17 Dec 18 | Magazine, News and features, Volume 47.04 Winter 2018
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Birth, Marriage and Death, the winter 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Birth, marriage and death–these are key staging posts. And that’s one reason why this issue looks at how taboos around these subjects have a critical impact on our world.
Sadly, there are still many of us who feel we can’t talk about problems openly at these times. Societal pressure to conform can be a powerful element in this and can help to create stultifying silences that frighten us into not being able to speak.
Being unable to discuss something that has a major and often complex impact on you or your family can lead to ignorance, fear and terrible decisions.
Not knowing about information or medical advice can also mean exposing people to illness and even death.
The Australian Museum sees death as the last taboo, but it also traces where those ideas have come from and how we are sometimes more shy to talk about subjects now than we were in the past.
The Sydney-based museum’s research considers how different cultures have disposed of the dead throughout history and where the concepts of cemeteries and burials have come from.
For instance, in Ancient Rome, only those of very high status were buried within the city walls, while the Ancient Greeks buried their dead within their homes.
The word “cemetery” derives from the Greek and Roman words for “sleeping chamber”, according to the Australian Museum, which suggests that although cremation was used by the Romans, it fell out of favour in western Europe for many centuries, partly because those of the Christian faith felt that setting fire to a body might interfere with chances of an afterlife.
Taboos about death continue to restrict speech (and actions) all around the world. In a six-part series on Chinese attitudes to death, the online magazine Sixth Tone revealed how, in China, people will pay extra not to have the number “4” in their mobile telephone number because the word sounds like the Mandarin word for “death”.
It also explores why Chinese families don’t talk about death and funerals, or even write wills.
In Britain, research by the charity Macmillan Cancer Support found just over a third of the people they surveyed had thoughts or feelings about death that they hadn’t shared with anyone. Fears about death concerned 84% of respondents, and one in seven people surveyed opted out of answering the questions about death.
These taboos, especially around death and illness, can stop people asking for help or finding support in times of crisis.
Mental health campaigner Alastair Campbell wrote in our winter 2015 issue that when he was growing up, no one ever spoke about cancer or admitted to having it.
It felt like it would bring shame to any family that admitted having it, he remembered. Campbell said that he felt times had moved on and that in Britain, where he lives, there was more openness about cancer these days, although people still struggle to talk about mental health.
Hospice director Elise Hoadley tells one of our writers, Tracey Bagshaw, for her article on the rise of death cafes (p14), that British people used to be better at talking about death because they saw it up close and personal. For instance, during the Victorian period it would be far more typical to have an open coffin in a home, where family or friends could visit the dead person before a funeral. And vicar Laura Baker says of 2018: “When someone dies we are all at sea. We don’t know what to do.”
In a powerful piece for this issue (p8), Moscow-based journalist Daria Litvinova reports on a campaigning movement in Russia to expose obstetric abuse, with hundreds of women’s stories being published. One obstacle to get these stories out is that Russian women are not expected to talk about the troubles they encounter during childbirth. As one interviewee tells Litvinova: “And generally, giving birth, just like anything else related to women’s physiology, is a taboo subject.” Russian maternity hospitals remain institutions where women often feel isolated, and some do not even allow relatives to visit. “We either talk about the beauty of a woman’s body or don’t talk about it at all,” said one Russian.
Elsewhere, Asian-American women talk to US editor Jan Fox (p27) about why they are afraid to speak to their parents and families about anything to do with sex; how they don’t admit to having partners; and how they worry that the climate of fear will get worse with new legislation being introduced in the USA.
As we go to press, not only are there moves to introduce a “gag rule” – which would mean removing funding from clinics that either discuss or offer abortion – but in the state of Ohio, lawmakers are discussing House Bill 565, which would make abortions illegal even if pregnancies arise from rape or incest or which risk the life of the mother. These new laws are likely to make women more worried than before about talking to professionals about abortion or contraception.
Don’t miss our special investigation from Honduras, where the bodies of young people are being discovered on a regular basis but their killers are not being convicted. Index’s 2018 journalism fellow Wendy Funes reports on p24.
We also look at the taboos around birth and marriage in other parts of the world. Wana Udobang reports from Nigeria (p45), where obstetrician Abosede Lewu tells her how the stigma around Caesarean births still exists in Nigeria, and how some women try to pretend they don’t happen — even if they have had the operation themselves. “In our environment, having a C-section is still seen as a form of weakness due to the combination of religion and culture.”
Meanwhile, there’s a fascinating piece from China about how its new two-child policy means women are being pressurised to have more children, even if they don’t want them — a great irony when, only a decade ago, if women had a second child they had to pay.
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In other matters, I have just returned from the annual Eurozine conference of cultural journals, this year held in Vienna. It was interesting to hear about a study into the role of this specific type of publication. Research carried out by Stefan Baack, Tamara Witschge and Tamilla Ziyatdinova at the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, is looking at what long-form cultural journalism does and what it achieves.
The research is continuing, but the first part of the research has shown that this style of magazine or journal stimulates creative communities of artists and authors, as well as creating debates and exchanges across different fields of knowledge. Witschge, presenting the research to the assembled editors, said these publications (often published quarterly) have developed a special niche that exists between the news media and academic publishing, allowing them to cover issues in more depth than other media, with elements of reflection.
She added that in some countries cultural journals were also compensating for the “shortcomings and limitations of other media genres”. Ziyatdinova also spoke of the myth of the “short attention span”.
At a time when editors and analysts continue to debate the future of periodicals in various forms, this study was heartening. It suggests that there still is an audience for what they describe as “cultural journals” such as ours – magazines that are produced on a regular, but not daily basis which aim to analyse as well as report what is going on around the world. Lionel Barber, the editor of the Financial Times newspaper, spoke of his vision of the media’s future at the James Cameron Memorial Lecture at London’s City University in November. As well as arguing that algorithms were not going to take over, he said he was convinced that print had a future. He said: “I still believe in the value and future of print: the smart, edited snapshot of the news, with intelligent analysis and authoritative commentary.”
His belief in magazines as an item that will continue to be in demand, if they offer something different from something readers have already consumed, was made clear: “Magazines, which also count as print – are they going to just disappear? No. Look at The Spectator, look at the sales of Private Eye.”
The vibrancy of the magazine world was also clear at this year’s British Society of Magazine Editors awards in London, with hundreds of titles represented. Jeremy Leslie, the owner of the wonderful Magculture shop in London (which stocks Index on Censorship) received a special award for his commitment to print. This innovative shop stocks only magazines, not books, and has carved out a niche for itself close to London’s City University. Well done to Jeremy. Index was also shortlisted for the specialist editor of the year award, so we are celebrating as well.
We hope you will continue to show your commitment to this particular magazine, in print or in our beautiful digital version, and think of buying gift subscriptions for your friends at this holiday time (check out https://shop.exacteditions.com/index-on-censorship for a digital subscription from anywhere in the world). We appreciate your support this year, and every year, and may you have a happy 2019.
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Rachael Jolley is editor of Index on Censorship. She tweets @londoninsider. This article is part of the latest edition of Index on Censorship magazine, with its special report on Birth, Marriage and Death.
Index on Censorship’s winter 2018 issue is Birth, Marriage and Death, What are we afraid to talk about? We explore these taboos in the issue.
Look out for the new edition in bookshops, and don’t miss our Index on Censorship podcast, with special guests, on Soundcloud.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Birth, Marriage and Death” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2018%2F12%2Fbirth-marriage-death%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The winter 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores taboos surrounding birth, marriage and death. What are we afraid to talk about?
With: Liwaa Yazji, Karoline Kan, Jieun Baek[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”104225″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2018/12/birth-marriage-death/”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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13 Dec 18 | Magazine, Magazine Contents, Volume 47.04 Winter 2018
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”With contributions from Liwaa Yazji, Karoline Kan, Jieun Baek, Neema Komba, Bhekisisa Mncube, Yuri Herrera, Peter Carey, Mark Haddon”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
The winter 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at why different societies stop people discussing the most significant events in life: birth, marriage and death.
In China, as Karoline Kan reports, women were forced for many years to have only one child and now they are being pushed to have two, but many don’t feel like they can talk about why they may not want to make that choice. In North Korea Jieun Baek talks to defectors about the ignorance of young men and women in a country where your body essentially belongs to the state. Meanwhile Irene Caselli describes the consequences for women in Latin America who are not taught about sex, contraception or sexually transmitted infections, and the battle between women campaigners and the forces of ultra conservatism. In the USA, Jan Fox finds Asian American women have always faced problems because sex is not talked about properly in their community. President Trump’s new “gag” law which stops women getting advice about abortion is set to make that much worse. In the far north of Scotland, controversy is raging about gay marriage. Joan McFadden finds out about attitudes to gay marriage on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, and catches up with the Presbyterian minister who demonstrated against the first Lewis Pride. In Ghana Lewis Jennings finds there are no inhibitions when it comes to funerals. Brightly coloured coffins shaped like coke bottles and animals are all rage.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”104226″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special Report: Birth, Marriage and Death”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Labour pains by Daria Litvinova: Mothers speak out about the abuse they receive while giving birth in Russian hospitals
When two is too many by Karoline Kan: Chinese women are being encouraged to have two babies now and many are afraid to talk about why they don’t want to
Chatting about death over tea by Tracey Bagshaw: The British are getting more relaxed about talking about dying, and Stephen Woodman reports on Mexico’s Day of the Dead being used for protest
Stripsearch by Martin Rowson: Taboos in the boozer. Death finds a gloomy bunch of stiffs in an English pub…
“Don’t talk about sex” by Irene Caselli: Women and girls in Latin America are being told that toothpaste can be used as a contraceptive and other lies about sex
Death goes unchallenged by Wendy Funes: Thousands of people are murdered in Honduras every year and no one is talking about it – a special investigation by Index’s 2018 journalism fellow
Reproducing silence by Jan Fox: Asian-American communities in the USA don’t discuss sex, and planned US laws will make talking about abortion and contraception more difficult
A matter of strife and death by Kaya Genç: Funeral processions in Turkey have become political gatherings where “martyrs” are celebrated and mass protests take place. Why?
Rest in peace and art by Lewis Jenning: Ghanaians are putting the fun into funerals by getting buried in artsy coffins shaped like animals and even Coke bottles
When your body belongs to the state by Jieun Baek: Girls in North Korea are told that a man’s touch can get them pregnant while those who ask about sex are considered a moral and political threat to society
Maternal film sparks row by Steven Borowiec: South Korean men are getting very angry indeed about the planned film adaption of a novel about motherhood
Taking Pride in change by Joan McFadden: Attitudes to gay marriage in Scotland’s remote islands are changing slowly, but the strict Presbyterian churches came out to demonstrate against the first Pride march in the Hebrides
Silence about C-sections by Wana Udobang: Nigeria has some of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world, in part, because of taboos over Caesarean sections
We need to talk about genocide by Abigail Frymann Rouch: Rwanda, Cambodia and Germany have all dealt with past genocides differently, but the healthiest nations are those which discuss it openly
Opposites attract…trouble by Bhekisisa Mncube: Seventy years after interracial marriages were prohibited in South Africa, the author writes about what happened when he married a white woman
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Snowflakes and diamonds by Jodie Ginsberg: Under-18s are happy to stand up for free speech and talk to those with whom they disagree
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Killing the news by Ryan McChristal: Photographer Paul Conroy, who worked with Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin, says editors struggle to cover war zones now
An undelivered love letter by Jemimah Steinfeld: Kite Runner star Khalid Abdalla talks about how his film In the Last Days of the City can’t be screened in the city where it is set, Cairo
Character (f)laws by Alison Flood: Francine Prose, Melvin Burgess, Peter Carey and Mark Haddon reflect on whether they could publish their acclaimed books today
Truth or dare by Sally Gimson: An interview with Nobel prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich about her work and how she copes with threats against her
From armed rebellion to radical radio by Stephen Woodman: Nearly 25 years after they seized power in Chiapas, Mexico, Zapatistas are running village schools and radio stations, and even putting people up for election
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Culture”][vc_column_text]
Dangerous Choices by Liwaa Yazji: The Syrian writer’s new play about the horror of a mother waiting at home to be killed and then taking matters into her own hands, published for the first time
Sweat the small stuff by Neema Komba: Cakes, marriage and how one bride breaks with tradition, a new short story by a young Tanzanian flash fiction writer
Power play by Yuri Herrera: This short story by one of Mexico’s most famous contemporary authors is about the irrational exercise of power which shuts down others. Translated into English for the first time
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Index around the world – Artists fight against censors by Lewis Jennings: Index has run a workshop on censorship of Noël Coward plays and battled the British government to give visas to our Cuban Index fellows 2018 (it took seven months)
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Endnote”][vc_column_text]
The new “civil service” trolls who aim to distract by Jemimah Steinfeld: The government in China are using their civil servants to act as internet trolls. It’s a hard management task generating 450 million social media posts a year
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”104225″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen”][vc_column_text]The winter 2018 magazine podcast, featuring interviews with Times columnist Edward Lucas, Argentina-based journalist Irene Caselli, writer Jieun Baek and law lecturer Sharon Thompson
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02 Nov 18 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements, United Kingdom
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Index on Censorship urges the Law Commission to safeguard freedom of expression as it moves towards the second phase of its review of abusive and offensive online communications.
The Law Commission published a report on the first phase of its review of criminal law in this area on 1 November 2018.
While Index welcomes the report’s recognition that current UK law lacks clarity and certainty, the review is addressing questions that impact directly on freedom of expression and the Law Commission should now proceed with great caution.
Safeguarding the fundamental right to freedom of expression should be a guiding principle for the the Law Commission’s next steps. Successive court rulings have confirmed that freedom of expression includes having and expressing views that offend, shock or disturb. As Lord Justice Sir Stephen Sedley said in a 1999 ruling: “Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having”.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt also reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to the protection and promotion of freedom of expression this week, asserting the importance of a free media in particular as a cornerstone of democracy.
The next phase of the review should outline how the UK can show global leadership by setting an example for how to improve outdated legislation in a way that ensures freedom of expression, including speech that is contentious, unwelcome and provocative.
Index on Censorship chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said: “Index will be studying the Law Commission’s first phase report on its review of abusive and offensive online communications carefully. Future proposals could have a very negative impact on freedom of expression online and in other areas. Index urges the Law Commission to proceed with care.” [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1541149900786-b4d39f93-67a6-5″ taxonomies=”6534″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
14 Aug 17 | Index in the Press, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”95179″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]This column originally appeared in the Evening Standard.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]”Part of building an open, inclusive environment means fostering a culture in which those with alternative views…feel safe sharing their opinions.” Hear, hear. This is a view that so chimes with my beliefs as a free-speech campaigner that I could have written it myself. In fact, those are the words of Danielle Brown, Google’s vice-president of diversity, integrity and governance, in response to the furore over the so-called Google manifesto — the 10-page document in which Google software engineer James Damore outlined his views on why women don’t reach the top roles in certain jobs, arguing why the company’s diversity pushes were misplaced. Google so cherishes diversity it sacked a man for expressing an opinion it didn’t agree with… Spot a problem here?
In all the furore surrounding Damore’s memo, most of the focus has been on critiquing the views he expressed on the differences between men and women, but far less attention has been paid to the broader point he was trying to make: that unpopular views, views that did not accord with the mainstream ideology in the company, could not be expressed. And that this in turn could lead to a monotheistic culture that is not good for business.
“When it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s Left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence,” Damore wrote. By sacking him, Google made Damore’s point for him.
Damore expressed a viewpoint that did not accord with the mainstream and he was sacked. I have read plenty of articles arguing he was dismissed not for expressing his opinion but because the expressing of that opinion made colleagues feel unsafe or uncomfortable (more on that later), or justifying the sacking because an employer has the right to discipline employees where their behaviour brings the company into disrepute. But actually, what those who defend Damore’s sacking are really doing is reinforcing something that is increasingly prevalent in our societies: a kind of liberal intolerance.
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Ideas are not challenged by silencing them.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]I heard it a lot in the wake of the killings at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo: “I believe in free speech, but…” and after that “but” came all kinds of things that the supposed defenders of free speech were in favour of censoring because they felt such censorship would better protect marginalised communities. The argument seemed to be that by banning certain kinds of speech we would somehow miraculously eradicate the dangerous, insidious and hateful viewpoints that underlie it.
This “it is OK to censor certain opinions” line is one most clearly articulated in universities — something Damore alluded to in his own manifesto. Views that are considered offensive are dubbed harmful, and speakers are drummed off campus — in some cases physically. In one incident earlier this year, Dr Charles Murray — a political scientist labelled a “white nationalist” for his book linking race and intelligence — was attacked by students after he tried to give a talk at Middlebury College in Vermont.
Ideas are not challenged by silencing them. Indeed, the video of Murray being shouted down by a group of students denying his right to speak demonstrates how an event that could have been an opportune moment to challenge ideas with which the students disagreed simply became an exercise in controlling the narrative. Imagine if the opposite had happened. Imagine if a Black Lives Matter activist had been shut down on campus by a ranting white supremacist mob. There would have been an international uproar.
And that’s the point. Free speech — genuine free speech that tolerates the ideas we find most offensive — must apply equally. It must apply to the ideas we hate as much as to the ideas we champion. What protects Damore’s right to opine that women are “more co-operative and agreeable than men” (Seriously? Has Damore met any actual women?) is also what protects my right to say his views are a laughable load of bollocks. What gives my views the right to be protected and his not?
Those in favour of constraining what others say often do so in the belief that it’s easy to identify, and agree on, good and bad speech. But consider the example of Iranian political activist and human-rights campaigner Maryam Namazie who, in 2015, was repeatedly heckled at an event on blasphemy at Goldsmiths college by members of the Islamic Society and accused of Islamophobia. In one of the great ironies created by the growing “safe space” movement, in which offensive ideas are dubbed so harmful they must be silenced, the Feminist Society at Goldsmiths said it stood in solidarity with the Islamic Society.
This equation of offensive speech with harm lies at the heart of the Google manifesto row, and much of the de facto censorship in operation in companies, online and on campus. Focusing on speech as harm is an easy fix. Don’t like what someone says? Ban them and, lo, we will be safer. (Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a current good example of this in practice but the UK government’s repeated attempts to deal with “extremist” speech also risk going down this road). This is an easy fix because dealing with the problems underlying the words are so much harder: discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, religion.
But homing in on speech is a false and dangerous fix. Banning ideas does not make those ideas go away — all too often the banning of an idea gives it more attention — and silencing those with whom we disagree is not the way to the more tolerant and diverse society Google envisages. Far better to let our opponents speak and then challenge them, openly, vocally. And work harder to address the structural problems that persistently marginalise certain groups and so give them a greater voice.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1502698304215-3aa8abeb-3e1e-8″ taxonomies=”6323″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
