Despite a tremendous amount of publicity in the press and on ALA listservs about the ongoing harassment and incarceration in March 2003, with long, long prison sentences for 75 dissidents, including independent librarians who stored and circulated titles not approved by Castro, such as those of George Orwell, the so-called Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) cadre of ALA, which has the leadership of ALA pretty much sewn up, once again today at the final Council meeting of the Midwinter conference, managed to turn truth on its head and not only not condemn, but in large measure, by their silence, side with a despot (as they have done at the ALA Council level several times in the past decade - it's done regularly in various Round Tables and on listservs of the ALA). Despite appeals and findings from human rights groups from all over the world (including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) for a resolution calling for the release of these Cuban prisoners of conscience, the SRRT and its members on the International Relations Committee and Intellectual Freedom Committee circled their wagons, viciously attacked anyone who disagreed with them, and issued a joint IRC/IFC a report which included a chronological text of a bunch of policy statements which have been issued in the past with regard to ALA's and IFLA's belief in human rights, highlighted throughout with criticisms of the U.S. for any form of embargo and travel ban (note that library materials are in fact exempt from the embargo). Their talking points, repeated verbatim by at least four people I heard in the past 24 hours, dismiss the issue, claiming that everyone involved, including the people in jail (includes Victor Arroyo, a Nobel Prize nominee). It was particularly sad to see an elderly African American woman, reading from a card with the party line talking points, likewise tell Council that these dissidents were breaking the laws of their country and therefore deserve to be in jail. It didn't occur to her that African-American women of her generation by their civil disobedience, such as moving to the front of the bus despite the unjust laws, paved the way for her to become one of a substantial group of African American women sitting on ALA Council... Among the numerous calls on the ALA were four articles in the past two weeks by Nat Hentoff in the Village Voice. The San Diego Union last Friday issued one of the strongest editorial I have ever seen them issue. Friends of Cuban Libraries, Wall St Journal article last spring, etc... Another sad day for the ALA.
Ellen Zyroff First term Councilor-at-Large of ALA Ellen ========================================================================== HaSafran - The Electronic Forum of the Association of Jewish Libraries Submissions for HaSafran, send to: Hasafran at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listserver at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 at osu.edu AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org/
