Councils should fix the potholes, not ban books

This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au

Their faces were illuminated by the bonfires they'd lit but it was the fanaticism in their eyes that burned brightest. With gleeful venom, the young men fed the flames in an orgy of destruction and denunciation.

Witnessing this was American journalist Lilian Mowrer.

"I held my breath while he hurled the first volume into the flames: it was like burning something alive. Then students followed with whole armfuls of books, while schoolboys screamed into the microphone their condemnations of this and that author, and as each name was mentioned the crowd booed and hissed," she wrote.

"Children of fourteen mouthing abuse of Heine! Erich Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front received the greatest condemnation . . . it would never do for such an unheroic description of war to dishearten soldiers of the Third Reich."

Mowrer's disgust rippled across the world as it learned of the Nazi book burnings, which began on May 6, 1933. Almost 91 years later to the day, a chilling reminder of that dark moment played out in a local council meeting in western Sydney.

After a fierce debate, the council voted narrowly to ban books about same-sex parenting from its shelves. Steve Christou, the Cumberland City councillor who moved the motion, said his conservative and religious constituents did not want "controversial issues going against their beliefs indoctrinated into their libraries".

Christou's sentiment would have been expressed more clearly by Joseph Goebbels in 1933 but it's much the same. Books that don't fit with my beliefs should be expunged.

The last time I looked, readers were free to choose whatever books they might find in a library. There was no compulsion to pick up the book Christou chose as an example to prosecute his argument - the blandly titled Same-Sex Parents - just as there was no obligation to pick up All Quiet on the Western Front in Germany before the Nazis burned and banned it, along with thousands of other authors they deemed inappropriate.

It's simple, really. If you don't like the look of a book, leave it on the shelf.

What's really concerning is that the decision of what can and can't be stocked in a library rests with a local council. I've endured years of watching local government in action - or inaction, as is mostly the case - and shudder at the thought of councillors having any say over what books are acceptable for their communities. Too many of them would struggle to read a stop sign.

Cumberland City Council has stepped onto a slippery slope with this. Across the US, local library and school boards have gone to war against books they don't like. Even our own Ahn Do's books were banned in one local jurisdiction. Heaven help us if this idiotic intrusion by local councillors craving relevance leads us down a similar path.

The NSW government has threatened to cut library funding to the council, a move which would serve no one. Libraries hold an important place in our communities. They're places to meet, to sit and read and be informed. They should be funded.

Perhaps the answer is to remove them from councils' control and fund them directly. That would free up the political kindergarten to get on with what it's paid to do - collect the rubbish and fix the potholes.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Should councils have the power to decide what books their libraries put on the shelves? Should councillors focus on the three Rs - roads, rates and rubbish? How important is the library in your community? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au

SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

- Former volunteers have pulled back the curtain on Newcastle-based anti-sexual violence organisation What Were You Wearing? Australia (WWYW), alleging financial obscurity, risk of re-traumatisation and a CEO that fosters an environment of "gossip, bullying and lying".

- The bus driver at the centre of the tragic wedding bus crash in Greta is now behind bars after pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing the deaths of 10 wedding guests. Ten manslaughter charges against Brett Andrew Button were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in Newcastle Local Court on Wednesday as part of the plea deal.

- The dream for Bega Valley GP Corin Miller is to see meaningful reform so children can see a paediatrician without a huge wait time no matter where they live. Unfortunately, that seems a long way off for a health system Dr Miller describes as "not fit for purpose for rural families and children."

THEY SAID IT: "Books are the carriers of civilisation. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." - Barbara W. Tuchman

YOU SAID IT: Boys rating their female classmates on their looks is not just a problem for the prestigious Yarra Valley Grammar School. It's an issue for all of us.

Margaret writes: "Respectful attitudes towards women starts in the home, and should be imbedded in schools' policies and programs. And, 'wifey' is appalling but while we're at it can women stop calling their husbands 'hubby'! It's equally appalling!"

Elaine recalls her school days in the late 1950s at one of the few selective co-ed high schools in Sydney: "For the first three years of high school all of my classes had boys on one side of the classroom and girls on the other; it wasn't school policy, it was how we arranged ourselves. Girls tended to be interested romantically in boys a few years older than ourselves so the boys in our classes were just fellow students. None of the sexual overtones you get today."

"Chattel, a word imprinted on my mind," writes Louise. "My husband in an accident caused by a drunk. During proceedings taken to an ante room for discussion. During this time I was referred to as the chattel a number of times by other lawyer. As a young married women I was told by a school principal and a doctor that it was a duty to my husband to have more children. Always taught to respect elders but I soon learnt as I got older for the sake of other women to stand my ground. Thanks, Echidna. I bet the first thing many do when we wake is to grab the phone and start the day with a good dose of the subject."

Sharon writes: "Women have a rating system for chaps. It's called the Richard Scale. The ratings are "Little Dick, Mini Dick, Micro Dick and the 'biggest dick', Nano Dick: so small you need an electron microscope to find it. Oh, the Richard Scale has nothing to do with anatomy. It references character."

"By describing one group as 'unrapeable' the boys are implying that the other groups are rapeable," writes Bernard. "Clearly this ignores the law, if not common morality. But what responsibility does the school have: are they just washing their hands by expelling the boys? Could they be offering more intensive counselling to provide a possible turning point for the boys, alongside their right to exclude students? And what of the girls: from experience I can imagine that some girls would endorse the boys' rating, particularly if they were given a 'superior' rating. And thanks for highlighting the 'wifey' category...there is a huge scope to be interrogated here."

Boys will be boys, suggests Murray: "The sheer effrontery of those kids, to be teen aged, and having bodies so full of testosterone that their brains start functioning intermittently. Of course they must be expelled! What they did was despicable, but my memory is still good enough that I can remember being a teenager and the wild thoughts and wild times we had. Every young person feels as if they have invented it! There seem to be a totally unsupportable line of thought that in the 21st century we are so 'progressive' and enlightened that the natural urges and stupid thinking of young people can be educated out of them. It can't. Nature doesn't care about 'newspeak'."

Hilary writes: "After the ABC 7.30 report last night on family violence and your Echidna on the attitudes of young men objectifying women I am sickened. I doubt that the problem is only in private schools. When I hear a man referring to his wife as 'the wife' I wonder what that domestic relationship is like."