Index on Censorship 2/1999 [antikvár]

EDITORIALShelf lifeí Tt is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all -lcan teli you what to read and when and how'. So writes Doris Lessing about the library, an institution which many of us take for granted - though Alberto Manguel wonders whether library democracy is not somewhat illusory. They are only two of the many distinguished contributors to this issue of Index, which celebrates the reopening this year of the Library of Alexandria, once the great symbol of the ancient world.Nadine Gordimer remembers censored libraries in South Africa under apartheid; Sonallah Ibrahim recalls the secret building up of his prison library; Doris Lessing describes people s yearning in book-starved Zimbabwe; Michael Holroyd telis us how he owes his education to Maidenhead Public Library; Ivan Klima reminds us of the absurdities of censoring bureaucracies, Wole Soyinka of the subversive power of words, Ted Hughes of books as memory 'Decay of libraries is like/Alzheimer's in the nation's brain'.We include a passionate account of what learning to read means for aduit literacy students in Britain. Ever since the Free Library movement of the nineteenth century, libraries have been a focal point for British cultural life. But our present record is depressing. Many students now have to pay to use university libraries. Ten times more people go to libraries than to league football matches, yet local authorities are closing scores of them down - 22 in the London borough of Lambeth alone; though the government has recently shown signs of putting libraries higher up the political agenda.Less reassuring is the government's latest Immigration and Asylum Bili, the toughest attempt yet to limit the number of refiigees coming to Britain. Asylum seekers will have no choice about where they live, cash benefits are to be replaced by vouchers (on the grounds that cash payments are an incentive for 'economic' migrants; there is absolutely no evidence for this), and those who go to judicial review while their case is being considered will lose all support.Meanwhile, Gerhard Schröder s recent proposal for dual citizenship for Germany s immigrants was followed by a huge electoral backlash against his Party. Yet, as the EC Social Affairs Commissioner reminded us, 'immigration has been a positive process which has brought economic and cultural benefits both to the host countries and to the immigrants themselves'. The growing anti-immigration bias in European social and political discourse can only strengthen racism and make more possible a grim Fortress Europe, inward looking and closed. ?