The recent furor about Internet censorship and copyright have left many roaringly indignant, including me.
Then I began to think about the good old censorship times in Nationalist South Africa.
- The time when the censorship board banned Black Beauty because they thought the book was about an African prostitute - only to learn later that the story was about a horse.
- The time when pornography and dirty literature were forbidden in the country but freely available in neighboring states, creating a flood of South African tourists who boosted teetering African economies.
- The time when communist history was not taught in schools, but available for perusal in books on world history available in local bookshops.
- The time when banned materials could be accessed by anyone who signed a single-page access form at the national repository.
- The time when overseas holidays meant filling in the blanks left by the shortfall in education and censorship, not mindless drinking sprees on South American beaches.
There have been other times in history when books were dragged off shelves in libraries and private homes, and burned on the street. When cultural centers were ransacked. When life seemed hopeless and intellectualism dead.
After each Dark Age there is rebirth.
I have a picture of a Chinese proverb hanging over my desk in the office which reads, "Pen and sword in accord."
The intended meaning is to keep life in balance, but a global, more historical interpretation can also refer to the cycle of mind vs body. That which we could become vs that which we prefer to be.
We are a species in constant circular motion, destined always to defeat itself by beating the higher self into a bloody pulp - just to see what it looks like.
