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From Orwell to ‘Little Mermaid,’ Kuwait Steps Up Book Banning

Yesterday the New York Times published an article relating to Kuwait, but like most of the times we make the news, it wasn’t for a good thing. The New York Times had an article on the increase of book bannings that have gotten so extreme, we’re actually banning books that are not banned in Saudi Arabia. If that’s not absurd I don’t know what is.

Some of the books that were banned were written by local authors, so it’s not just foreign books that are being affected by this recent banning. Over 4,300 books have been banned so far since 2014 with 700 of them being banned just this year alone. Check out the New York Times article with more details on this [Here]

36 replies on “From Orwell to ‘Little Mermaid,’ Kuwait Steps Up Book Banning”

They ban valuable books like Orwell’s, and decent books like Little Mermaid; yet they permit wholly indecent names like Eggslut in the public purview. At least no one forces you to read 1984, but it’s hard to avoid a billboard or storefront with the word slut.

I’m not for banning anything, including that foul named Eggslut. But at least be consistent. Its crazy!

Orwell is NOT banned in Kuwait. I found 1984 and Animal Farm in English in Jarir Bookstore and in Arabic in Sofia bookstore at the Promenade Mall in Hawally.

This article is blowing things way out of proportion.

As M.I.A once famously said, “Fuck the New York Times.”

Just read the article and funnily enough, they’re also saying that Jarir Bookstore holds copies of 1984.

This is what happens when people i.e. me in this case just read the headline and not the actual article.

Sorry bout acting abrasive.

Honestly sometimes I ask myself the people that censor do they know how to read or look at a book or even a movie. They don’t have a good criteria to look at to make actual good judgment for censorship. so of course we will have people who will sensor everything cuz they cover looks taunting or they just don’t like the look of it.

any foreigner does like laws of Kuwait and trying to fix it, Kindly go back to your country and complain about your country’s corruption and fix it. If you have decided to live in Kuwait then you should live and respect with Kuwait’s laws and regulations. Just fix yourself before fixing others.

+1 to Patrick, its like people cannot have an opinion on local laws. Both locals and non locals should have an opinion on this stuff

soooo anyone who does not like 248am blog should go back into their holes and not comment here. same logic right? riiight?

What about those of us who aren’t in Kuwait? Can we shit on Kuwait for all of these stupid laws and regulations?

I guess we can 🙂 It’s no wonder the country is a mess, it’s run by people like MOE who can’t see their face from their ass.

For your information, most of us complaining about the stupid censorship laws that are tarnishing Kuwait’s reputation globally.. are Kuwaiti citizens!

So by your logic, if you don’t like this blog, go away and don’t come back!

The people quoted in the article are Kuwaitis, and I’m pretty sure the people protesting are Kuwaitis as well. Your comment is so TK.

I once had a book held by customs for a month because it had “Devil” in the title. Make of that what you will.

The best way to be able to read all kinds of books living in Kuwait is by getting a job on the MOI’s censors board.
Can you share with us the eligibility criteria for making the cut?
I’d imagine being functionally illiterate and growing a long beard are pre-requisites but I maybe wrong.

As the proprietress of BETTER BOOKS (which was briefly closed after a MOI raid/inspection) and the author of a Harvard Master’s thesis on censorship in Kuwaiti schools, I wrote to the NYT journalist to clarify several of his points.
I closely work with the MOI and can attest that their Censorship Section exists and scours not only books but also DVDs. When I have visited them, their work areas were overflowing with boxes of books. And I can attest that there is an incinerator at MOI which may or may not still be functioning.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry does not coordinate with MOI or the Ministry of Education so that a book may be banned in schools but still available for sale and vice versa. What is most disturbing was that the Censorship department at the Ministry of Education asks private schools (or they did in the 1990’s) to come up with a list of books they have pulled from their schools and school libraries. They then compiled the list and sent it as a directive to all schools resulting in IB schools and schools with AP Literature classes told to remove books that were required for their core curriculum to be removed because some Islamic schools removed it from their shelves! It got to where some schools had special sections of the library reserved only for AP Literature or IB students!

TSC sells dated English broadsheets
but the pricing can easily send one scurrying to the cleaners.
I am not sure if they sell tabloids such as, The Sun, though-if you are looking for some Page 3 fun, that is.
Even if they did it would cost you an
arm and a leg. If I was you, I’d make friends
with an expat; certainly a Briton and read all
all his or her newspapers- some companies in Q8 even offer Brit execs a newspaper allowance since the print editions are so prohibitively expensive here. Again, have you tried digital ?

It’s one thing for a society to be consumed by and infatuated with parfum, make up, frozen yogurt and domestic help and another thing for that society to en masse, have disdainful contempt for the literary word and works of art and culture, in general. Censorship leads to stagnation and ruin.
Besides, on one level it is totally irrelevant in this day and age of Kindle, Google books and Internet to have censorship of physical media as, books and magazines.

Shouldn’t we be patting ourselves on the back that something as inconsequential as books, in our national conversation and social discourse should elicit 20 odd comments?!

Its actually infuriating to think that some person(s) are dictating what information we should or shouldn’t be exposed to. Its a violation of a human’s right to knowledge. Books are supposed to be treasured and not deemed offensive in any way whatsover. There are many other societal issues that they should divert their attention to. If someone wants to read a book, they will read it from somewhere one way or the other. But the concept of censoring is close-minded and harmful to society. At the end of the day, each person should have the free WILL to choose to read a book or not without having to subscribe to the beliefs of others making that decision for someone. Seriously its like some kind of mind control.

If you can’t find a book locally, try downloadingit as an ebook! And most of the times you’ll find them free (my experience so far)
Regarding the bans, they just ban books that deal with sensitive issues. I still don’t get it, it’s a good thing people are reading books yet those degenerates keep banning shit left and right.

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