"Forbidden to prohibit" was one of the most famous slogans of the revolutionary Parisian May 68. And it is that at that time the young people who grew up during the years after World War II were already very fed up with being constrained by absurd prohibitions of a very diverse nature, whether social, cultural or sexual. For many of them, it became unbearable to be educated in a prudish society when the resounding lack of rights and freedoms cried out to heaven, and not only in France, and not only for young people. There was a thirst for freedom.
Throughout the sixties, one prohibition after another would fall along the way. It was the decade of the Second Vatican Council; of the disastrous war in Vietnam; of the massive marches in favor of human and women's rights; of the proliferation of drugs; the birth of new alternative lifestyles; of the pill and an unapologetic promiscuity; from the miniskirt, the bandit sideburns and manly long hair; of greater accessibility to travel to distant destinations as well as a whole series of literature long hidden from the general public. It was the bomb.
Yes, there were many freedoms won during those hectic years. But the passage of time has shown that nothing should ever be taken for granted, since at any moment the freedoms we have achieved can be taken away from us. The same happens with democracy, as in recent times we are seeing in more and more corners
of the planet. Freedoms dwindle in the face of a new wave of prohibitions promoted both by the usual prudes but with the invaluable help of those who call themselves progressives, who are the worst, that is, the most inflexible when it comes to curtailing our freedoms.
Take the beaches. Now, before even stepping onto the sand, one incredulously reviews a large board full of pictograms of prohibited activities, which, if there are already many, the eager town halls do not stop adding more each season. The same happens in bars and terraces, airports and public transport. In gyms, churches and brothels. And all this at the same time that the most abject impulses of the human being roam for their respects on the internet. Therefore, instead of displaying so many prohibited activities, it might be better to put on the board just a few very large pictograms of the limited activities still allowed.
It is as if the 21st century were determined to take away from us, one after another, our beloved vices and pleasures acquired from those sixties, when smoking, driving, drinking like Cossacks, taking drugs, fucking, swearing or letting our imagination run wild were bread of every day. None of this is today to the liking of the neo-fascists or their blood brothers, the self-proclaimed liberals, because they are one for the other.
Whether governed by Democrats or Republicans, in the United States the ban on books is being carried out at a frenetic pace, with public and school libraries being the main target of the incombustible censors. He commands the political agenda of each party, in most cases imposed by intransigent millionaires who want to annoy while they have legions of supporters devoted body and soul to their unstoppable cause. There are already thousands of titles, however innocent they may be, which will hardly ever reach the hands of young people. Next station: the massive burning of books in the town square. And we already know what's next.
The West is on the way to assuming of its own free will the methodology and intransigence of the Taliban. Puritans, whatever the century, see themselves as kind bearers of a truth that must be imposed for the good of all. By force, if necessary.
The American Library Association tries to defend itself against such a wave of imposed censorship. Faced with campaigns financed by reactionary millionaires, he resorts to crowdfunding, in a desperate attempt to save books from the flames of the bonfire of political agendas. Good luck. And that they serve as an example to us, because sooner or later we will also suffer the same evil. The desire to forbid that it is forbidden to forbid is growing.
