China says no room for 'western values' in university education

Education minister says books which ‘smear socialism’ will be banned.

 

 

China’s education minister has vowed to ban university textbooks which promote “western values”, state media said, in the latest sign of ideological tightening under President Xi Jinping.

“Never let textbooks promoting western values appear in our classes,” minister Yuan Guiren said, according to a report late Thursday by China’s official Xinhua news agency.

“Remarks that slander the leadership of the Communist Party of China” and “smear socialism” must never appear in college classrooms, he added according to Xinhua.

China’s universities are run by the ruling Communist party, which tightly controls discussions of history and other topics it construes as a potential threat to its grip on power.

The party often brands concepts such as multiparty elections and the separation of powers as “Western”, despite their global appeal and application.

China has tightened controls on academics since Xi assumed the party leadership in 2012, with several outspoken professors sacked or jailed.

Xia Yeliang, an economics professor at the prestigious Peking University, was fired from his post in 2013 after a 13-year tenure in a decision he attributed to persistent calls for political change in China.

Pigs won’t fly in textbooks: OUP tells authors not to mention pork

Guidelines for writers have come to light telling them to avoid mention of anything which might offend overseas markets.

 
Stringent guidelines from educational publishers, that warn textbook authors off touching on topics from pork to horoscopes to avoid offending students in other countries, have come to light amid widespread criticism.
Their emergence follows the news earlier this month that publisher HarperCollins had pulped an atlas designed for use in Middle Eastern schools after outrage over its omission of Israel from the map. HarperCollins said at the time that the decision reflected “local preferences”, with the inclusion of Israel “unacceptable” to its Gulf customers.

The insistence that mentions of pork products in educational material designed for use abroad is also prohibited was revealed by Jim Naughtie on Radio 4’s Today programme, when he read out a letter he had obtained from Oxford University Press to an author, prohibiting the mention of “pigs plus sausages, or anything else which could be perceived as pork” in their book.

“Now, if a respectable publisher, tied to an academic institution, is saying you’ve got to write a book in which you cannot mention pigs because some people might be offended, it’s just ludicrous. It is just a joke,” said Naughtie, prompting a chorus of outrage in the Daily Mail, which quoted Tory MP Philip Davies describing the situation as “nonsensical political correctness”.

But according to authors, the guidelines are well-known and widely used by educational publishers, encompassing a range of “taboo” subjects in addition to pork, with publishers keen to avoid offending potential markets for their books abroad. There is even an acronym, PARSNIP, to remind authors of topics to be avoided: politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms (communism for example) and pork.

Censorship of books in US prisons and schools ‘widespread’ – report to UN

Free-speech organisations find US government is ‘failing to protect the rights of its most vulnerable citizens’ as popular books – including Shakespeare – are banned from institutions.

There is “widespread censorship” of books in US prisons, according to a report submitted to a UN human rights review, which details the banning of works about artists from Botticelli to Van Gogh from Texan state prisons for containing “sexually explicit images”.

The report from two free-speech organisations, the New York-based National Coalition Against Censorship and the Copenhagen-based Freemuse, to the United Nation’s (UN) Universal Periodic Review states that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) lists 11,851 titles banned from its facilities. These range from the “ostensibly reasonable”, such as How to Create a New Identity, Essential Throwing and Grappling Techniques, and Art & Design of Custom Fixed Blades, to what it describes as “the telling”, including Write it in Arabic, and the “bizarre” (Arrival of the Gods: Revealing the Alien Landing Sites at Nazca was banned for reasons of “homosexuality”).

Prisoners in Texas are entitled to be mailed books and magazines, but the titles are checked on arrival against a “master list” of acceptable works. If they do not appear on the list, then it is the decision of the post-room officer as to whether they are objectionable.

“Of the 11,851 total blocked titles, 7,061 were blocked for ‘deviant sexual behaviour’ and 543 for sexually explicit images,” says the report, naming artists including Caravaggio, Cézanne, Dallí, Picasso, Raphael, Rembrandt and Renoir among those whose works have been kept out of Texas state prisons.
“Anthologies on Greco-Roman art, the pre-Raphaelites, impressionism, Mexican muralists, pop surrealism, graffiti art, art deco, art nouveau and the National Museum of Women in the Arts are banned for the same reason, as are numerous textbooks on pencil drawing, watercolour, oil painting, photography, graphic design, architecture and anatomy for artists,” states the submission, with prohibited literary works by Gustav Flaubert, Langston Hughes, Flannery O’Connor, George Orwell, Ovid, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, John Updike, Shakespeare and Alice Walker also on the banned list.

Maldives will censor all books to protect Islamic codes

In a move condemned by free speech advocates, the islands’ government moves to curb literature and poetry’s ‘adverse effects on society’

Poetry and literature will have to be approved by the Maldivian government before they are published in the country, according to new regulations which have been described as a “disaster for freedom of expression” by free speech campaigners.

Published earlier this month, the regulations are intended to “standardise all literature … publicised and published in the Maldives in accordance with laws and regulations of the Maldives and its societal etiquette”, and to “reduce adverse effects on society that could be caused by published literature”, according to an unofficial translation by lawyer Mushfique Mohamed shown to the Guardian.

The rules insist that those wishing to publish books in the Maldives must submit a finished copy of their work, along with a form and a MVR50 revenue stamp, to the national bureau of classification for approval, or face fines. This includes poetry, which is defined by the regulations as “words and phrases structured into verses that fit a particular form, expressing thoughts and ideas that are heartfelt”. One strand of publication is exempted from the requirements: “…any writing published to circulate information among its members/employees by a political party, civil society group, company, or specific governmental body”.
The bureau will be looking to ensure “that the works published in the Maldives do not contravene Islamic principles, the laws and regulations of the Maldives and societal etiquette”, and to “reduce adverse effects on society that could be caused by published literature”. They will also, according to the translation, “respect the constitutional right to freedom of expression and allow novel and constructive ideas”.