Pre-Colonial Food Culture in Sri Lanka: A Brief Introduction

 

Books Behind Bars: Censorship, The Path To A Utopia.

Have you read any banned books? Wait. Let   me backtrack. Have you knowingly read any banned books? If you have read J.K Rowling’s   Harry Potter series, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series or Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner then you should be behind bars with your books … according to some people. These are just some of the books banned in various parts of the world! Can you believe that some of these books are locked in metal cages in places like California?!

While there are advantages to censorship, an extreme form of censorship prevents growth and development in many spheres of life. Censorship is an old practice and has made its way into the media, fashion, pop culture and even literature. In fact, #cancelculture is perhaps the trendiest form of censorship on social media that has brought all powerful celebrities’ to their knees. Recently, one of the most beloved authors in the world J.K Rowling fell victim to cancel culture and lost the respect and admiration she built over a span of 23 years, in a matter of seconds! Isn’t it both shocking and scary? Let’s talk about more novels in the naughty list. 

I will begin with two censored novels that share the same theme of racism and are witness to the sword of censorship being held to their chins. One of them is Mark Twain’s The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn and the other is Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. They are banned in Massachusetts and Mississippi respectively for the themes of racism and the use of the n-word. The n-word appears over 200 times in The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, very diligent readers have shared. Now, what I cannot comprehend is this, and you are free to disagree. While both novels do blatantly use racist words that are controversial and offensive today, they are a realistic reflection of the 19^th century. An age in which such language was normalized and humans fought to rise above other humans in the most brutal ways owing to the pigment of their skin. Today, we live in a world where we have the sense and opportunities to understand the depth of the word preventing us from using them. These novels, to me, are a repository of history. I know for a fact that these two books taught me very effectively about the need for the Black Lives Matter movement today and allowed me a peak into an era where racism was rampant. To me, the messages underpinning these novels are not superficial but strong. That is, that skin and divisions based on skin are constructions that can be shed away when you take a step away from the society that builds them. That is what Huck does, in how his attachment to Jim proves to be strong enough for him to see him as a friend by the end of the novel. Similarly, Mockingbird sheds light on the injustice against a Black man wrongfully charged, and how there are White people such as Atticus who go beyond the common ideology and see past skin. The world then, is not just black and white but makes space for a spectrum of grey in between. So how then, or why then do these novels deserve to be held at the end of an eraser? To me it’s almost as if certain groups of people want to censor what they don’t like in a futile attempt to create a utopia. Imagine, years from now, there would be a generation who could have peaked into a brutal past like I did but will not be able to do so. History is important because we can attempt to not repeat it. But if history is erased, what then?

Another reason for censorship is religious blasphemy. Cogwheel Buddha by Tennyson Perera holds the title for being the first novel banned in Sri Lanka for this reason as was Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, reasoning blasphemy against Buddhism and Islam respectively.  Let’s also pan our gaze towards Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 for a moment. A world in which firefighters 

are equipped with the task of burning books rather than saving people because books are knowledge and knowledge is liberation. I find it very amusing that this novel itself is banned in some places because of its use of profanity. Other interesting texts I found were banned include Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, which is banned in Arizona USA, South Africa and certain Latin American countries. Interestingly, I haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact reasons for this except South Africa’s accusation of it being a tool of ‘’ideological weaponry’’. Well, some people sitting on their banking method must be sleeping soundly each night. Similarly George Orwell’s Animal Farm is banned in China for fear of children treating animals as equals owing to the anthropomorphic qualities attributed to them in the novel. Oh metaphors. I do shed a tear for your untimely end.

So, in my view, the major problem with this form of censorship is not merely the signs to the end of freedom of speech but also a sort of disinterest by people in power to truly engage with these texts and comprehend the layers beneath what they see. Literature is supposed to make you think, maybe squirm a bit in uncomfortableness to make the gears in your head turn. The reasons for some of these censorships are ridiculous to me but who am I to judge. I do believe it’s important to have all sorts of ideas and thoughts available to us or we will all think the same and well, become a monotonous society living in a utopia. I think I shared my dilemmas with you as I come to an end. Well then. Are you a firefighter in a utopia or will you question the common narrative? 

-Nipuni Halkavidane