【Text/Observer Network Zhang Zhaodong】
According to the US media NPR reported on January 27, on the eve of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the US state of Tennessee reported that the anti-Nazi comic "Maus" (German: Maus) was listed as a banned book. The McMinn County School District Academic Council of the state voted unanimously to remove Rats from the middle school curriculum and replace it with another work.
The incident drew criticism from many American netizens, who said it was vital to teach students about the history of genocide. Comic book author Art Spiegelman also personally criticized the school for being "short-sighted" and called the move "authoritarian and fascist." McMinn School District responded that "Rats" contains swear words, nudity and suicide, which are "too adult" for students.
Screenshot of the report
Rat Clan is a comic book by cartoonist Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, becoming the only pulitzer prize-winning comic book in history.
Spiegelman's parents were Polish Jews and survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. The work begins with the author's interview with his father, describing the inhuman abuse and tragic experience of his parents during Nazi Germany's rule of Poland and trying to escape, exposing the brutal crimes of the Nazi Holocaust.
In Rats, the author portrays Jews as rats, Germans (Nazis) and Poles as cats and pigs. This practice of using anthropomorphic animals as the protagonist to represent historical themes and the unique style of expressing heavy war themes in the form of popular comics made "Rat Clan" a great success.
Cover of Rat Family Source: Wikipedia
On Jan. 10, 10 members of the Academic Council of the McMinn County School District, Tennessee, voted unanimously to remove Rats from the district's eighth-grade curriculum and replace it with other works. As for what works to replace, the school has not yet decided.
According to the minutes of the meeting published on the school district's board website, member Rob Shamblin said at the meeting: "We are here because some people object to the words and graphics used in the book. ”
Jonathan Pierce, the first member to vote to remove Rats from the student curriculum, said at the meeting that schools should teach the Holocaust, but the book was not suitable as a textbook. "Our children need to understand the Holocaust, they need to understand these pieces of history," he said. But this [rat tribe] shows depression or depression of certain races, which is unacceptable today. ”
Lee Parkinson, head of the McMinn County school district, said the focus of the controversy among church council members was 8 swear words and a picture of a. The Council discussed censoring the language and imagery in the censored book that was deemed inappropriate, but they ultimately decided to abandon the work altogether.
"Rat Clan" text
The incident has only recently sparked a stir on U.S. social media because it coincides with the international Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27). On January 27, 1945, the Red Army liberated Auschwitz death camp in Poland. Since then, the United Nations has designated the day as an annual International Holocaust Day of Remembrance in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum tweeted on the 27th to voice the "Rat Clan": "The Rat Clan has played a vital role in holocaust history education by sharing the detailed and intimate experiences of victims and survivors. "Teaching the Holocaust with a book like Rats inspires students to think critically about the past and their roles and responsibilities today."
Many American netizens have also spoken out, criticizing the McMinn School District's approach.
"Rat Clan is a wonderful work of art that is not easy to read and should not be easy. It's a way of educating young people about the Holocaust, and there's definitely a place on the shelves of school libraries, and it's very wrong for schools to forbid it. ”
"These people are ridiculous. Sadly, this is the behavior of our generation, just like in the 1950s. ”
"If a McMinn County student asks for a copy of Rat Clan, I'll be happy to give one. I would love to offer banned books for kids who want to read banned books. ”
"Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past."
Another said angrily: "I think my country is going backwards every day, and it is ironic that I want to ban this book and want to say that you are not fascists." ”
In an interview with CNN, Atter Spiegelman, author of "Rats," also unceremoniously criticized McMinn School District board members for being "short-sighted" and focused only on the book's potentially offensive words and limited nudity. And their decision to move the book out of the student curriculum is even more sinister.
"It has an air of dictatorship and fascism, and I think it's a harbinger of what's to come." Spiegelman said.
Art Spiegelman
After widespread criticism, the McMinn School District Board responded in a statement that Rats "unnecessarily uses profanity and nudity to depict violence and suicide," which is too much for a class of 13- and 14-year-olds.
The statement said the council members "will not belittle the value of Rats as an influential and significant work of literature, nor will they question the importance of educating our children about the historical and moral lessons of the Holocaust and the reality." ”
But the school district's board of education believes that teachers should teach Holocaust history in a more "age-appropriate" way, "and we all have an obligation to make sure that the younger generation understands the horrors of the Holocaust so that such events don't happen again." But we think this work is not suitable for our students to study at all. ”
McMinn School District Board Statement taken from the McMinn School District website
NPR reports that in recent times, some Republican leaders in the United States have increasingly demanded that certain books be banned in schools, especially those that involve race and LGBTQ identity issues. According to the American Library Association, the number of attempts to ban school library books nationwide in September increased by 67 percent compared to the same period the year before.
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