By Jeff Carter

Anyone experienced in research – historians, journalists and the like – go to source materials as a means to distinguish truth from perspective. If a source originates from an earlier time period, such as the latter part of 19th century when Nicholas Flood Davin released his Report on Industrial Schools for Indian and Half-Breeds to Canada’s federal government, it must be understood as much as is possible from the context of those times.
I’m not so sure this has happened to any significant extent, having followed media reports and commentary concerning residential schools and the general wellbeing of indigenous peoples in Canada, particularly those aired by CBC Radio to which I listen to diligently. Perspective dominates the narrative.
I have read the Davin Report which recommended creation of residential schools and have considered as well the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which concluded, and rightfully so, that a “cultural genocide” occurred in Canada.
States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.
My own perspective on the matter is born out of the understanding I’ve built of my family’s history, a perspective also influenced to a significant degree by the ongoing residential school discussion. The maternal side of our family was split apart in the 1930s, five children taken from their parents, and placed in the “loving” embrace of the state.
Despite the mixed outcome and the ongoing trauma that persists, I do not feel the people who dragged my then nine-year-old mother and her younger siblings to foster care and adoptive families were necessarily persons of evil intent. Neither was Davin nor were most of the people who developed and managed the residential school system, though that is how they are typically portrayed.
Evil does exist in the world, however. Tough to argue otherwise in light on the ongoing conflicts that now dominate the news.
If positive change is to come, young people need the tools to understand their world, among them the opportunity to consider history and literature – the line between the two is blurred – by utilizing source materials.
That is becoming more difficult.
It has come to my attention (from what I feel is a reliable source) that certain books are to be removed from the public high school libraries in Lambton County and Chatham-Kent. Calls to the school board to confirm this as this column is being submitted for publication had yet to be returned. 
Among the books said to be on the ‘removal’ list is Lord of the Flies, published in 1954, the debut novel of British author William Golding. Other titles were cited for their use of language and themes deemed as inappropriate for today’s audience.
As such, society seeks to protect its children.
Lord of the Flies is widely accepted as a literary work, the story of a group of prepubescent boys, stranded and left to their own devices on a remote island. In the event you haven’t read the book, suffice to say it is a cautionary tale, one especially relevant given today’s global circumstances. It speaks of innocence lost, of the descent into savagery when civility and morality are abandoned and authoritarianism embraced.
Granted, literature and history does need to be contextualized. What better venue than a learning institution in which ideas and views are respectfully exchanged and discourse encouraged?
I remember reading Lord of the Flies – a part of the high school curriculum as I recall – and many other titles which have been banned or censored in various ways at various times. Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses comes to mind, as does Mark Twain’s most celebrated novels, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, Joseph Conrad’s – oops, shouldn’t say that word, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and D.H. Lawrence’s (yawn) Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I could go on.
Satanic Verses may be the most extreme example, a significant part of the Islamic world not only banning the book but issuing a fatwa calling for the death of Rushdie and his publishers.
There is irony in that. What Rushdie has had to say, it strikes me that his words help bridge the cultural and religious chasm between east and west. I, at least, came away with a greater appreciation for the Islamic world regardless of Rushdie’s admitted apostasy.
We live in a permissive society. Lessons concerning sexual orientation are now part of the elementary school curriculum while  pornography is readily available and we wonder why children are confused. Drugs and alcohol including substances that incapacitate and  kill are easily accessed. Gambling is not only allowed by the government but actively encouraged.
As such, it is difficult to understand how having works of literature in the hands of young people can be viewed as a concern. Their removal and efforts limit the discussion to “accepted” narratives – acts of tyranny both – do not protect young people. Neither do these acts of censorship prepare them for the future. ◊