The 'War on Terror' and Its Implications for Libraries (Editorial‪)‬

LEAVING ASIDE THE SEMANTIC DIFFICULTIES CONTAINED IN THE DEFINITION OF THE immediate conflict, we can accept that for whatever reasons, there are individuals who wish to advance their arguments regarding the ancient divide between Christianity and Islam in a geopolitical fashion by way of violence. In western societies including Australia [so far], the extremists on both sides of the terrorism divide represent a minority view. Nonetheless, the chance of an even-handed debate on the issue is precluded here as elsewhere, and any voice wishing to put the argument that the [Islamic] individuals committing the violence may have a point of view is shouted down while Christian violence, delivered in the form of long-range missiles, or by armoured vehicles goes unnoticed and the resultant non-combatant casualties go uncounted. Susan Sontag's mild intellectual counterpoint to the Twin Towers catastrophe met with a hysterical response. The Dixie Chicks were booed off stage for a song critical of the US President and Michael Moore's Oscars acceptance speech was not well received. The 'war in Iraq' and its mounting toll of casualties on our, that is to say, the US side, is beginning to erode popular support for the American government, and is slowly beginning to cut back the Coalition's standing in the polls in Australia. But no early end is in sight. The London attacks by home-grown militants created an immense backlash against anyone whose holy book is the Koran and others--on account of their skin colour--for whom it was not. If (and some say 'when') there is an attack in Australia, a reaction of similar intensity may be expected here. Libraries are not likely to be direct targets in any campaign by the protagonists for either side except to the extent that any concourse or public space may be, but they might become indirect victims of the conflict in the face of strongly held opinions and beliefs from the entire spectrum of thought and action generated by the issue. Doris Lessing once observed that there were many pairs of jackboots residing in the wardrobes of otherwise ordinary citizens waiting to be pulled out, polished, pulled on and strutted in and this view has recently been reflected by Philip Roth (The plot against America). Those who would use extreme circumstances to exercise their dictatorial proclivities are never far from us. The letters columns of national newspapers offer a depressing insight into the opinions of such individuals: in the last week we have heard from advocates for the establishment of camps, both internment and concentration, for members of particular ethnic, racial or religious groups, or those holding a particular political belief, and for the wholesale deportation or repatriation of such individuals if they had once been immigrants. So far the debate has not filtered down to levels where the intellectual content of media becomes a focus for angst or hatred, although not so long ago, I recall, a public library in Canberra bowed to a handful of objectors and pulled down the display which had raised their ire. But sooner rather than later, a library, probably a public library because they are closer to the front line of the debate, will become the target for complaints, low-key violence in the form of graffiti or broken windows because it stocks material to which the doctrinaire from either side of the argument object. The issue is likely to arrive out of the blue, and it might be better to have considered ALIAs Statement on free access to information and formulated a strategy (in conjunction with one's parent authority) well in advance. It, together with CILIP's Intellectual freedom, access to information and censorship is reproduced below. Taken together, they make interesting reading. Thirty years ago, I wrote that libraries had thitherto and without exception been forced to defend their arguments for the freedom to read in the prickly undergrowth of alleged obscenity, and that thus far in this cou