by
Walter Brasch
HarperCollins says it’s sorry. It says it
regrets not including Israel on a map of the Middle East in an atlas it
published and distributed in the Middle East. It says all remaining copies of the atlas will be pulped.
The Collins
Primary Geography Atlas for the Middle East with a map that omitted Israel was described
by the publisher in sales information as “an ideal school atlas for primary
school geographers.” A fact checker, says a security officer for
HarperCollins—the company refused to allow anyone from its Editorial,
Marketing, or Media Relations offices talk to reporters—was “disciplined.” But,
this was not a case of a bumbling fact checker who didn’t check the facts. This
was a willful and deliberate decision by executives of the HarperCollins
subsidiary, Collins Bartholomew, which concentrates on maps, to wipe Israel off
the map—literally.
The reason, said the company, was because of “local preferences.” In this case,
“local preferences” means, said a representative for Collins Bartholomew, to
include Israel on a Middle East map would be “unacceptable” to certain Middle
East countries. “Unacceptable” translates solely as a loss of sales.
The omission was discovered by Bishop
Declan Lang and reported in The
Tablet, a Catholic news
weekly published in England. Lang told the Tablet
that the publication of the atlas with Jordan and Syria covering the space of Israel
“will confirm Israel’s belief that there exists a hostility towards their
country from parts of the Arab world [and] will not help to build up a spirit
of trust leading to peaceful coexistence.” Dr. Jane Clements, director of the
Council of Christians and Jews, told the Tablet,
“Maps can be a very powerful tool in terms of de-legitimising ‘the other’ and
can lead to confusion rather than clarity.”
Only after the Tablet’s news story was published—and HarperCollins subsequently received
extensive condemnation from throughout the world—did the company issue a
one-paragraph apology, which it posted on Facebook, and remove the atlas from sale.
In 2001, HarperCollins stopped
distribution of a book by Michael Moore, although there were 50,000 copies in
its warehouse about to be released to bookstores. The company demanded that
Moore kill three chapters of the book and pay the company $100,000 for print
costs of the revised book. The chapters attacked President George W. Bush and
raised questions about corporations and the government. HarperCollins is owned
by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which also owns Fox News.
These aren’t isolated instances of a
publisher using the power of the press to change facts and suppress truth. Ever
since 1948, when Israel was declared a country, publishers in countries hostile
to Israel have not only refused to acknowledge Israel but have excluded it from maps and travel routes.
Majority cultures write the
histories, and their texts often reflect their biases and political agenda. During
the twentieth century, Japanese texts overlooked the slaughter of thousands of
Chinese civilians; Soviet texts under the Stalin regime failed to include the
work of Leon Trotsky or mention America’s massive economic and humanitarian
assistance to that country; and the texts of all countries reported little
about the Holocaust.
Publishers in America, trying to reap the
widest possible financial benefit by not offending anyone, especially school
boards, often force authors to overlook significant historical and social
trends. For more than a century, books which targeted buyers in the North consistently
overlooked or minimized Southern views about the Civil War; other books, which
targeted a Southern readership, discussed the War of Northern Aggression or the
War Between the States.
Almost all media overlooked significant
issues about slavery, the genocide against Native Americans, the real reasons
for the Mexican-American War, the seizure of personal property and subsequent
incarceration of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, the reasons
why the United States went to war in Vietnam, the first Gulf War and, more
recent, the war in Iraq.
Textbook publishers, choosing profits over
truth, often glossed over, or completely ignored until years or decades later,
the major social movements, including the civil rights, anti-war and peace
movements of the 1960s and the emerging environmental movement of the 1970s. It
was the underground and alternative press that presented the truth that the
establishment press under-reported or refused to acknowledge, timidly accepting
the “official sources.”
To establish standards for the study of
history in the public schools and to correct some of the nation’s textbook
wrongs, the National Endowment for the Humanities, under Congressional mandate,
gave $1.75 million to UCLA’s National Center for History in the Schools to
bring together a wide range of academics to study the problems and to recommend
a model text that would present history as it was, rather than what we hoped it
was. The concept was good; the execution was abysmal.
The Center rightly determined that texts
were “sugar-coating” and distorting American history, that there was an over emphasis
upon a recitation of facts and in recounting the deeds of a few people, mostly
white males, but far too little discussion about major trends and social issues
that defined the American republic.
But, the Center did exactly what it
condemned. In a 271-page document at the end of 1994, it presented a distorted
overview that the formation of the United States was a convergence of Islamic,
African, and European influence, and discounted western European influence. It
claimed the nation’s history is little more than struggle, conflict, and the abuse
of the rights of people. It barely discussed the historic role of a free press
and of free speech, mentioned the Gettysburg Address only briefly, and
relegated the complexities of the “cold war” as merely a “quarrel” among
imperialistic nations.
The Committee’s proposed guidelines,
although rightly adding many civil rights leaders, left out Eli Whitney, Thomas
Edison, and the Wright Brothers among many other scientists; it overlooked Daniel
Webster and other major diplomats and politicians; and it gave few lines to
innumerable creative artists. However, the emperor of an ancient African civilization
was praised, as were numerous individuals, often female or of minority
cultures, who were merely footnotes in America’s 300-year history.
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels
correctly argued that if someone tells a lie long enough and with enough
intensity, it becomes the truth. But, poet John Milton gave a greater truth
three centuries earlier. “Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who
ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” he rhetorically asked.
Publishers may
whitewash certain facts or movements. They may even eliminate certain truths in
order to increase sales. But, eventually, truth will emerge.
[Dr.
Brasch is the author of 20 books, all of which were fact-checked. His latest
book is Fracking
Pennsylvania, an in-depth look at the economic, health, and
environmental effects of horizontal fracking throughout the country. He is an
award-winning journalist and professor emeritus of mass communications.]
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