embedded in the floating world
|
nmazca.blog embedded in the floating world |
|
"Under a policy the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control developed over a year ago, publishers and others who edit manuscripts from nations under U.S. trade embargoes -- including, at the moment, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Cuba -- may face criminal penalties, including fines of up to $500,000 and 10 years in prison, unless they are working under special licenses from the government. As word about the new rule spreads to academic institutions, reactions vary from dismay to outrage. Some are baffled, too, because it's not as though there's big money to be made from the publication here of works rooted in Islamic culture -- and if there were, as UMass-Amherst Islamic studies professor Mohammed Jiyad pointed out, the rule would be relatively easy for a publisher to get around by having the editing done in Europe. As it is, many older books of the type that could not be edited here now under Treasury's regulations were produced in Britain, which gives Britain an edge on the Islamic studies market in publishing. It's also hard to see how the rule makes the nation safer. As David Johnston, a lecturer in Islamic studies at Yale, put it, "What does this have to do with the national security?" And in a democratic society, Johnson added, a rule like this is "a contradiction in terms." "It's a very troubling development for the spread of ideas," he said. "Unless we can demonstrate that democracy is a lifestyle of sharing and cultural exchange, we're going to lose the battle for people's minds." "The U.S.'s reputation as a center of culture and higher education is based to a large degree on the eagerness of talented people from around the world to participate in our society," said Elias. "As we make it more difficult for good graduate students in the sciences to come to our universities ... and foreign scholars to publish in our magazines and journals, they will turn elsewhere. "There is proof they are doing this already," Elias added. "Countries such as Canada and Germany have actively increased their attempts to court scholars and students who would previously have gone to the U.S." The rule seems likely to set off a guerrilla war among freelance writers and editors of small journals. Stefania Heim and Jennifer Kronovet, the editors of Circumference, a poetry journal based in New York, have just announced that they will devote a "substantial portion" of their summer issue to translations from the countries on the Treasury Department's list. Dan Mahoney is a poet and a guest lecturer in the English department at UMass. On a trip to Cuba five years ago, he picked up a small book of poems typed on paper towels by an author forced to keep a low profile under the Castro regime. Mahoney and a co-translator have translated 50 of the poems and are looking to publish them here complete with a preface, which would almost certainly be considered an editorial enhancement under Treasury Department's rule. But if a publisher was willing to bring out the work, Mahoney said, he would defy the government. "I would do it," he said. "I would make the book as presentable and as accessible to the bookbuying public as possible. If that included illustrating or adding a preface -- which one would have to do -- I would take the risk, if for no other reason than to call attention to the great disservice this rule does to a supposedly free and open democracy." Federal sanctions on ideas, formulas and creativity |
|
|||||||||||||||
