National security law: Hong Kong’s librarians must stand firm to protect intellectual freedom
- As the authorities increasingly give in to the urge to censor books, librarians should remain guided by their commitment to uphold the freedom of enquiry
- Films and artworks that depict ways to evade the censors offer inspiration. Censorship must be resisted, peacefully but firmly
Librarianship can be said to run in my blood. My mum, born in Seattle, was hired in 1961 to be a school librarian at Diocesan Girls’ School.
I also recall my fortnightly forays across the harbour with mum up the steep slope of Ice House Street, to the welcoming air conditioning of the modern, well-stocked United States Information Service library, where I checked out numerous books, especially mysteries, which intrigued me as a boy.
At 17, I moved to California to attend university, and later graduate school. I was impressed by the depth and breadth of the collections in the library at the University of Michigan, and later switched from international relations to train as a librarian in Michigan's well-regarded library school. Eventually, I served for more than 40 years in public and academic libraries in the US.
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Hong Kong publishers resort to self-censorship under new security law
It states that the association “believes in freedom of enquiry, thought and expression and in the free, uncensored flow of information. It is a fundamental principle that the primary duty of library and information personnel is to facilitate access to information”.
It commits librarians to “uphold freedom of enquiry and uncensored flow of information” and to “uphold the principles of intellectual freedom”.
When asked for his reaction to his books such as I Am Not A Hero (2013) having come under review for being potentially subversive, democracy activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung reportedly said: “This is like the live-action version of Library War, fully staged!”
Wong, a Japanese pop-culture aficionado since his youth, was referring to Japanese novelist Hiro Arikawa’s novel and anime series Library War, later turned into a film of the same name.
I first saw Library War on a trans-Pacific Cathay Pacific flight. I was totally impressed that a movie had been made with librarians mobilising, and indeed, arming, to defend books. In real life, one need not resort to arms to defend a book. But censorship must be resisted, though non-violently.
Another relevant fictional account, also uncanny in its relevance, is one forecasting Hong Kong’s dystopian future. It is the 2015 film Ten Years.
The grocer is distressed that his young son is vandalising a bookstore for stocking banned books, until his son tells him he has been warning a bookstore manager which books are on a banned list, so that the manager can hide each taboo title in an upstairs alcove.
The banned books upstairs quickly outnumbered the books in the store. The manager would let people he trusted into the secret alcove to browse the banned books.
The lessons to take from these fictional accounts are ultimately optimistic ones. First, the people defending freedoms will ultimately prevail. Secondly, any books now being restricted from public access are likely be protected by librarians and other library staff who believe in intellectual freedom. One day, long after the nameless censors are gone and discredited, these books will see the light of day.
Librarians and book lovers can also learn from the outspoken example of Colin Storey, a former head librarian at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a strong advocate against censorship.
National security law: more questions than answers on Hong Kong’s freedoms
In an essay in a library journal, Storey explored what librarians would do when faced with the dilemma of having to censor books.
He wrote: “Several Hong Kong librarians, asked if they would obey a direct request to remove from the shelves, say, a work of Tibetan history which was critical of the Chinese communists, replied that the request would not be made directly in the first place; the book would simply disappear from the shelves.”
He concluded: “One could adopt the optimistic style of communist party pamphlets and proclaim, ‘Bound on with confidence into and beyond 1997!’ It would be much more realistic to say that librarians will ride the tiger cautiously and try to overcome the difficulties which will certainly face them. It is going to be a very hard battle.”
Indeed it would be, but it has taken 23 years after the handover for the “difficulties” to fully manifest themselves. No one is saying it is going to be easy to stand on principle. Yet bearing in mind those basic principles, hopefully ingrained in each and every librarian, will be the only way that libraries, and their keepers, can survive these latest assaults on our integrity.
Daniel C. Tsang is a visiting scholar at Chinese University of Hong Kong and Distinguished Librarian Emeritus at University of California, Irvine
