Children's book on Cuba kicks up a storm in Miami
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| Published on Friday, June 8, 2007 |
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MIAMI, USA (AFP): A children's book on Cuba has raised the hackles of Miami parents for allegedly glossing over the harsh reality of communism, and prompted a court battle between rights groups and a school board seeking to ban it from classrooms.
The controversy over "A Visit to Cuba" has already spilled over to two other books, "Cuban Kids," and "Discovering Cultures, Cuba," that were recently snatched from the shelves of school libraries by angry parents.
"We're protecting the children and grandchildren of the Cuban exile from the lies ... (Cuban President Fidel) Castro is telling Cuban kids and now wants to spread to the school system here," said Emilio Izquierdo, spokesman for the protesting parents, told AFP.
He said the books lifted from the schools have since been returned, but that pressure to have the school board remove them legally has not let up.
Most of the angry parents belong to the Cuban community in exile, relentless in their drive against Cuban President Fidel Castro and anything in US policy or culture they consider whitewashes his 48-year-old communist regime.
The book fight began in April 2006, when a parent got hold of a copy of "A Visit to Cuba" and found to his dismay no mention that in Cuba food is rationed, everybody works for the government, and children are "indoctrinated."
The book, instead, has color photos of Cuban monuments, building and landscapes, with simple captions about life on the island, all aimed at the five-to-seven age group.
The Miami-Dade school board quickly removed all 49 copies of the book from its libraries, but later put them back after a Miami judge ruled the board had abused its power by eliminating thoughts and ideas it did not like.
The school board took its fight to the 11th District Court of Appeals, where three judges took up the case Wednesday, with a hearing on whether the alleged omissions about daily life in Cuba warranted the book's removal from the school curriculum's supplementary reading list.
Judge Ed Carnes asked American Civil Liberties Union lawyer JoNel Newman if she would allow in schools a book on Germany extolling Hitler's efforts to boost the economy without mentioning the Holocaust.
What about a book on North Korea that said "nothing about the totalitarian regimen, nothing about starvation, nothing about executions?" the judge also asked.
Newman turned the argument around, saying "A Visit to Cuba" was simply a geography book.
"The political reality in Cuba is not part of what this book is all about," she told the judge. "Is a book about the Chinese Wall inaccurate because it fails to mention Mao Tse Tung?
"The School Board can't remove a book because of a political viewpoint. Books for a four-year-old, your honor, don't have to tell it all," Newman said.
The Miami-Dade school board's lawyer Ricard Ovelman said books like "A Visit to Cuba "are rife with fact omissions, errors and inaccuracies that render them unsuitable" for education purposes.
"The basic fact that there is a dictatorship (in Cuba) ... is not mentioned. It treats Cubans as if they were in any other country," he added.
The appeals court is expected to take months before issuing its ruling.
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