When I wrote my original blog post on the Palestinian book which was ordered for destruction from the libraries of Palestinian schools, I had not thoroughly read the newspapers earlier that morning.
In the day before, "his excellency" the minister of education and higher education said in an interview that he will investigate the issue because he did not know about it. I thought this might be a good sign. However, when I was reading the coverage in the paper later that day Al-Ayyam furnished a whole page for the issue. In a step to contrast this government with the previous one, the right half of the page covered the Hamas side, the left side presented an interview with Yahya Yakhluf the ex-minister of culture in which he criticised the step.
The right hand side of page 8 in Wednesday's edition of Al-ayyam, contained a large article in which Al-Shaer justified the decision by "phrases and issues" that the book contained. Wasfi Qabha, Minister of Prisoners' Affairs said:" I cannot accept that our high school students would have access to such 'lowly phrases' in their school libraries."
To me, cultural heritage is a part of our identity, just like the fact that Al-Aqsa mosque or Nativity Church are part of our common heritage. It is not something that we can be selective about, and shutting our kids ears to the existence of sexual language does not mean you are protecting them from anything. On the contrary, you are keeping them susceptible to anything and anyone who can fill in this gap in what they want to know.
I don't understand how you can protect Al-Aqsa if you run away from your history. We cannot have a government that will continuously try to change our whole way of life to fit that style they dream of, the one which existed in Hijaz 1400 years ago.
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