The long history of censorship

Censorship has followed the free expressions of men and women like a shadow through history. In ancient societies, such as those of Israel or China, censorship was considered a legitimate instrument for regulating the moral and political life of the population. In China, the first censorship law was introduced in 300 AD. The origin of the term censor in English can be traced to the office of censor established in Rome in 443 BC. In Rome, as in the ancient Greek communities, the ideal of good governance included shaping the character of the people. Hence censorship would have been regarded as an honourable task. The most famous case of censorship in ancient times is that of Socrates, sentenced to drink poison in 399 BC for his corruption of youth and his acknowledgement of unorthodox divinities. But it is fair to assume that Socrates was not the first person to be severely punished for violating the moral and political code of his time. This ancient view of censorship, as a benevolent public service in the best interest of the people, is still upheld by countries such as China, as it was advocated by the rulers of the Soviet Union (USSR), responsible for the longest lasting and most extensive censorship of the 20^th Century.

The struggle for freedom of expression is as ancient as the history of censorship. The playwright Euripides (480 -406 BC) defended the true liberty of freeborn men; the right to speak freely, and he added diplomatically: "Who neither can nor will may hold his peace. What can be more just in a State than this?".

Free speech and freely expressed thoughts and ideas may have posed problems to pre-Christian rulers, but hardly more troublesome than to the guardians of Christianity, as orthodoxy became established. Helpful measures to fend off a heretical threat to Christian doctrine were introduced, such as the Nicene Creed, promulgated in AD 325. But as more books were written, copied and increasingly widely disseminated, subversive and heretical ideas were spread beyond control. Consequently, censorship became more rigid and punishment more severe. The problem increased with the invention of the printing press in Europe in the middle of the 15^th Century. Although printing greatly aided the Catholic church and its mission, it also aided the Protestant Reformation and "heretics" such as Martin Luther, thus the printed book became an arena for a religious battle. In western history, the very term censorship takes on a whole new meaning with the introduction of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum - lists of books banned for their heretical or ideologically dangerous content, issued by the Roman Catholic Church, and with the Sacred Inquisition as the zealous guardians, banning and burning books and sometimes also the authors. The most famous of banned authors undoubtedly being Galileo in 1633. The most famous victims of the Inquisitions trials being Joan of Arc (1431) and Thomas More (1535).

The first Index of Prohibited Books was drawn up by order of Pope Paul IV in 1559. The lists were issued 20 times through the centuries by different popes, the last issued as recently as in 1948, and finally suppressed in 1966.

The Catholic Church, controlling universities such as the Sorbonne, also controlled all publications through its decree in 1543 that no book could be printed or sold without permission of the church. Then in 1563, Charles IX of France decreed that nothing could be printed without the special permission of the king. Soon other secular rulers of Europe followed suit, and scientific and artistic expressions, potentially threatening to the moral and political order of society, were brought under control through systems of governmental licence to print and publish.

The dual system of censorship created through the close alliance between church and state in Catholic countries, was also exported to the forcibly colonised countries in the Americas.

"The Spanish authorities were not only worried about the religious situation in Europe, but also in America. The possibility that America could be invaded with ideas from protestant countries was considered a permanent threat." Notes the Peruvian historian Pedro Guibovich in his article The Lima Inquisition and Book Censorship.

"The free communication of thought and opinion is one of the most precious rights of man; every citizen may therefore speak, write and print freely."

Although censorship, as a frequently applied legislated instrument, lost ground during and after the 18^th century in Europe, governments maintained legal frameworks curbing freedom of expression. The instruments now being acts of national security, criminal acts on obscenity or blasphemy, or laws on libel. In the United States, were formal censorship never existed, the law on libel and thus the courts became the testing ground for free expression. This was also the case in Britain after the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1694. Subsequently, the courts became the controllers in many a country embracing the principles of freedom of expression. Laws of libel were often subject to loose interpretations, giving license to continued restraint, harassment, and persecution of the mounting challenges by artists, journalists and other intellectuals to the contemporary concepts of national security, blasphemy and obscenity.

Censorship and the establishment of newspapers
In the 18th century, the press in most of Europe was frequently subject to strict censorship. The 19^th century saw the emergence of an independent press, censorship gradually having to cede to the demand for a free press. Yet this was also an age of strict press censorship in countries such as Japan; their first daily newspaper (1870), the Yokohama Mainichi, born in a time when arrests of journalists and suppression of newspapers were all too common. Also colonial governments, such as those of Russia or Britain, exercised a tight control on political publications in their domains; Russia as in the Baltic states, Britain as in Australia, Canada, India and the colonised Africa. In Australia, full censorship lasted until 1823, while in South Africa a press law was passed in 1828 to secure a modicum of publishing freedom. In South Africa however, politics of racial division prevented freedom, being totally suppressive during Apartheid, only to be abandoned in the last decade of the 20^th century. In modern times, restrictions on press freedom continue in many African and Asian countries, in eastern Europe, and in Latin America.

Censorship in libraries - the benevolent public concern for morality
Although government-instituted censorship had apparently been abandoned in most western countries during the 19^th and most of the 20^th century, public concern for offensive literature did not subside. Subsequently, public libraries were expected to act as the benevolent guardians of literature, particularly concerning books for young readers. This, in turn, gave teachers and librarians licence to censor a wide range of books in libraries under the pretext of protecting readers from morally destructive and offensive literature. Surprisingly, in liberal minded countries such as Sweden and Norway, boasting the earliest laws on press freedom, surveillance of public and school libraries remained a concern to authors and publishers even through the latter part of the century. No less surprising is the die-hard tradition of surveillance of books in schools and libraries in the United States. One of the most stunning examples being Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", first banned in 1885 in the Concord Public Library, but still in 1984 in jeopardy, according to the author Arthur Schlesinger in the "Censorship - 500 years of conflict". In spite of the Library Bill of Rights, the library profession’s interpretation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, public and school libraries in the US are still subject to pressure from groups claiming to represent the interest of parents or religious moral codes, having to face demands to remove books of "questionable content". However, this practice has not remained unchallenged by the libraries themselves. The American Library Association – ALA – through its Office of Intellectual Freedom, maintains statistics on attempts to censor libraries in various states, and regularly publish lists of challenged books.

However, censorship of libraries is far from a recent practice. On the contrary, libraries have been the targets of censorship since ancient times. History is littered with the destruction of library collections, and libraries themselves becoming flaming pyres on all continents, the deliberate burning of a library recorded in China as early as in 221 BC. Although the destruction by fire of 400,000 rolls in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in 47 BC was by all accounts accidental, the burning of the entire collection of the University of Oxford library in 1683 was on direct orders from the king. Even in the 20^th century, the burning and destruction of libraries has been extensively applied by rulers, as a warning to subversives and a method of ethnic language purging, as was the case in Sarajevo and Kosova. In 1991 the Serbian government banned Albanian as a language of instruction at all levels of education. During the period 1990- 99, all the libraries in Kosova were subjected to the burning or destruction of the Albanian–language collections, according to reports from the joint UNESCO, Council of Europe and IFLA/FAIFE Kosova Library Mission in 2000. The Serbian governments deliberate cultural ethnic cleansing on the brink of a new millennium will stand as a distressful monument to the enduring tradition of destructive censorship.

Public book pyres were favoured by the Nazi–regime in Germany in the late 1930s as one of their many brutal methods of censorship. The destruction of libraries was systematically applied by the rulers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR, infamous for the longest lasting and most extensive censorship in the 20^th century.

Censorship in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – the longest lasting in the 20^th century
The Russian empire, having a long tradition of strict censorship, was slow to undergo the changes that central European countries had passed a century before. Censorship reforms were started in a single decade of tolerance, from 1855 to 1865 during the reign of tsar Alexander II, when the transition was made from legislation on pre-censorship to the punitive system based on legal responsibility. During the decade, the press enjoyed greater freedom and more radical ideas were voiced, thus censorship laws were re-imposed in 1866, practically eliminating the basic ideas of the reform. Only half a century later, pre-censorship was abrogated in the law of 1905-1906. Finally, all censorship were abolished in the decrees dated April 27, 1917 issued by the Temporary Government. However, the freedom was short lived. The decrees were only in force until October 1917. Then a new, long and extensive era of strict censorship began, now executed by the revolutionary rulers of the USSR, lasting until the end of the 1980s. Taking into account the long history of strict censorship during tsar-regimes, the Russian people have only been without formal censorship in the last decade of this millennium.

The new order of the USSR meant drastic political and economic changes, but also the areas of culture, education and religion were subject to revolutionary changes, all with the idealistic intentions of relieving the new Soviet citizen of the suppressive yokes of feudalism. Hence religion, regarded as gross and misleading superstition, was targeted only a few months after the revolution. In the spring of 1918, a decree was issued formally separating church from state, followed by strict prohibitions imposed on religious bodies along with nationalisation of all church property. In 1922, the central censorship office was established, known for short as Glavlit. Aiming to purge the Soviet society of all expressions regarded as destructive to the new order and contagious to the minds of people, the Glavlit had absolute authority to subject the performing arts and all publications to preventive censorship, and suppress political dissidence by shutting down "hostile" newspapers. However, in the early 1920s during the time of Lenin and Trotsky, writers and artists were granted creative freedom, provided they observed the rule of not engaging in overt political dissent. This leniency may be attributed to the regime’s recognition of the importance of intellectuals for the conveyance of the new ideals. Although the majority of intellectuals were opposed to the revolution, many artists and intellectuals supported the revolution’s ideals of equality for all and freedom from slavery and poverty. Also Russian artists had embraced the ideals of the European Modernist Movement, already in 1915 forming the visionary Avant Garde aesthetic movement, surviving until 1932. Thus, the first years of the new order saw a degree of innovation in literature and the arts, starkly contrasting to the overall political rigidity of the regime. All leniency was to end with the Stalin regime. Hence forward, the censorship system became all the more elaborate, and the methods of purging increasingly sinister; authorising printing, banning publications and preventing import of foreign books.

The Glavlit system exported to countries occupied by the USSR
After a time, the strict censorship system of the USSR was also imposed on all occupied countries and satellite-states, many of whom had been subject to the censorship of imperial Russia. When Soviet occupied independent Lithuania in 1940, a "bibliocide" started, lasting in effect until 1989, only interrupted in 1941-1944 by the German occupation, infamous for their book pyres and deadly censorship in Germany and occupied countries. In the study "Forbidden Authors and Publications", Klemensas Sinkevicius describes the strategy of the Soviet censorship in occupied Lithuania performed by zealous local inspectors, engaged by the then infamous Glavlit. "After the restoration of Lithuanian independence we got an opportunity to study the most tragic period in the history of Lithuanian libraries" Sinkevicius concludes. His study for the National Library of Lithuania is the first of its kind in Lithuania. Many of the works of Lithuanian writers now only exist in the long list of banned and destroyed books.

WW II – Nazi Germany and occupied countries
"From these ashes will rise the phoenix of the new spirit", Goebbels optimistically declared as the massive funeral pyres of some 20 000 volumes of offensive books were devoured by flames in Germany in 1933. Numerous book pyres were enthusiastically lit by the Hitler Jugend, the young members of the fanatical Nazi movement, growing stronger and gaining ever more power in Austria and Germany during the 1930s. In order to cleanse the minds of people and society, any book written by a Jewish author, or a communist or humanist, was fed to the flames. "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings", observed the German author Heinrich Heine. He was sadly right, as proved by Nazi–Germany’s gruesome mass extermination of people, including at least 6 million Jews, but also Romani, communists, dissidents, handicapped – any deviators from the ideal "Arian Race".

Hitler, the omnipotent Fürer of the Third Reich, also implemented the severe censorship and intolerable propaganda machine of the Nazi regime to all countries occupied during WW II (1940-45). In occupied countries, national newspapers, publishers and radios were taken over at once, or shut down. In countries such as Norway, strict censorship was put in place, making listening to "foreign" radio or producing, reading or disseminate illegal newspapers punishable with death.

Despite the threat of severe punishment, the illegal press flourished in occupied countries such as Norway, where more than 400 newsletters and papers were published by groups of activists recruited from all parts of society. As activists were arrested or had to flee the country, new volunteers took on the illegal work, keeping the chain of communication unbroken until the end of the war. In Denmark, 541 illegal newsletters and papers were published, and as in Norway, members of the illegal groups were executed or died in concentration camps because of their activities.

The illegal and underground publishing of all suppressed nations represents the most outstanding monuments to the people’s relentless struggle for freedom of expression. Most outstanding is the vigorous illegal (samizdat) press and publishing in the former East Block countries, during the Soviet and the Nazi reign, representing both a firm stand against brainwashing, and against the most devastating consequence of censorship; oblivion. From countries such as Poland, writers’ manuscripts were smuggled out and printed abroad. Classical and contemporary works of foreign writers were translated into Polish and smuggled back into Poland.

Apartheid censorship in South Africa
The Apartheid regime in South Africa (1950- 1994), in upholding their cruel policy of racism, doted on severe censorship, torture and killings, not only to strangle the South African extra-parliamentary liberation movement - the African National Congress, ANC, - but seemingly also to erase memory. In this respect, the prohibitive policies of the Apartheid regime strongly resembles that of the USSR. The censorship affected every aspect of cultural, intellectual and educational life, and although grimly menacing, the magnitude of the banning of ANC-symbols; buttons, T-shirts and lighters included, was truly paranoid. Detailed information about all items censored has been carefully compiled by the South African publisher Jacobsen, in the "Jacobsen's index of objectionable literature" (1996). This admirable work is restoring to memory and for posterity all the details of the Apartheid madness. The relentless struggle against the Apartheid regime has been subject to numerous studies, notably also by the South African historian Christopher Merrett, who besides producing books such as "A Culture of Censorship", also has compiled a complete list of censorship through the entire history of South-Africa. The list included in the Beacon for freedom of expression database, has been given with the gracious consent of the author.

"Truth is the first victim in a war" - the press in times of war
All through its 400 years history, the media has been the first hostage to be taken, either by occupying forces or by military dictators when overthrowing governments. As a rule, the press has been faced with the choices of gagging or closure, and many a respectable newspaper was simply taken over by or submitted to becoming the mouthpiece of the new rulers. In the years prior to the outbreak of World War II, the press in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal was subject to rigid Fascist censorship, no less strict than that practised by the enemy – the USSR. The stranglehold on the press tightened considerably during World War II, not least in countries like Japan. In the United States and Britain there was an expected clampdown on news coverage, as was the case during World War I. The British and American press and media, often submitting voluntarily to self-censorship, was also the targets of a steady flow of official news and propaganda issued by The British Ministry of Information and the U.S. Office of War Information. In USA, a "Code of Wartime Practices for the American Press" was also issued by the Office of Censorship.

The war of words is less lethal, but no less dirty than the war of weapons. The combination of demonising the enemy and whitewashing one's own cruel deeds, while blindfolding the people through rigid censorship, have been favoured strategies of many a warlord and dictator throughout history. Some of the worst examples of rigid press censorship induced by military dictators in the 20^th century were those of Spain (Spanish Civil War 1936-39 - the regime lasted from 1936-1975), Greece 1967 -1974, Chile 1973-1990 and Nigeria 1966-1999. Also Turkey, under the pretext of ensuring national security against "the enemy within" – the Kurd minority - still upholds strict censorship through the Anti–Terror Act of 1991, in spite of countless pleas from the international society.

The role of media in war was starkly demonstrated in the spring of 1999, when the NATO alliance started the campaign of bombing, designed to force the Yugoslav government to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosova and secure peace and human rights. The Yugoslav government, having clamped down on independent national media for almost a decade, expelled from Kosova all foreign media and independent observers. Thus the government gained unlimited license to kill, terrorise and deport hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from Kosova. Due to their leader’s archaic policy of censorship and propaganda, the Serb population of Yugoslavia lost all sympathy in international public opinion. But also the NATO alliance launched a war of words, portraying their "war for peace" as just and clean. When in April 1999 it became indisputably evident that NATO bombs had killed Kosova-Albanian refugees, NATO Headquarters informed the international media in a manner that was characterised as misleading by the international media. NATO’s deliberate and deadly bombings of the radio and television stations in Belgrade were also strongly criticised as contradictory to the humanistic aims of the NATO operation.

"Those that live by the pen shall die by the sword"