideology makes a radical out of the philosopher, scientist, historian, and artist.
In Ancient Greece,
the first laws imposing restriction on speech were instituted to protect
a man’s reputation from defamation. The laws of the time did not intimidate
the authors and philosophers, however. There were several instances
where individuals would be banished and their works burned if they overstepped
the boundary of their rights. This boundary was the arbitrary whim of the
rulers and leaders throughout history.
In Ancient Greece, free
speech was thought to be the differentiation between the citizen and the
slave or alien. The slave and alien in a society had no rights to convey
ideas or criticism.
The most famous Athenian of all, Socrates, was the first martyr to freedom of speech. Socrates was sentenced to death in 399 BC at the age of 70 for worshipping strange gods and corrupting the youth with his teachings. Socrates simply exercised freedom of inquiry and to the dismay of his fellow citizens who sentenced him to death for his behavior.
Plato later depicted the wrongful death of Socrates in his Apology. In it, Socrates pleads for his intellectual freedom by stating the supremacy of his consciousness over the verdict of the jury. He asserted free discussion was of the utmost value to the public and his exercising this freedom was no crime.
Ironically, Plato was no defender of liberty. In his Republic, Plato states that in an ideal state, all fables would be censored to protect the minds of the youth. Censors would reject and prohibit tales they considered to be bad or misleading. Mothers and nurses would be permitted to read only fables authorized by the republic. In this utopian state, Plato would also censor those plays and other works which tell untruths of the gods. He believed the only function of art was to aid in education and believed very strongly what might be harmful to the young should be prohibited.
We see this in our society today where Judeo-Christian ethics overrule our freedom of speech. In our public schools and libraries, books are subject to banning because of profane language, sexually explicit scenes, and inappropriate behavior. The dissemination of our entertainment has fallen in the hands of religious right-wingers who view sex as evil. These views naturally lead to misanthropy and misogyny.
Plato's Laws contains the first proposal in history to treat erroneous beliefs about god or the hereafter as crimes and to establish an inquisition to suppress heresy. Many of Plato's conclusions came to dominate Greek and Roman culture as well as much of Christian civilization. Religion was no longer to be considered a personal affair. A man was to live his life and his religion openly in the city and in public view. From this perspective, censorship is inevitable.
The Roman Empire persecuted many people in its day. Anyone who did not pledge allegiance to the Empire was either forced to or put to death. Of course, the Romans persecuted the lives Christians for hundreds of years. Ironically, within all this, the Romans valued the right to criticism. Political pamphlets of Ancient Rome circulated sparing neither names nor insults.
In 313 AD the persecution of Christians ended when the emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan which decreed toleration of Christianity and its legal equality with Paganism. The rise of Christianity brought with it a powerful arm of oppression and the censorship of art and ideas. The oppression of religion eclipsed the vital virtues of free thought, free speech, and art until after the Middle Ages. Conclusively, we discover the reason why the Middle Ages are so scarcely documented.
It would be nearly 2,000 years before history would see man’s individual rights freed from tyranny. There existed bold, Western thinkers who began to rediscover the works of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and other ancient thinkers. These heroes came to the rescue of civilization and redefined man’s rights. Shedding light upon the Dark Ages, the world witnessed the rebirth of freedom and liberty with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
Throughout the ages, whoever has been in power has sought to achieve conformity in society through force, suppression, and coercion. With the invention of the printing press in the 15th century came further restrictions of exactly what was circulated and what was prohibited. All of a sudden, books became much cheaper and the rate of literacy skyrocketed. The general population, formerly uneducated and ignorant to most ideologies other than Christianity, were exposed to a world of knowledge noble and obscene.
Censorship has seen itself manifest in many forms. Sir William Blackstone of England (1723-1780), imposed a form of censorship known as previous restraint. Previous restraint required a license to permit distribution of newspapers, books, and plays or their suppression before publication. Speeches in a public setting also adhered to the law of previous restraint as did the distribution of pamphlets. This law also imposed on the disclosure of official data considered confidential, secret, or restricted censoring sources of information. When suppression was impossible the government prosecuted after publication which involved imprisonment and sanctions.
Previous restraint also required
customs to ban all imported books and would withhold mail privileges from
individuals who ordered imported books. Books were (and are still) banned
for isolated and uncontextualized passages.
The government is not totally
to blame for this mayhem; private citizens champion censorship with zeal
by using boycotting and public pressure to incite bans against artists.
Public pressure is a force to be reckoned with as will be discussed later.
Liberty begins to overcome
the former bastion of censorship in the late 17th and early 18th century.
Here we see a shift from censorship and persecution to liberty and tolerance.
John Locke was a force of will combating persecution with toleration and
principled liberty. His views repudiated the mainstay of ancient and medieval
society.
John Milton was another mover of freedom and liberty. In his Aeropagitica, Milton defended "the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience." He exemplified the social evil of censorship and the social utility of liberty.
With the birth of the "Free World", North America transformed the theoretical into reality. The entire world observed as the brave founders of our country laid out the foundation that has since guaranteed our freedoms and liberty. Some nations such as England, France and the Netherlands responded by adopting our creed, others in reinforcing a bastion of oppression.
History provides the dangerous pattern which is clear and present in the world today. Around the world we find countless examples of censorship. In China, a billion people live under communistic rule. The Chinese government continues to oppress its citizens and will do anything to extinguish the fires of liberty and democracy that burn within its people.
In many countries, journalists are at the mercy of terrorists every day. On October 1, 1997, the Croatian government government unveiled a new penal code allowing the prosecution of journalists for reports considered "insulting", even if they are factually correct. This makes it impossible for the truth to be known to the world and gives the Croatian government a further lease on the inhumane treatment of its people.
Many journalists are willing to lose their life in order to disseminate news and other information. Earlier this year in Algeria, a woman who worked as an assistant to the director at a state television station had her throat slit when she was stopped at a bogus checkpoint. Her life was taken to send a message to the station to quit publicizing the terrorist acts of a group of local militants. In El Salvador, another journalist who read the news at radio station RCS in San Salvador, was "executed" with a gunshot to the back of her head for simply reading the news. A female reporter with the daily newspaper El Universal in Mexico was kicked and beaten as she entered the Reclusorio Oriente (Eastern Prison) in Mexico City. She was investigating allegations that police officers had executed three suspected criminals in the Buenos Aires district of Mexico City.
Others are trying to speak up for their rights through protest to government policy. Demonstrators at a march in Indonesia organized by the Youth Front for Upholding People's Rights in Bogor were arrested while calling for freedom of speech and opinion and carried posters of the journalist Fuad Muhammed Syarfuddin from the daily Bernas who was murdered in 1996, reportedly due to his inquiries into illegal land deals. The organization's headquarters was raided.
Some countries find the suppression of information to be an ineffective means of censorship due to the incontainable power of truth. In Cairo, Egypt, military prosecutors ordered a total news blackout of all news concerning the September 18th petrol bombing of a bus, in which nine German tourists and the Egyptian driver died despite the fact that it was witnessed by people who could identify the attackers and that the principal assailant, Saber abu al-Ulla who was previously been charged with killing three other foreigners in 1993 was behind the bombing.
In Ghana, one can be prosecuted for making allegations against political figures. Two correspondents for the weekly African Observer were charged with intentional libel in connection with an article published in the paper in September alleging corrupt practices by the Minister of Justice Yao Obed Asamoah. They are being detained indefinitely.
At a concert in Bologna,
Italy celebrating 23rd Italian National Eucharistic Congress, the Pope
responded to Bob Dylan's performance of Blowin' in the Wind by censoring
possible answers to its famous rhetorical question: "How many roads
must a man walk down?" The Pope retorted, "Man has just one road to travel
and that is Christ." Singer Gianni Morandi followed with a duet version
of John Lennon's Imagine in which all references to "no heaven"
and "no religion" were removed.
On a more positive note,
the Thailand is developing a new constitution which seeks to promote "open
and clean government" it is receiving an overwhelmingly positive endorsement
by parliament. The package includes the country's first bill of rights
and intends to establish special courts to hear complaints about abuse
of power by politicians and officials.
Unfortunately we do not have to travel to other countries to witness censorship. It's hard to believe, but book banning is not a thing of the past. Several literary works are still subject to censorship. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (1937) continues to be banned in public schools "to protect the young and impressionable from this tragic tale of crude heroes speaking vulgar language within a setting that implies criticism of our social system."
The Catcher in the Rye (1951) is at odds with many public schools who ban J.D. Salinger’s controversial work. Ironically, The Catcher in the Rye has the unusual distinction of being the most frequently censored book while at the same time being the most frequently taught book in public schools. The object of the censors is the novel's vulgar and profane language. One parent in California counted 295 occasions where the main character, Holden Caulfield had taken God's name in vain and on top of the that, 860 other obscenities.
Another classic, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn (1885) has been the subject of much censorship for its poor use of the English language and ridiculing America’s work ethic, polite manners, prayer, and piety. Most recently, the book has been the center of censorship for allegations of racism when in fact the book is a devastating satire of racism, bigotry, and property rights in the US.
Perhaps some of you remember Judy Blume’s Blubber. Blume’s works have been at the center of controversy by parents and teachers since the beginning of her career for dealing directly with adolescent issues such as experimental sex, masturbation, and menstruation. Blubber has been accused of inciting inappropriate behavior among girls (cheating, stealing, lying, and cursing), racial slurs, and objectionable language.
Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), the first of a four- volume autobiographical series has been banned in public libraries and public school libraries for its sexually explicit scenes, foul language, and irreverent religious descriptions. Some have combated the negativity by inciting the fact of the matter: Maya Angelou overcame her troubled beginning and made herself into a successful artist. She is a role model, not a troublemaker.
Salman Rushdie was sentenced to death for penning The Satanic Verses and remains to this day in hiding. The Iranians thought it "blasphemous" and justified the sentence. Under Islamic law, blasphemy is a form of apostasy and makes it a capital crime. "Even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of all time, it is incumbent upon every Moslem to employ everything he has, his life and wealth, to send him to hell."
By far one of the most ridiculous bannings is that of Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1812) which is currently shielded by censors from the libraries of public schools. School districts in California and Florida banned the book saying the presence of wine in Little Red Riding Hood’s basket condoned the use of alcohol to minors. Also, the violence depicted in the tale have been said to be too much for young children to be exposed to even though both the grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood live.
In the United States we have book bannings, in India, one could be killed for writing a controversial novel. Arundhati Roy, a novelist from India, won Britain's top literary prize, the Booker, in October for her debut novel The God of Small Things. She later told reporters she may never write again. Roy's book provoked a legal suit in the state of Kerala. Roy stated publicly, "The whole case was because somebody is annoyed by the success of the book. So further success could annoy them further." In other words, she has to censor herself out of fear for her own life.
Fortunately, what is banned in public (governmentally controlled) libraries and schools cannot be contained outside of these institutions. Individuals will naturally seek out censored works and can then determine if they are or are not of value.
The theatre has historically had a close relationship with public opinion and has thusly been under more surveillance than any of the other arts. In theatre, political beliefs have been the subject of many dramatizations and political censorship has been the moving force against the reproduction of these radical representations.
The Puritans arrived in New England and brought with them a disapproval of the morality represented in dramatic stage presentations and considered them to be a form of pagan worship as well as a waste of money. The Puritans had the support of the Dutch and Quakers to back them up. Legislative bodies began passing laws banning theatrical entertainment in Pennsylvania which were soon repealed by the British government.
These are not the only subjects to censorship. In recent times, photography has proven to be most emphatically deemed obscene and inappropriate when its subjects are nude or suggestively sexual in nature.
His works range from portraiture to flower studies, but Robert Mapplethorpe’s work is much more than that. It is bold and brilliantly shocking with its homoeroticism and sadomasochism. His work elicits a response from all who view it. At times you will find the taboo as the subject of his work. Although these works comprise a relatively small bulk of his body of work, the controversy surrounding his photos is livid.
In a retrospective exhibition The Perfect Moment, there were about 20 sexually explicit works which received the scorn and censorship of a few and the affirmative support of many more in the art community. In 1989, The Corcoran Gallery in Washington canceled the exhibition of Mapplethorpe’s work which resulted in several demonstrations of support from the curator on down to future exhibitors. The exhibition was originally funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and a debate began to fester over issues of freedom of artistic expression versus political censorship of art. The Washington Project for the Arts immediately came forward to host the exhibition and funding for the exhibition came pouring in. The Corcoran immediately lost 10% of its membership and its chief curator resigned and students at the museum school protested the museum, a major donor, Lowell Nesbitt deleted the museum from his will and several artists canceled future exhibits.
In Cincinati, the director of the Contemporary Arts Centre in Cincinnati was ordered to stand trial on obscenity charges after exhibiting Mapplethorpe’s work.
A jury unanimously decided Mapplethorpe’s photographs were indeed "art". The attention warranted the highest attendance the gallery had ever received.
To restrict free thought means to prevent the advancement of the human race and that is what should be considered heretical, blasphemous, and seditious. Why is freedom of speech an ideal, moreso than a reality? For reasons rooted in unnecessary control and power, some men and women find it necessary to limit the way others express themselves artistically and otherwise. What may seem obscene to one may be art to another.
What is art? Art is a physical representation of existence whether it be created by the musician, poet, novelist, journalist, architect, photographer, or gourmet chef.
Ideas can seem to some
dangerous and hateful if they contradict or preclude one's system of values.
Some find it easier to suppress ideas rather than to argue against them.
Argument is usually a matter of opinion and inevitably leads to the siding
of one opinion or the other. Perhaps an insecurity steers the censor in
one direction or the other. A censor is protecting the public from a work
he does not believe will be appropriate, therefore deeming the public too
ignorant to make its own decisions. An inherently distrustful occupation
is the censor's.