Bookworm in the City

I’ve been thinking about banned books a lot recently.
It’s an item on my reading challenge which in recent days became a hot news topic (again), and to be honest, the concept about banning books is just beyond me and it had me in a bit of tailspin.

I did a deep dive on the subject which left me feeling slightly depressed and very angry.
Libraries here are allowed to, and can without fear, have any title on their shelves. I cannot imagine having it any other way.
Pupils can read anything in schools.
Bookshops can sell almost any title.
That last one is an almost, because we do have one banned book here: Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
This ban is an official one, making it illegal to sell and publish the book, which can lead to hefty fines.
However, libraries are allowed to have it in their collection as they don’t sell/publish, and in 2014 an antiquarian in Amsterdam who was sued and fined for having a copy in the shop window, fought his case in court and had the charges dismissed.
(For curious minds: due to its publication date the book was considered to be in line with everything else on sale. There was no proven intend to discriminate and because the book is available in libraries and online as well, the judge ruled in favour of the shop owner. It was also noted that all cases would not, from now on, automatically be waved in favour of booksellers; each case will be weighed carefully still.)

Although the ban is understandable with the darkness and devastation of what it caused still so close and tangible when it was imposed, I think a review is overdue: we’re living in different times now and in fact, so much time has passed that the copyright of the original work has expired.
And almost as soon as that happened, new editions were published: after an updated edition was released in Germany in 2016, a Dutch language update was released two years later.
The ban does not apply to these works because these editions include historic context and were published with academic “feedback” to the original text.
The new editions also lack the creepy cover art of the originals, and are just solid grey with a title and author mentioned.
The new releases proved no rise in the number of antisemitic, fascist or racist incidents, taking away the main arguments for the ban.
So what use does the ban still have?

In my idea of a perfect world there would not be a single banned book, no matter how controversial the contents of the work.
Because banning books is more scary than whatever can be written in it.
Because someone deciding what you can or cannot read, is oppression.

Banning books doesn’t stop violence. It doesn’t stop racism.
It doesn’t stop people from coming out as part of the LGBTQIA+ community.
It doesn’t stop people from using drugs or having sex.

Banning books does stop people from getting smarter.
It does stop discussions and growth.
It does limit freedom of expression.
It does feed bigotry, fear, narrow-mindedness.

I went to the library and checked out the 2018 edition of Mijn Strijd – Mein Kampf. I haven’t found the courage to get started yet, but I will. Just because I can.