Index on Censorship

On 11 July 1979 Nadine Gordimer's novel Burger's Daughter was banned by the South African Directorate of Publications on the grounds – among others – that the book was a threat to state security. (Excerpts from the censor's arguments were printed on the back cover of Index on Censorship 1/1980.) After an international outcry the Director of Publications on 1 August 1979 appealed against the decision of his own censorship committee to the Publications Appeal Board. A committee of literary experts was appointed, and a hearing on the appeal was set for 3 October. But the hearing did not take place; in early October 1979 the book was simply released for distribution. Some weeks later a similar pattern was shown in the treatment of André Brink's Afrikaans-language novel A Dry White Season. The book was banned, the censorship board – not the author – appealed against its own decision, and the book was un-banned. In the article which follows, Nadine Gordimer reflects on these events, and on the new censorship policy they herald. Her article was originally a paper presented to a University of Cape Town conference on censorship held in April 1980. It was first published in Critical Arts: A Journal for Media Studies, Vol 1, No 2, June 1980, (available from the School of Dramatic Art, University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg 2001, South Africa). The papers from the censorship conference will be published by David Philip, Capetown.

This excerpt from To Kill a Man's Pride was published in the February 1980 issue of the South African literary magazine Staffrider. The publishers of Staffrider, Ravan Press, announced at that time that the full text would appear in Forced Landing, a new collection of contemporary black South African writings edited by Mothobi Mutloatse. The next issue of Staffrider (June 1980) carried a notice that Forced Landing had been banned. All three titles in the Ravan Press ‘Staffrider Series’ of contemporary South African writings have now been banned. The other two titles (banned in 1979) are Africa My Beginning by Ingoapele Madingoane (reviewed in Index on Censorship 5/1980, pp 74–6) and Call Me Not a Man, a collection of stories by Mtutuzeli Matshoba (see Index on Censorship 6/1980, pp 8–12). Forced Landing will be published in Britain by Heinemann Educational Books under the title Africa South: Contemporary Writings.

A popular novelist and short story writer in the sixties, the Czech writer Ivan Klíma has not been able to publish any of his work in Prague since the cultural freeze that followed the Soviet invasion of 1968. This story (‘Koulařka’ in Czech original) appeared last year in the second issue of Spektrum, the unofficial magazine put out in typescript by banned Czech authors and printed in London by Index on Censorship.

Early in 1981 a report is expected from the government-appointed Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. Even if the commission recommends changes in the present US laws, it is not known whether Congress and the Executive will press to enact them. In the meantime further evidence has come to Index on Censorship about the effect of the law on the admission of foreign intellectuals to the United States, including statements by publishers, writers and professors about their experiences (for further information see also Index on Censorship 5/1980, pp6–11). This evidence formed part of a brief arguing for repeal of Section 212(a) (28) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the McCarran-Walter Act) prepared by Tom Bernstein for submission to the Select Commission on behalf of nine US organisations concerned with defending freedom of expression. They are the Fund for Free Expression, the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights, PEN American Center, the International Freedom to Publish Committee of the Association of American Publishers, the American Association of University Professors, the Helsinki Watch, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Sociological Association, and the American Library Association. We thank Mr Bernstein and the organisations he represents for making this material available to us.

A grimace of bitterness and impotence is spreading among the members of the University of San Carlos. The horror of war and the pestilential presence of death invades our lecture-rooms, our places of study, our consultancy rooms, our offices, our clinics. Never before have the corridors and buildings of the University been so filled with anguished, fearful, reticent, paranoid people … For we know, without fear of mistake, that walking into our classes, playing the role of students, teachers and ancillary workers, are the armed agents of government repression.

Wit as a weapon, The political joke in history by Egon Larsen Frederick Muller £4.95

The Arab Press by William A. Rugh Croom Helm (London) 205 pp £11.50