Fear ...

Fear is an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.  (Merrian-Webster Dictionary)

In August 2025, news from Alberta stated that some books were going to be banned in the schools (Globe and Mail July 10, 2025.) The following month on September 8, 2025, CBC posted the same news “Edmonton Public Schools to assemble a list of 226 books to remove from shelves and classrooms, including well-known works such as "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood, 

"The Colour Purple" by Alice Walker, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo and "Jaws" by Peter Benchley.”

The news scandalized many Canadians. It appeared that, for the first time in modern Canadian history, reading certain books was being forbidden, something no one could remember ever happening before. Many Canadians could not believe that a democratically elected provincial government was using its power to restrict what they considered a fundamental right. As strange as this news sounded, it echoed similar stories coming from the United States, where banned books included poems by Maya Angelou, "The Diary of Anne Frank," "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London, not to mention the Harry Potter series, which faced bans between 1997 and 2007.

Banned books in the United States were not new; Canada, however, was a different experience altogether, and that is why the news was so frightening.

Oppression often begins by limiting access to education and knowledge. Dictators and fascist governments fear the freedom that knowledge offers; therefore, books are forbidden or even burned. One cannot forget the actions of the German Students’ Union (Deutsche Studentenschaft, DSt), which between March and May of 1933 began burning books considered subversive to the Nazi regime.

Reading the news about banning books in Alberta triggered a memory from a long-gone time. It may have been 1976 or 1977. I was a university student in my native land, El Salvador. One day, news broke that the National Guard had arrested several university students. They were accused of being subversives, and among the “proof” of their activities was the claim that authorities had found subversive books in their homes. It was never explained which books were considered subversive or why.

The news brought incredible fear in many of us university students, especially when it was also reported that those students had been killed while allegedly attempting to escape lawful arrest.

From that moment on, fear took over. Many of us began hiding our books, or, if we needed to read them for our studies, we “protected” the covers with brown packing paper. Reading circles disappeared; libraries and other public places no longer felt safe. Fear became so pervasive that many students stopped attending classes altogether.

Shortly afterward, the university was closed for four years following a forced military intervention. The armed forces and government entered the campus under the excuse that it was a cradle of subversive doctrines. Soldiers burned books in the parking lot while some of us were escorted off campus. As we were led away, some classmates were pulled out of the line, and we never saw them again.

Those of us, I consider the lucky ones, were left with the responsibility to denounce what had happened, knowing that doing so would certainly put us at risk.

To those students who never finished their studies, the following poem is dedicated.

Circa 1933 Deutsche Studentenschaft

Fear and… Hope

Fear is covering the book you are reading with brown paper so that observers do not know you are reading a forbidden book.

Hope is believing that no one will suspect the cover on your book hides anything more than protection from damage.

Fear is wrapping many of your books in brown paper, then sealing them in several plastic bags so you can bury them beneath a planter. 

Hope is believing that if your lodging is searched, no one will find them.

Fear is thinking that reading, culture and books are risky.

Hope is believing that one day someone will rescue those books and display them with pride.

Fear is what prevents you from picking up books someone has thrown away: The Divine Comedy or The Iliad.

Hope is believing no one will notice when you do pick them up.

Fear is when your friend asks you, “Why are you risking it? You’ve already read them.”

Hope is telling them, “I rescue them so someone else can read them. The risk is worth it.”

Fear is having to display patriotic symbols to avoid being perceived as a traitor.

Hope is believing that the oppressive regime will eventually fall.

Fear is not displaying symbols you truly believe in, like the rainbow flag.

Hope is the desire that one day you will display them with pride.

I buried books out of fear; I rescued them out of hope. I took books with me in fear, bringing them into exile with the hope that my loved ones would one day read them, only to realize later they couldn’t, because of language barriers.

So many live their entire lives in fear. In fact, several generations have lived with crippling institutional fear, and yet, each generation continues to hope that theirs will be the last to live in fear.