As countries go, Canada maintains a relatively safe, stable and permissive environment in which people can live their lives. However, Toshiya Kuwabara’s Newsletter on Civil Liberties (N.C.L.) demonstrates that even fairly benign ‘democracies’ cannot seem to avoid infringing the rights of groups and individuals who are perceived as acting outside of main-stream society. The large majority of this issue of N.C.L. is devoted to Canada Custom’s habit of detaining materials being shipped to gay and lesbian bookstores. This includes documenting the recent detaining of Samuel R. Delaney’s novel The Mad Man, and the court battle just commencing between Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium in British Columbia and Canada Customs. There is also an extensive list of books and magazines that Canada Customs has seen fit to detain and in some cases seize. This invaluable guide to what the government is up to with our hard-earned dollars also follows police activities, information bans, court battles and the censoring of all kinds of largely artistic products. Is it really necessary, in this day and age, to ban a documentary film like G.G. Alin and the Murder Junkies? When will Ontario give up on these punitive attempts to control what people want to see? I mean, community standards are one thing, but it’s not as if anyone’s going to hold an open-air free screening on Yonge street. People have a right to see this kind of work, regardless of the amount of defecation, and “scenes depicting indignities to the human body” that the director chooses to include. Obviously N.C.L. is an invaluable and provocative document. Whether the state is busy opening mail (including, according to the author, his own) or detaining books by famous, world-renowned authors, it is clear that as citizens we need to continue to be vigilant against government sanctioned invasions of privacy. I would have a look at this newsletter. We are free only so long as we can assert our freedom. Kuwabara is apparently taking a year-long hiatus from publishing N.C.L. but he will be receiving his mail.
newsletter / No known publisher / Main creator: Toshiya Kuwabara / 20 cents per (available from PEN Canada 24 Ryerson Ave. Toronto, ON M5T 2P3) / P.O. Box 888 Stn F Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4Y 2N9