FREADOM

Read A Burned Book

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 Class Activities
Reading : Reflection

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Why Do Tyrants Burn Books?
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Class Activities
Reading : Reflection

Using the Top Ten books that were burned in Cuba in 2003 as examples, you will explore why it is such books are perceived as a threat or a danger to political and/or religious leaders.

Below are 10 reading and response activities, each with assorted links to articles by or about the authors whose works have been burned. Work alone or in pairs as your teacher directs to look deeper into the ideas which make these books so dangerous to Cuba's ruling Communist Party.

To wrap up, there are two thematic questions about the historical phenomenon of book burning in general. You will most likely work with your class to discuss these books and to seek answers for the larger question of why do tyrants, or governments, or various movements seek to burn the books of others? What makes them such a perceived threat, and if they are a threat, then to whom?

   Freadom librarians have compiled an extensive bibliography on book burning in both
   modern and ancient times, in order to assist you in finding good resources. For now,

   the bibliography is primarilly in English, but we hope to expand that to other languages

   as the Read A Burned Book Campaign develops in the future.


Enlighten Up!
Read A Burned Book.


1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Perhaps the most incinerated document taken from the independent libraries in Cuba has been the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While Cuban officials say they adhere to this Declaration, customs officials routinely confiscate and destroy copies of it.

     Activity: Read the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, found at this United Nation's site .
Questions: What might be some specific reasons a government would not want citizens to be aware of this document?

                      What would you think the Cuban government would find most objectionable?

     Activity: Read this Miami Herald commentary about the latest Cuba report from the United Nations Human Rights Council. Then read the
                      4-page summary of the 2006 Report of the Personal Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Righs, on Cuba.
Questions: Notice how the official from Cuba responded to criticism. Does this give any clues as to why that government might resort
                      to burning books it felt were dangerous? Try to find the UN Report online and read it.

2. Cuba's Repressive Machinery: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution
       By Human Rights Watch (Human Rights Watch, July 20, 1999). FULL REPORT

     Activity: Read the section on the Cuban Constitution in the HRW report.
Questions: Is there something in the Cuban Constitution that might allow a government to abuse the rights of people in the name of the people?
                      What specific information is so damaging about this report that the government would want it burned?

     Activity: Copies of the US Constitution were also burned in 2003. Read the following discussions in the HRW Report of the Cuban Constitution:
     Crimes Against Public Authorities and Institutions, Crimes Restricting Freedom of Association, and Crimes Restricting Freedom of Movement.
Questions: List some of the differences you see between the current Cuban Constitution and the US Constitution, and be ready to explain how
                      they are different?

3.  View of Dawn in the Tropics, by Guillermo Cabrera Infante.
       Translated from Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine. (London: Faber, 1988)

     Activity: Read this essay, "Smoke Rings (From Fall 2005) An appreciation of Guillermo Cabrera Infante," by Dionisio D. Martínez.
     Activity: Read An Interview with Guillermo Cabrera Infante, By Marie-Lise Gazarian Gautier

 Questions: This man's books have been burned in Cuba. After reading these two articles, why do you think that is? What impressed you the most
                      with what he said, or with what was said about him. Is the pen mightier than the sword; or does the sword have more power
                      in a totalitarian state?                

4. Textos clásicos sobre la revolución y el socialismo,
    Edited Anonymously by Carlos Franqui (Dominican Republic, 1998)

      Activity:  Carlos Franqui has made a powerful statement about burned books, in English here.
 Questions:  How do you respond to this quote? Is it idealistic to your way of thinking, or does it reflect a practical truth about ideas?
         
      Activity:  Senor Franqui is the editor of an online news journal called Carta de Cuba. Read the 1999 essay, Daily Life in Cuba, by Raul Rivero,
                        and independent librarian and journalist who was jailed in 2003. Then read these two (1- 2)  articles about Franqui's book,
                        "Family Life with Fidel."
  Questions:  How would you say life in Cuba is different, from Rivero's essay, compared to the hopes the young revolutionary and editor dreamed?

5. Martin Luther King: Contra todos las exclusiones,
    By Vincent Rousell (Bilbao [Spain]: Editorial Desclée De Bouwer, 1995).

This book was seized from the Dulce Maria Loynaz Independent Library, Havana, Cuba, and presumed destroyed. Jimmy Carter gave the book to Gisela Delgado Sablón, executive director of the Independent Libraries Project of Cuba (Proyecto de Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba).  Her husband Héctor Palacios Ruiz, a former prisioner of conscience (released 12-06) has signed the Read A Burned Book statement.

    Activity/Question:  What ideas of Martin Luther King, Jr., would you think to be most offensive to the Cuban government?

Hint: go to these sites and search for "civil disobedience".

http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-santiago-5e.cfm
http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-santiago-7e.cfm
http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-santiago-6s.cfm
http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-pinar-del-rio-1e.cfm
http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-matanzas-9e.cfm
http://www.ruleoflawandcuba.fsu.edu/documents-santiago-5e.cfm
Write down what you discover. Now consider what some of the characteristics might be of a goverment which wants these ideas to burn?
         
   Activity:  Read a letter to Coretta Scott King from black Cuban prisioner of conscience, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet
                    Then read this article from CommonDreams, "Savage Justice", which calls on the political left to condemn Castro's dictatorial actions.
 Question:  How do you think Dr. King would respond to these letters. How are the letters similiar to his own Letter From a Birmingham Jail?

6.  Animal Farm, By George Orwell

      Activity:   Read the article "Communism Cuban Style," noticing where the author does or does not source her material.
 Questions:   In Orwell's books, there was an attempt to control thoughts by controlling what people read and see. Pick out three claims
                         in this article that mention a source, and try to track down the information for verification. Or, compare it to other information
                         you find in other sources which may take issue with this author's opinions.

       Activity:  Read the FREADOM report on Orwell, Cuba, and International Libraries.
  Questions:  Do the activities outlined in the report.

7. El Proyecto Varela [The Varela Project] by Alberto Muller [and] Oswaldo Payá
      (Miami, FL : Ediciones Universal, 2002).

     Activity:  Read these two articles on the Varela Project. Here and Here.
Questions:  Based on your reading, what is the basic goal of the Verala Project? Even though ex US President, Jimmy Carter, praised
                       the Varela Project in his visit to Cuba, judges subservient to the Communist Party had documents related to it burned.
                       Give some reasons why you think that is.
          
     Activity:  Read the speech of Oswaldo Paya, when he accepted a prestigious human rights award in France, in 2002.
Questions:  What is your reaction to this speech? Why do you think a government would consider his ideas "dangerous"

8.  Reporters Without Borders: Cuba Report

      Activity:  Read this Report  from RSF (PDF file), which details the censorship and repression of journailsts in Cuba.
 Questions:  The report calls Castro a "Predator of Press Freedom," and gives details of how people who dare to speak unathourized opnions
                       are treated. What ways does a free press threaten a government that seeks to control all outlets for information and education?          

     Activity:  Read the news story about Raul Rivero, a freed poet and journalist among the 75 jailed citizens in 2003, now living in Spain.
                    Then read the 2007 reports from Cuba of independent journalist, Aini Martín Valero, here and here
Questions:  Why wouldn’t the government want people learning how to be good journalists? What kinds of things to these people write
                     and speak that make them "dangerous." What kinds of memories, or alternate "facts" do they present to readers

9. The Black Book of Communism
       (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999).

    Activity: This is considered by many scholars as the definitive book on the totalitarian nature of communism, with an in-depth look at terror
                     and repression as ways of maintaining political control. Read the page of extensive reviews from journals and papers worldwide.

 Question: After reading the reviews, why do you think a nation ruled by a Communist Party would not want citizens reading this book?
              
    Activity: Read the article about the book by Washington Post editorial writer, Anne Applebaum. Then take a look at the website "The Cuba
                    Archive" and read two of the documented case studies of people executed under the Castro regime.

 Question: What similarities are there between the Cuban accounts and the ideas put forth in Applebaum's essay?

10. The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe,
         By Vaclav Havel

     Activity: Read the speech "Ideas Cannot Be Killed," from a conference in Prague on Cuban civil society. Then pick out another speech
                      from the list of speeches from the conference.
Questions:  Relate these speeches to the quote about book burning by Carlos Franqui.       

     Activity: Miami Herald article on Havel's 2002 Miami speech. http://www.icdcprague.org/
Questions: What do you think a "powerless citizen" is, and why would a government be afraid of “powerless” citizens?

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Why Do Tyrants Burn Books
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GROUP ACTIVITIES
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11. All read this essay before class or meeting: "To Extremists, Books Are Trojan Horses" By Prof. Rebecca Knuth
       
       Discuss the ideas in and findings of this essay and compare that with the reflections made in the individual activities 1-10.
      
       Then come up with a list of reasons why Fidel Castro wanted the books discussed burned, based on your analysis.
12.  Read the essay "Book Burning and the Problem of Evil," also by Prof. Knuth.
Ray Bradbury has made this statement, regarding his writing of the famous novel, Fahrenheit 451:

"It followed then that when Hitler burned a book I [a lover of libraries] felt it as keenly, please forgive me,
as his killing a human, for in the long sum of history they are one and the same flesh. Mind or body,
put to the oven, is a sinful practice, and I carried that with me...."

Dicsuss this statement with reference to the historical and philosophical ideas presented by Prof. Knuth.