U.S. Librarians Fail to Speak Out for Oppressed Peers

U.S. Librarians Fail to Speak Out for Oppressed Peers

02/01/2006
San Antonio Express-News

Michael Gorman, the president of the American Library Association, was
mugged
recently in San Antonio. Gorman was in town for the ALA's annual midwinter
meeting.

Ordinarily, I would be horrified to hear that a visitor to this fair city
had
been the victim of such a misdeed. But in this case, it's the ALA that's
committing the crime and the truth that fittingly mugged Gorman.

At the ALA's President's Program on Jan. 22, Romanian-born author Andrei
Codrescu delivered the keynote address about the importance of books,
libraries
and librarians.

"I was born in a place where people were forbidden to read most of what we
consider the fundamental books of Western civilization," he told the
audience.
"Not only were we forbidden to read authors like James Joyce, but being
found
in a possession of a book such as George Orwell's '1984' could land one in
prison for years."

Codrescu spoke about the librarian who changed his life - Dr. Martin, a
retired professor who had managed to accumulate a collection of works
blacklisted
by the communist authorities. "Books forbidden by an authoritarian
government
are the only reason I am now standing before you," he said.

Codrescu recounted how, in those dark days in Romania, the ALA - along with
the ACLU and the Helsinki Federation for Human Rights - offered a beacon of
hope for democracy and freedom. Then, by President Gorman's lights,
Codrescu's
speech turned down a criminal path.

Codrescu recounted the plight of independent librarians in Cuba. In 1998,
Ramón Colás and Berta Mexidor began the Independent Libraries Project on the
island. Like his beloved Dr. Martin, they risked imprisonment to create a
network
of private libraries to make available works otherwise unobtainable in Fidel
Castro's dictatorship. Through the end of 2002, 103 libraries provided books
to
182,000 registered patrons.

The risks to the librarians were and are real. Human rights groups have
deplored the imprisonment of scores of librarians in Cuba's gulag. Amnesty
International calls them prisoners of conscience. As early as 1999, the
International
Federation of Library Associations, based in Denmark, called on the Cuban
government to "put an end to the intimidation of the Independent Libraries
in
Cuba."

Yet the leadership of the ALA, basking in freedom 90 miles away in the
United
States, has refused to this day to defend their librarian colleagues.
Investigations by the ALA have found no conclusive evidence for repression
of
intellectual freedom in Cuba, no marauded libraries and no imprisoned
librarians

"It's an outrage," Robert Kent, a librarian in the New York Public Library
and ALA member, told me. "A small group of extremists has engaged in a
systematic effort to mislead, deceive and ignore the public about this
issue."

Kent co-founded the Friends of Cuban Libraries in 1999. For his efforts on
behalf of Cuban librarians, left-wing ideologues have attempted to smear him
as
an agent of the CIA.

Codrescu, in his speech in San Antonio, chided the ALA. "Am I hallucinating?
Is this the same American Library Association that stands against censorship
and for freedom of expression everywhere? This organization cannot logically
ignore imprisonment and torture of librarians - act against provision 215 of
the
Patriot Act and approve of Fidel Castro's order 88, which denies all the
rights we cherish."

The Library Journal reports the speech "earned strong, if not unanimous
applause." It also reports on Gorman's criminal indictment of Codrescu: "I
was
mugged. He did not deliver the speech he told us 10 days earlier that he
would
deliver."

"Several librarians congratulated me on saying what needs to be said - kind
of whispering congratulations," Codrescu told me in his thick accent. "They
should be in solidarity with librarians in Cuba. Cuba is Romania in 1968.
Actually, it's worse off, more dictatorial, more of a police state."

There are certainly victims in this story, but Gorman is not one of them.
The
trespass and the travesty here is that the ALA, under his leadership, has
refused to defend the imprisoned Cuban librarians.

(http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/columnists/jgurwitz/stories/MYSA020106.02O.gurwitz.116348ac.html)