Q, over at QATARLIVING.COM, sent me an email this afternoon containing an article from his blog entitled, "Disney's Piglet banned in Middle East!"In Qatar there is only one decent bookshop (that happens to be a Saudi chain) that has a few shelves of English books. Shopping there is hit or miss - you don't go there to look for a title. You go there in the hope of stumbling upon something interesting.Poor, Pooh. Thanks for incredible link, Q!
The kids selection is not bad though. The other night we saw Disney's "My Very First Encyclopedia with Winnie the Pooh and friends". We grabbed it and thought it was exactly what we needed for our daughter - not only does she love Winnie the Pooh but she's also started taking a keen interest in nature.
We flipped it open and noticed that some of the pages had been vandalised with a black marker. We figured it must have been bought and returned after some kids had got there hands on it. Further inspection made us realise that this was actually systematic. Someone had deliberately "censored" out each and every picture of Piglet from hundreds of pages in the book with a black marker (my guess is that the book got caught by Saudi Censors en route to Doha)...
...Now as a Muslim, I can venture why they did this. But as a Muslim, I think it is totally ridiculous.
As in Judaism, there are laws governing what can and cannot be eaten. Muslims are forbidden from eating pork, as pigs are believed to be unclean. Now the point of this post isn't to discuss this. The point is, what is wrong with a picture of Piglet in a kids book? I think absolutely nothing!...
...In a way though, the whole thing kind of makes sense in this part of the world. I mean, most Arab countries still try to wish Israel didn't exist by not saying it (they say "Palestine 1948") or by marking it off the maps!
Now I guess it is off to Amazon.com to buy the book!
Check out the full article HERE.
--CJW
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