When I was a lad I
read everything I could about homemade firearms with a view to building
something which went bang! You remember,
a penny bunger down a lump of pipe with a ball bearing thrown in on top – point
it at the fence and wait - only to suffer the ignominy of a hiding from Dad
when a large hole appeared. Or, reading
up on how to make a boat only to launch an old door off Black Rock beach and
float to glory. Half a mile out and it
dawned on our collective pea brain that we were heading into the shipping lane
faster than we could paddle back to shore. Rescued by a fisherman and another
hiding. How about reading up on making a
bow and arrow only to have my best ‘friend’ shoot me in the face – quivering arrow
embedded in my cheek and, you guessed it, another hiding. This is normal boy’s
stuff, adventure and projectiles.
There were a plethora
of books available for boys to ponder over and discuss what would be considered
by today’s moral police to be subversive and indeed even anarchistic as well as
deeming those evil tomes for corrupting the minds of boys leading them into the
paths of terrorism and world domination!
Can you imagine what
one of moral turpitude could write about my antics as a boy? “Terrorist
plot foiled by fisherman when youths caught in shipping lane on homemade boat
waiting to sink American container. These
same despots have previously been caught developing home made weapons of mass
destruction designed to inflict maximum damage. They have also been caught with
terrorist instruction manuals. They should be immediately jailed for the rest
of their horrible and unchristian lives!”
Sounds like a big call for a couple of 10 year
olds somewhat lacking in a sense of self preservation and an overinflated sense
of adventure with no allergies or colds or disease or, brains.
The exampled news
article from the moral high ground person was created from the very dark side
of their own thoughts and desire to sell news papers turning a couple if idiot
10 year olds into perpetrators from the ‘axis of evil’.
I have read part of
David Hicks book yet I don’t think I will be developing any desire to go and
follow some passion in another country through and by just reading his
book. I can remember reading books by
Dennis Wheatley as a kid on the occult and being fascinated but I don’t think I
will be buying a pointy hat any time soon.
At our school we had a church service every morning – 2400 sessions of attempted
indoctrination - yet I have no desire to pursue a role as a religious do-gooder.
I have read the bible
dozens of times and indeed have a couple of those inculcating tomes floating
around the house somewhere. Does this
mean I am a religious extremist with views taken from a collection of part
phrases? Not bloody likely.
As I am scrawling
this I am looking around at our library.
Right there in front of me is another mine of information allowing me to
research possible malfeasant targets. This
incendiary publication is innocently called the ‘The White Pages’. I can slobber over this whilst wearing my
pointy hat and thinking of my antics as a “despot youth reading unchristian terrorist
instruction manuals such as Popular mechanics”.
Then there is the
internet. That terrorist inspired
publication, The White Pages’ is on-line!
God help us all.
This week a person
was arrested for reading ‘subversive’ material and accused of a crime because someone
somewhere deemed the material subversive and of Al Qaeda origin. Every bloke should therefore be arrested who
had read the White Pages, Popular Mechanics, The Bible, any thriller novel or
has seen any ‘action’ movie over the last 50 years.
Mao Tse Tung tried to
remove Chinese culture by removing books. Stalin and Hitler did the same. These
delightful despots believed that if you removed people’s ability to seek information
then you gain control. The sad thing is
that they nearly pulled it off and worse, their idea of censorship is still
alive and well in today’s challenged dictatorships.
It has been proven
time and time again that people will seek information and then disseminate what
they think is right and what is wrong.
There will always be
people who read into a sentence just what they want to hear and make judgements
based on no fact. Take the fictitious
article written about my attempts to sail to glory as a 10 year old - nothing
to do with reality. It’s not the act but
the reporting which creates angst.
It’s not what people
read, it’s how they interpret it. What’s more, if too many books have been
burnt then the total picture is not available and people will make decisions on
limited and possibly spurious texts. Not
good.
I was lucky because
as part of my 2400 church services we discussed all religions on equal terms
with an overriding agenda not to judge.
Obviously, as a Presbyterian school, the preference was to guide us into
the true light of that belief, but not at the expense of intellectual understanding.
The same cannot be
said for other doctrines which attempt to blind and demand adherence to what is
a very small section of life.
Therefore, the issue
is not what they read but what they DON’T read.
Balance in everything is good whereas dictated opinion is bad. Take ‘Reds under the beds’ and ‘George Orwell’s1984’
as examples.
I personally don’t
think it an issue that someone reads a subversive document. Every Christian, Muslim, Mormon, Christian
Scientist or orthodox Jew could also be accused of subverting another’s chosen
true way if all we had to judge on was the specific written word of each doctrine.
Every one of those
believers who decry other’s beliefs should also be arrested and jailed as was
the person downloading alleged Al Qaeda subversive material.
Perhaps not a good
thought as this act alone is heading towards Hitler’s idea of a free world.
I personally have
been threatening to read the Koran. It’s
about time and like Popular Mechanics, The Bible and the White Pages, it’s an
obvious terrorist book designed to subvert the masses into a proletarian uprising.
Can you imagine how the
same writer who wrote the fictitious article on me as a floating kid could
perceive this wanton act.
“Brainless dropkick youth previously guilty of
terrorist plots grows up to continue his life of subversion and anarchy by
downloading and indeed even reading the other side’s religious text! His intentions are obviously Armageddon generated
from the axis of evil. God Help us all”
Yep, if that drivel
is what we believe and those beliefs guide our actions then truly, ‘God Help us
all’.
Jon Langevad
