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In the USA,where I am visiting,the past week has beenBanned Books Week,an exercise to raise awareness of how many books are taken out of schools,universities and public libraries after they have been challenged by parents and community opponents.The American Library Association has catalogued more than 1700 such challenges in the past year,and this is only those that have come to light publicly. The ALA estimates that as many as 10,000 different titles are removed from the shelves of public school and local libraries each year.

The most commonly stated motivation for a book ban is to protect children,presumably whyCaptain Underpants is deemed so dangerous. Book bans are soaring in America.In 2020,the libraries logged 729 challenges to 1597 books;the year before,just 156 challenges to 273 books.

The sharp end of book bans is those that contain themes that are considered LGBTQIA-friendly.This year,half of the top 10 most targeted books – including the top three - were considered to have sexually explicit pro-gay content. Frankness about sex and racism is being challenged at a skyrocketing rate.

In his bookFree Speech for Me – But Not for Thee, US author Nat Hentoff writes that “the lust to suppress can come from any direction” and the war on books is not exclusively being waged by social conservatives. Harper Lee’sTo Kill A Mockingbird and John Steinbeck’sOf Mice and Men – the cream of 20th century American literature – are among the most-banned books each year for their supposed racial stereotyping. TheBible is often challenged by radical atheists and withdrawn from library shelves.The Kite Runner by Afghan author Khaled Hosseini,a global bestseller for its depictions of life under Taliban rule,has been banned for “promoting Islam” and “leading to terrorism”. The librarians oppose bans from every political direction,and have to devote increasing amounts of their time to the fight to restore books to their stocks after they have been challenged.

Captain Underpants author Dav Pilkey.Credit:AP

It would surprise nobody that America’s cultural wars are more advanced than in Australia. Donald Trump exploited and became a totem of culture-war flash points,but to blame this war on the Trump presidency would be superficial and inaccurate. Even as a second Trump candidature in 2024 remains a real prospect,it is clear that the growing social divisions in this country have bubbled along for many years and will continue to do so whether Trump gets anywhere near the White House again or not. The number of book bans had been rising before Trump became president in 2016,and the curve has steepened during the Biden presidency. The book bans depict a cultural phenomenon for which Trump is only a symbol,not a driving force.

Australia does not have the same local mechanisms for book bans. Other than in private schools,concerned citizens can’t band together and make noise to get books censored as they can in the US. But this does not mean the strong arm of book censorship does not exist in Australia. It can as easily come from the progressive as the conservative side – the most recent firm book-banning (later reversed) in Australia was when conservative Sydney Anglican minister Michael Jensen’sYou:An Introduction was censored by the NSW Education Department in 2015. Some members of the diocese to which Rev Jensen belongs are so concerned about being oppressed by progressives that they have launched a new evangelical outreach movement –the Church of the Southern Cross – to counter what they see as the active censorship of their views. It is arguable that compared with the US,where the religious right has amassed decades’ worth of organisation in local politics,the perceived fear of censorship is far greater among conservatives than it is among progressives.

Political leaders don’t generate these movements. They exploit a latency,and the success of these efforts depends as much as anything on the timing.Scott Morrison’s futile attempts to save his prime ministership by igniting a culture war through the preselection of the controversial campaigner Katherine Deves might only have failed because the timing was not right. All political ideas,the worst even more than the best,can remain in cold storage and bide their time until their moment arrives. Today’s misfire is,too often,tomorrow’s stroke of genius.

Censorship,from whatever direction,is an ugly blunt object,but it retains an enduring appeal. As a former editor of theLos Angeles Times,Phil Kerby has said,“Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature;sex is a weak second”.

Australians might deride the eagerness with which Americans attempt to censor each other,but we know from our own periodic ‘free speech’ flare-ups that the USA is far from the only place in the so-called free world where one person’s idea of liberty is to shut down another’s. We would do well to stay vigilant.

The mission of those hard-working librarians is to keep books alive whatever their colour,and to maintain the idea of freedom as an indivisible one. In this,they echo the philosopher Noam Chomsky when he wrote that “if we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise,we don’t believe in it at all”. Chomsky was born in Philadelphia,the cradle of American democracy. In parts of his country,the land of the free,his books have,of course,been among those frequently challenged and banned.

Malcolm Knox is a journalist,author and columnist.

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