Courage Day

15 November is the date that throughout the world, PEN (the international writers' organisation which champions freedom of expression) holds events to mark the International Day of the Imprisoned Writer.

The New Zealand Society of Authors, which incorporates PEN, honours this event as Courage Day, named jointly after James Courage, a novelist and poet whose novel A way of love was banned because he dared to express homosexuality in his writing prior to the setting up of the Indecent Publications Tribunal in 1964, and his grandmother Sarah Courage, whose book describing colonial life in New Zealand was burned by neighbours who resented comments she made about them.

Christchurch should be proud that the day is named for one of its native sons; James Courage may have been born in Amberley but he went to school here, began writing here and has a plaque on the Christchurch Writers’ Trail outside his old school, Christ’s College. As Heather Hapeta, chair of the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors, writes, “this New Zealand name of Courage is also appropriate because of the bravery required by those authors who face opposition in its many forms”.

See also:

• New Zealand Society of Authors
• Recollections of James Courage by his niece, Virginia Clegg [14Kb pdf]
• James Courage at the New Zealand Literature File
• James Courage at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre

Free film screening

Courage Day will be marked in Christchurch by a free screening of the 2008 indie film An Independent Mind, sponsored by Christchurch City Libraries. This is the latest in a string of documentaries on human rights issues by director Rex Bloomstein.
In his director’s statement Bloomstein says:

“I have made many human rights films. Indeed, this has been one of the major themes of my work as a film maker. It has become increasingly clear to me as I have made these documentaries that one right fundamentally underpins so many of the stories I have explored – the right to freedom of expression. I believe the right to criticise, to challenge authority, to say unpopular or controversial things is of profound importance because it is often these questioning voices that most need to be heard.”

So how does a cartoonist deal with the threat of imprisonment for caricaturing his president? How does a comedian survive being sent to a labour camp for telling a joke? How does a poet deal with the impact of being tortured? And how does a musician survive exile for performing a song?

The protection of the right to express ideas without fear of attack, arrest or other persecution has been at the heart of International PEN's work since it was formed in 1921 and Bloomstein’s film seems an ideal way to commemorate this year’s Courage Day in New Zealand.

The approach in An Independent Mind is direct. There is no commentary and each character relates their own self-contained story: individual voices that together magnify the central theme.
As sponsors of this free, one-off screening Christchurch City Libraries hopes it will encourage us to reflect on the importance of the freedom of expression, of the free dissemination of knowledge, opinion, art and, significantly, its limits.

Hapeta points out that PEN stands for the principle of unhampered transmission of thought within, and between, all nations, and members pledge themselves to oppose any form of suppression of freedom of expression but censorship continues: at the end of 2005 a Liberal Australian MP called for 'an outrageous book' (The Bad Book by Andy Griffiths) to be withdrawn from school libraries.

Banned books in New Zealand

In New Zealand the Office of Film and Literature Classification is responsible for the management of restricted publications, including in libraries and schools.

The Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa has a statement on Intellectual freedom on its website, stating in part that: "No library materials should be censored, restricted, removed from libraries, or have access denied to them because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval or pressure. This includes access to web-based information resources".

Books that have been banned, censored or suppressed in New Zealand include Ettie Rout’s Safe Marriage and the children's reader, Washday at the Pa (with Ans Westra photographs) which was withdrawn from schools and pulped in the early sixties.

Jean Devanny (born Nelson, 1894) had her novel The Butcher Shop banned because of its supposed obscenity and detriment to New Zealand’s immigration policy.

Hone Tuwhare also had some of his first works banned by the Māori Affairs Department, apparently because of his early communist affiliations. Another New Zealander, William Taylor, author of numerous novels for children and young adults, is one of only a few Kiwis who have had their work challenged in America - some libraries refused to put his title The blue lawn on their shelves.

November 2008