I’m sure many of you have seen the list flying around social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, regarding the books that would be banned in an advanced country like the USA, or have studied the tragic events of pre-WW2 in Nazi Germany, where books would be burnt. In any way, shape or form, the banning of literature has been brought up. So what is this “banning of literature”? Why is it so important and what effect does it have on the people?

The definition of this act is: “A form of censorship, occurring when private individuals, government officials or organizations remove books from libraries, school reading lists or bookstore shelves because they object to their content, ideas or themes.”. This is a phenomenon that transcends history, even dating back to 259-210 BC in China. However, more well known examples of this cruel act include Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution “Origins of Species”, being banned in education for over a century in a variety of countries as it contradicted people's religious beliefs, the grand bonfires in Nazi Germany, destroying countless books, under the pretext that the supposed beliefs and opinions of the authors contradicted Nazi regulations, and even the more recent one going on in the USA this year with the help of President Donald Trump, in which he has banned over 500 titles on military bases due to their “woke ideologies”, like race and LGBTQ+ themes and in some cases, dystopia. Some well known titles include Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid's Tale” and even Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird" . Even the great William Shakespeare was censored on a scene in one of his plays (Richard II) back in 1597 by Queen Elizabeth I, as she did not like how the King was forced off his throne.

So, why is this happening? This form of censorship is and has been occurring for one main reason: because it contradicts someone’s opinion or belief. Whether it has been a religious, political or social belief, of one large community or just one person of power. At the end of the day, a piece of literature will be banned, just because it is not aligned with the personal beliefs of those in power, and could provide the public with a new perspective, something that they want to avoid at all costs.

There are a wide range of answers to the question of why  the banning of books is bad. It’s blocking the whole idea of “freedom of speech and expression”. How am I free to express my opinion on a certain topic, if I’m going to get censored for doing just that? It extinguishes the whole concept of exploring and learning about new things and perspectives that readers and writers alike look for. Furthermore, this act is a form of governmental control as seen in history and present times. It suppresses knowledge, the formation of new or different opinions and feeds the new generations with propaganda, gaps, illusions of the past and lies through education and even personal research. Children are bound to lose their touch with books. Lose their touch with literature. With art. With new worlds, people and knowledge. People will not be as aware of things as we are now. The public’s brains will be flooded with propaganda, things and perspectives only their government and/or leaders want them to know about. They won’t be able to form their opinion. The only opinion they will have access to is the one presented to them by their leading party. 

Overall, the banning of literature is a horrible practice, especially if it's just because it “doesn’t align with one's opinion” in our day and age. This has happened on multiple occasions in the past, all over the world and it has been proven severely ineffective each and every time. The banning of literature, whether you are a reader or writer, is a violation of free expression and of our rights. Everyone should have and does have the right to be able to form their own personal opinion on a topic and should have access to multiple perspectives on the matter, rather than being limited to one or two picked and edited by their form of government.

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