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EDITORIAL: Censoring
‘Death of a Buddha’
The controversial cross-strait service trade agreement has yet to clear the
legislature, but it already appears to be having a chilling effect on the
publishing and retail industry, generating self-censorship that is detrimental
to Taiwanese democracy.
Earlier this week, Eslite Bookstore, one of the nation’s biggest and most
popular bookstore chains, allegedly refused to put the book Death of a Buddha —
The Truth behind the Death of the 10th Panchen Lama (殺佛–十世班禪大師蒙難真相) on its
shelves. Co-written by exiled Chinese writer Yuan Hongbing (袁紅冰) and Tibetan
author Namloyak Dhungser, the book details findings from the authors’ private
interviews with Chinese and Tibetan officials that the 10th Panchen Lama,
Choekyi Gyaltsen, was killed by poison in January 1989, rather than dying of a
heart attack as the Chinese Communist Party claims.
The bookstore chain currently only accepts pre-orders for the book and has so
far failed to respond to the more sensitive issues raised by those criticizing
it for keeping the book off its shelves.
Amid the incident, some may recall the ruckus back in 1989, when British author
Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses made him a target for assassination by
Islamic extremists. The Islamist groups said the book defamed the Prophet
Mohammed and then-Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and called on
Muslims to kill Rushdie and the book’s publishers. The threats prompted some of
the largest book chains in the US, such as Waldenbooks and Barnes & Noble, to
remove it from their shelves.
A number of writers subsequently came forward to condemn the death threats and
criticize the bookstore chains for refusing to sell the book.
“To see bookstores caving in like that to demagoguery is horrifying. They exist
in honor of freedom of the press. For them to be so cowardly is despicable,” US
author Laura Shapiro said at the time.
Renowned US novelist and essayist Susan Sontag said that the incident suggested
how easy it was to make people afraid, “but if we show fear in the face of this
intimidation, all of our institutions that support a free, literate society are
hijacked.”
Indeed.
Eslite, which strives to project an image as a promoter of art, culture and
literature, has been touted by the Taipei City Government as a major cultural
attraction for locals and tourists alike, but how is the bookstore to be
championed as a cultural icon when it appears to compromise the value of freedom
of expression?
If this is how Eslite is pandering to Beijing, the question is what will happen
when it actually starts operating in China as part of its overseas expansion
plan. And if censorship is being exercised now by Taiwan’s publishing and retail
industry before the cross-strait service trade agreement is even approved by the
legislature, one shudders to imagine the level of censorship there may be once
the agreement takes effect.
Locus Publishing Co chairman and former national policy adviser Rex How (郝明義),
for one, has strongly criticized the government for “overlooking the sensitivity
in cross-strait issues” and “ignorance and stupidity about China” by signing the
trade pact.
As China is notorious for its stringent censorship of the cultural industry, can
the public still be guaranteed an independent reading and book-consumption
environment free of political interference?
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his government need to address that and allay
public concern, rather than pushing the legislature to approve the agreement
without examining the potentially damaging impact it may have on the nation.
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