[lbo-talk] in defence of the book

Jurriaan Bendien bendien at tomaatnet.nl
Wed Oct 15 14:09:14 PDT 2003



> A June meeting of the ALA provided an important clue of the
> organization's real priorities. It declined to pass a resolution --
> even a tepid one -- supporting 14 jailed independent librarians in
> Cuba. These true martyrs to the free circulation of reading material
> held little interest for the ALA, since they are anti-Castro instead
> of anti-Ashcroft. Some ALA members even questioned whether the 14 are
> "true" librarians. Good point -- how can they be, unless their top
> priority is bashing the Bush administration?

Doug, personally I sympathise with the ALA, and if they pass a resolution like that and it seems dubious, then you need to investigate the circumstances of the case. Libraries are an indispensable instrument of a democratic society, and socialists cannot very well afford to get offside with them. No ideological drivel, but what is really happening in the case. Are these librarians subject to arbitrary punitive action by the Cuban government, or is it that they are a cover of yet another stupid intrigue by enemies of Cuba who are incapable of having a sane argument without threatening violence ? Once the real evidence is clear, then we can evaluate things better. Even so, the official US criticism of Cuba is whacko, rhetoric, because they just say stuff like "we want to see democracy in Cuba" but then we say "what democracy then" and the Cubans say "we have our own methods of democratic participation already here, and we cannot run a wellfunctioning, efficient democracy if we are constantly economically blocked, under threat from subversion, and threatened by war by a government that blames us for the problems they create themselves." If the Cubans are to be faulted, it must be done within their own terms, and not on the basis of saying "you don't conform to my picture of what the world ought to look like". And personally I would be very hesitant to do it without full knowing the facts and the implications of my case.

Any attack on librarians which implies that librarians are stupid people ought to rejected, because it is very ill-advised. A librarian can tap into a very wide range of information sources, and if they want to tie the administration up in knots, they can do so, even just by not doing something. If we go and rail on against librarians, we are just turning a great asset into a liability, that is all.

Regards

Jurriaan



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