By Nat Hentoff
March 5, 2007
This is the second of two columns on Cuba's imprisoned librarians
and American Library Association's refusal to support them.
Although the American Library Association proclaims its commitment
to the "Freedom to Read" everywhere, its leadership abandons Cuba's
independent librarians whom Fidel Castro had locked into his gulags,
under brutal conditions, because of their courageous insistence that the
people of Cuba should also have the freedom to read books the
dictatorship has banned. A majority of the ALA's rank-and-file members
disagree with their leadership.
Among the many organizations demanding that Castro and his
successors release these courageous Cubans -- who have opened their
homes and libraries to offer books censored in the Cuban state libraries
-- are such groups as the library associations of the Czech Republic,
Latvia, Estonia and Poland. All these librarians, finally freed from
communism, agree with their colleagues in the Polish Library
Association, who say in their declaration: "The actions of the Cuban
authorities relate to the worst traditions of repressing the freedom of
thought and expression." Also calling for the liberation of Castro's
many prisoners of conscience, including the librarians, are the
Organization of American States, Amnesty International and Freedom House.
However, the top officials of the American Library Association --
as well as the majority of its Governing Council -- speak derisively of
these "so-called librarians" in Castro's gulags.
It's true that these prisoners, many brutalized and in failing
health, in their cells, don't have master's degrees in Library Science;
but as poet-novelist-educator Andrei Codrescu told last year's ALA
Midwinter Conference: "These people have been imprisoned for BEING
librarians!" Why dismiss them "as 'so-called librarians' when clearly
there is no one (in that dictatorship) to certify them." So bizarre is
the ALA leadership (along with a cadre of Castro admirers on the
Governing Council) in its abandonment of their fellow librarians that it
refuses to post on its "Book Burning in the 21st Century" Web site the
extensive, documented court transcripts of the "trials" that sent the
librarians to prison. Those judges ordered the "incineration" of the
prisoners' libraries, including works by Martin Luther King Jr. and
George Orwell's "Animal Farm." But these sentencing documents are
verified on the Web sites of Amnesty International, the organization of
American States and Florida State University's Center for the
Advancement of Human Rights. Officials of the ALA -- conjuring up a fake
conspiracy by the Bush administration to overthrow Castro by using the
independent librarians -- disdain this verification of the book
burnings. They insist, for example, that the Florida State University
Web site is funded by grants from the U.S. government.
Yet, that Rule of Law and Cuba Web site project doesn't get a dime
from the U.S. government. Says director Mark Schlakman: "We place a
premium on our independence." Recently, I left a long, non-adversarial,
detailed message for the president of the ALA, Leslie Burger, director
of the Princeton, N.J., public library. I asked for her reasons and the
ALA's for this refusal of support for the imprisoned librarians. (Some
are in cage-like enclosures.) I have received no response from her; but,
indicating she will not speak to me, Michael Dowling, director of ALA's
International Relations Office, fielded my call by referring me to the
ALA's 2004 expression of "deep concern" for Castro's prisoners, which
carefully omitted any mention of the independent librarians among them.
But, acting out of "a moral obligation," the small Vermillion,
S.D., public library has made the independent Dulce Maria Loynaz Library
in Havana a sister library -- sending books to it, including a
collection of freedom writer Mark Twain. (Other libraries and readers
around the world send books to the independent libraries.)
As for rank-and-file American librarians: In January 2006, American
Libraries Direct -- an online newsletter of the ALA's own magazine,
American Libraries -- published a poll of its members in which 70
percent answered "Yes" to the question: "Should ALA Council pass a
resolution condemning the Cuban government for its imprisonment of
dissident 'independent librarians?'" A key ALA official, Judith Krug,
heads its office of Intellectual Freedom. In my many years of reporting
on the ALA's sterling record of protecting American librarians from
censorship, I often quoted her in admiration. But now, she said at an
ALA meeting about supporters of the caged librarians, "I've dug in my
heels... I refuse to be governed by people with an agenda." The Cuba
issue, she continued, "wouldn't die," though she'd like to "drown it."
The agenda, Miss Krug, is freedom. "Every burned book," wrote Ralph
Waldo Emerson, "illuminates the world." But ALA's leadership refuses to
bring light to the cages of these Cuban prisoners of conscience. The
ALA's membership booklet proclaims "the public's right (everywhere) to
explore in their libraries many points of view on all questions and
issues facing them." An issue facing all members of the ALA is their
leaders' shameful exception of the Cuban people's freedom to read.
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