Radical, racially-obsessive socialists are burning books again. This is as certain to end well as it did when last they “commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past”. As it was in the 1930s, the “cleansing by fire” is being spearheaded by educational institutions.
Plus ça change… or should that be Je mehr sich die Dinge ändern…?
A ceremonial book burning that included tales of Tintin and Asterix by a school board in the name of indigenous reconciliation has been condemned by political leaders[…]
About 4700 books were removed from library shelves, but 30 were burnt for “educational purposes”.
This was exactly the rationale offered by the Nazis for their 1933 campaign of book burning. “This is the task of this young generation,” gloated Joseph Goebbels. “This is a strong, great and symbolic deed.”
Of course, the Nazis were not the only ones to burn books. The Red Guards consigned a sizeable chunk of Chinese history to the flames, as did Pinochet’s thugs, the Viet Cong, and the Taliban. The KKK organised burnings of Beatles’ material, too.
As it has been well put: when were the ones burning books ever the good guys?
The new Cultural Revolution book burning is even more disturbingly ridiculous when you consider the targets of the revolutionaries’ ire.
Among those removed were Tintin in America, Asterix and the Indians and other books containing cultural appropriation and outmoded history.
As some commenters have asked: have the inquisitors ever actually read the books they’re consigning to the flames?
Tintin in America might be dated, but, far from “racist”, it’s sympathies are entirely with the Native Americans. When Tintin accidentally discovers oil under the Blackfoot tribe’s land, the US Army forcibly evicts them and oil companies move in. These scenes made American publishers leery, but Hergé refused to change the story. In fact, Hergé challenged his own editor: sympathetic to Native Americans, Hergé deliberately sought to demolish the stereotype of them as cruel savages.
Asterix and the Indians is less openly sympathetic, but the story draws clear parallels between the “plucky Gauls” and the Native Americans.
The school board told the National Post that the project, entitled “Give back to the Earth”, was meant to signal openness and advance reconciliation “by replacing books in our libraries that had outdated content and carried negative stereotypes” about indigenous people.
The Australian
But Canadian opposition leader Erin O’Toole challenged that claim: “the road to reconciliation does not involve tearing Canada down.”
In fact, book burnings are entirely counter to the plain meaning of “reconciliation”. OED defines “reconciliation” as meaning “an end to a disagreement and the start of a good relationship again,” and “the process of making it possible for two different ideas, facts, etc. to exist together without being opposed to each other”.
Burning books and endlessly pointing the finger of blame at one party alone is not “reconciliation”.
We are heading down a very dark path. The left are as obsessed with race, albeit from an opposing pole, as the Nazis were. They have the same simplistic racial narrative of good and evil, virtuous and venal. Now they’re burning books.
Does anyone really believe that this will end well?
