Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister of Information and Communications, has weighed in on the NLB controversy.
1. According to him, this is not the first time NLB has banned books.
Yes Yaacob, that’s what Jasna Dhansukhlal, assistant director of Public Library Services, had said at the Press Conference two days ago.
We have no issue if you ban books that stoke racial or religious hatred but books about swans and three penguins?
2. Yaacob explained that the decision was guided by community norms, which public libraries ought to consider since they serve the community.
Well Yaacob, are you saying members of the LGBT not part of the community?
And what constitutes community norms? Thousands of young adults are being exposed to the tawdry sex of 50 Shades of Grey and the violence of The Hunger Games. And not forgetting Harry Potter and the subject of witchcraft. Are these community norms? Why do you choose to censor one set of norms and not the other?
3. Yaacob then weighs in on the content of the books by saying:
“The prevailing norms, which the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans accept, support teaching children about conventional families but not about alternative, non-traditional families, which is what the books in question are about.”
Yaacob, have you read the book? “And Tango Makes Three” is about love. It’s about how two male penguins learn to hatch an egg and nurture a baby penguin that would otherwise have not made it to this world.
Most of all, the books teach acceptance. Acceptance of people who are different. Isn’t that part of our community norms?
4. Finally, Yaacob notes that “NLB has to decide what books should be made readily available to children, who are sometimes unsupervised, in the children’s section of our public libraries.”
Yaacob, don’t you know there is a system for such books to be placed under restricted borrowing scheme over the counter, so open-minded parents can borrow to share the gems with their kids?
The Alternative View
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