Codrescu Condemns ALA

When I first took an interest in my parents homeland, I was like a sponge. I wanted to read everything I could get my hands on. One of the things I read was Ay, Cuba! by the Romanian-born author, Andre Codrescu. It chronicles his trip to Cuba in 1997. Mr. Codrescu is a gifted author and I read, more like absorbed, the book, quickly.

Well it seems that Mr. Codrescu was invited by the American Library Association to address its mid-winter meetings in San Antonio. Codrescu was to engage in a discussion entitled "The Future of Our Profession: Educating Tomorrow's Librarians" but Codrescu used the opportunity to rail against the ALA's hypocritical stance toward Cuba where censorship rules the day.

The ALA hasn't even acknowledged his statements on their web site where they have extensive coverage of the meetings. But below are some excerpts of his speech, courtesy of the Friends of Cuban Libraries.

I was born in a place [Romania] where people were forbidden to read most of what we consider the fundamental books of Western civilization. Not only were we forbidden to read authors like James Joyce, but being found in possession of a book such as George Orwell’s “1984” could lend one in prison for years. My good luck was to meet Dr. Martin in my adolescence. Dr. Martin was a retired professor who had collected and kept in his modest three room apartment the best of inter-war Romanian literature...

Dr. Martin’s library could have earned him years of hard labor...

...it was with a great deal of dismay that I learned that the American Library Association has taken no action to condemn the imprisonment of librarians, the banning of books, the repression of expression and the torture of dissidents only 90 miles away from our shores, in Cuba. In March 1998, two residents of Las Tunas, Ramón Colás and Berta Mexidor, opened a private library in their home, dedicated to offering Cubans books not officially available. The Félix Varela Library was the first of a network of private libraries that were established by volunteers in Cuba to bring light to the oppressive darkness of Castro’s police state. 103 libraries and 182,000 registered patrons were affiliated with the expanding Independent Libraries Project by the end of 2002. From the very beginning of their existence, the private librarians were subjected to threats, harassment, evictions, arrests, police raids, and the seizure of book collections, books that disappeared so quickly they could have only been burned..... Since then, those “individuals” have been subject to brutal imprisonment and their books have been disappeared. The ALA councilors have remained silent on the issue to this day. Am I hallucinating? Is this the same American Library Association that stands against censorship and for freedom of expression everywhere? There are some people like the civil liberties columnist Nat Hentoff, and Robert Kent, founder of Friends of Cuban Libraries, who have accused the ALA leadership of a cover-up. I hope not...

I went to Cuba in 1997, just before a papal visit later that year, and I was appalled by the lack of books. I was reminded of my poor, sad Romania in the 1950's, a dismal prison where food for body and mind were nearly inexistent. Cubans were literally starving physically and intellectually. Looking through the desultory pages of the Communist Party’s official paper, Granma, reminded me also of the pathetic simulacra of phony writing that stained the pages of Romania’s official papers during the years of the dictatorship...

Cuba today is the Romania of my growing up and I only hope for the sake of the Cubans that a hundred thousand Dr. Martins are ready to rise to take the place of those who had been arrested and tortured by the Cuban regime. I also hope that, in keeping with its tradition and charter of defending the freedom to read and freedom of expression, the American Library Association will immediately pass a resolution condemning the Castro regime for flagrant violations of basic human rights. To not do so is self-defeating and wipes out any credibility the ALA might have in fighting the much milder provisions of the Patriot Act. Not to speak of the fact that it’s much easier to fight for freedom to read in a country where every book is available, while it is much more difficult to make meaningful a statement in a place where books are an enemy of the state.....

Not one MSM outlet has picked up the story. Hat tip to managinginformation.com.