Don’t ban books, let students read freely

The banning of “suspicious” books by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino is nonsense.

I saw the book of mass murderer Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle), openly in a bookstore with a swastika and the picture of the “führer” on the front page. This book is available in Germany under strict conditions, namely with a critical accompaniment under each section.

“The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, on the other hand, is available to buy from any bookstore. Without accompanying comment as in Hitler’s book, it belongs to the intellectual compulsory reading for higher school classes and political students. It is also read by professors regardless of whether they have sympathies for the text or are anti-communists.

However, the reason for reading, for example, “Das Kapital” by Marx becomes interesting for many educated students because it is written in a complicated way and poses a challenge to the mind.

In order to understand, students have to read certain literature—whether they like it or not does not matter.

Dr. Jürgen Schöfer, Ph.D.,

[email protected]