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LEADING SINGAPOREAN WRITERS today expressed outrage over the national library’s plans to destroy three children’s books seen to promote homosexuality.
The National Library Board (NLB) late yesterday confirmed it would “pulp” three children’s titles deemed to be against its “pro-family” stance following complaints by a parent and its own internal review.
Singapore’s small but vocal arts and literary community slammed the move as an exercise in “book burning” and censorship, amid rising tensions between religious conservatives and gay-rights activists in the city-state.
The three books to be destroyed include “And Tango Makes Three” – a true story about two male penguins in a New York zoo which raised a baby penguin – and “The White Swan Express”, which features children adopted by straight, gay, mixed-race and single parents.
The third book, “Who’s In My Family”, discusses different types of families, including references to gay couples.
The state-funded NLB is a network of 26 public libraries with a collection of five million books and multimedia items.
Prominent local writer Ng Yi-Sheng bemoaned the NLB’s decision to destroy the books instead of choosing a “compromise solution, such as putting the books in adult lending or even the reference section”.
“I want you to bring up these book burnings in your public events,” he told fellow authors in a Facebook post.
Alfian Sa’at, a playwright, called for a boycott of the NLB network.
“Our stand is precise and clear: We are against censorship, an opaque bureaucracy and the destruction of books,” he said.
Conservative city state
A group of writers scheduled to speak at an NLB event about humour on Sunday also pulled out in protest.
The Singapore Review of Books, an online publication that reviews books from Singapore and outside, said on its website that the NLB’s decision to destroy the books “has crossed the threshold to take on the spectre of a pyre… from which no hope may rise”.
But Singapore’s information minister Yaacob Ibrahim said in a Facebook post today the NLB’s decision was “guided by community norms”.
“The prevailing norms, which the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans accept, support teaching children about conventional families, but not about alternative, non-traditional families, which is what the books in question are about,” he wrote.
The episode comes just two weeks after an annual gay rights rally in the conservative city-state was attended by over 20,000 people, sparking a fierce debate between religious conservatives opposed to the event and Singapore’s growing gay-rights lobby.
Gay sex between men is illegal in Singapore and is punishable by up to two years in jail under a provision in the penal code dating back to British colonial rule.
Singapore officials have openly promised that the city’s LGBT community will not be hounded under this law, but say it must stay in the books because most citizens still do not accept homosexuality.
A survey of 4,000 citizens by the government-linked Institute of Policy Studies earlier this year found that 78.2% of the local population felt same-sex relations were wrong.
How can you promote homosexuality? You might as well say Gaelic Football promotes gingerism.
My friend the gooch says ‘what’s wrong with that’
You could make a cake…
Reminds me of the Nazis and their book burning. Strange how I know many families including parents with children who are gay. Religion is so destructive.
I don’t know about the other two but “and Tango makes 3″ sounds like a lovely story
Before you will cast judgement over there you might want to look at some of the policies of our schools over here. They’re all state schools and all claim to be non discriminatory but many won’t even discuss the issue and ignore LGBT bullying.
Though lgbt have enough in-fighting within it in terms of no tolerance. In Ireland if your gay and you don’t look and act a certain way you are told that you are ‘acting stra8′ and if u think your bi they’ll accuse you of ‘bi now gay later’ even tho more are bi to some degree than gay.
We ought not judge others too harshly, apart from the above let us also remember we were sending people to prison in the 1990s for homosexuality.
Going to prison for homosexuality is like overweight working and eating in mcdonalds to help weight managment. Your right about the in fighting too. Let’s not forget it was the trans folk who started the stonewall riots.
Ahh the old gay stories are back ,garth has been sent to the back bench !
Well they’ve been fairly ramming that George Clooney fiancee story down our throats over the past few days – darn Straights! ;)
Being obnoxiously straight am kept mentioning his fiancée in the interviews. Keep it at home sister.
In fairness, it’s Singapore so this is hardly surprising. They’re unashamedly fascist & rarely shy away from censorship.
Quick, give them a world cup
If anyone wanted to know what Putin meant when he spoke about children, well, there’s your answer!
Their first mistake was only burning three books. If they’d decided to burn 78,000 of them, it would never have made thejournal. http://huff.to/1jxkGg5
Bit disingenuous comparing an arson attack to state censorship, but your point holds true, ignorance is something to be combated.
So a kid reads a book about a pair of penguins looking after an orphan and suddenly they are turned gay?
What planet are these people on? Some of these “conservatives” seem to exist outside of reality
A vicious, backward kip.
A backwards kip you say ? At least they have moved on from the wild animals and are not following their traits/ behaviours very progressive I say.
I am cool with homosexuality and totally accept it as a free choice. But this in-your-face ‘agenda’ isn’t just a conservative crank fantasy anymore. It is a real thing by the Journal. I mean going to Asia for stories about childrens books… it’s a bit flimsy. There clearly has to be some kind of web trawl for agenda stories going on and some agreement to have a few mentions per week. We get it. If I may be so bold as to imagine myself in their shoes, I don’t think the bigots are converted by this kind of coverage.
Only going to deal with a single element on your post… But when in history have those who burned books been deemed to be on the right side… If I were falling down on that side of the debate and saw this, it would definitely make me question my position.
You’re “cool” with homosexuality and yet you think it’s a “free choice”? So you’re cool, but uninformed about what it is you’re cool with. I guess your heart’s probably in the right place. However, these are just three books which teach kids in an age-appropriate way, that gay people exist, that a small number of same-sex parents exist and that both are perfectly acceptable. Wanting these books to simply exist in the library is hardly an “in-your-face agenda”. Surely you’re more worried about the spectre of book-burning? Throughout history, good things never followed book-burning.
Sorry – clearly having read Seán’s and Mark’s comments, I failed to make myself clear. I condemn what was done in relation to the books. Please understand I am not siding with that action or mindset. I am however questioning the proliferation of articles on here about oppression of gays- It just seems a little OTT at times here on the Journal. It just struck as a minor story from a far-flung place. That was what stuck out most for me. I guess I could say the same of the amount of times Twitter is lionized. There also seems to be an overfocus on smartphone tech and property price watching.
Well now that the issue has been brought into focus, my two cents is that I sympathise with those affected by the narrowmindedness and the authorities in Singapore are sending out the wrong message
Ah lads
A library destroying books no matter the subject matter is wrong.Of course you get ‘the think of the children ‘ excuse however even the most ‘dangerous’ books or ideas have a role to play.If for nothing more than providing an insight into where these ideas come from.
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