Hartley Neita

During the 19960s, the exuberant Minister of Education Edwin Allen ordered the removal of E.L. Braithwaite's novel, To Sir, with Love because of the use of a vulgar word in the text.

I may be wrong, but I think the word was "bitch".

Allen subsequently went further. Along with his parliamentary secretary, Esme Grant, he went to a number of bookshops and newsstands in pharmacies and loudly demanded the removal of magazines such as Playboy (my all-time favourite), Hustler, Penthouse and other magazines whose sin was to publish photographs of beautiful women in all their glorious glory.

Sometime around then, too, Ken 'Pro Rata' Maxwell made the mistake of using the word "soak" in a television commentary on the then JBC-TV. An apology was demanded of him.

His response was to quote the meaning of the word as defined in the Oxford and Chambers dictionaries. His commentaries ceased subsequently.

We are at it again. Our new moralist, Andrew Holness, has discovered that three books, Beka Lamb, The Humming Bird Tree and Kestrel for a Knave, are being used as textbooks in Jamaican schools. These books contain obscene words. He has ordered their removal.

Delivering instructions

Now, in order to ensure that his instructions are carried out, I suppose a circular will now go from his office instructing principals to send these books to his ministry. A file will be kept there of the title of the books, the numbers of each received, and from whom. A public bonfire of these books will then take place at the monument to Simon Bolivar in front of the minister's office and it will be lit by do-gooder Finance Minister Audley Shaw in the presence of the Reverend Al Miller.

This is necessary for good governance, and these records will be verified and reported to Parliament by the auditor general.

This censorship of books reminds me of a similar burning which took place in Germany before World War II. Why not burn the authors at the stake as they did witches of old?

History is replete with instances of books being banned and plays being censored, and recently, there were demands that the Emancipation monument should be removed or the figures draped. What has happened is that these books and plays and statues became even more popular - with the books being read under sheets. Lady Chatterley's Lover became an international bestseller, for example.

Learning about sex

There was a time when a husband and wife in a movie slept in separate beds. As I have told you before, I lost a potential love because I took her to see a Brigitte Bardot movie - not knowing the actress would disrobe on the screen.

While at Jamaica College, we discovered that the sixth-form library had a book about sex. A fellow student picked the lock to the room. We subsequently read it under the shade of a divi-divi tree on the grounds. We found it boring; it used names of human appendages which were unfamiliar to us.

Let us examine all books used in schools. According to the gospel of Holness, the number '69' will be expunged from mathematics books. Authors cannot write words which refer to the material used to make shirts, pants and dresses. So, instead, we will read of 'blood tweed', 'blood silk' and 'blood gabardine'. The only references to male poultry will be 'rooster'. In the Headley Cup, a bowler cannot bowl a maiden over and a man cannot field in slips.

And if someone bucks his toe, his reaction can only be: "Excrement!"