Advertisement

NLB's decision guided by ‘community norms’: Yaacob Ibrahim

Minister for Communications and Information Dr Yaacob Ibrahim has weighed in on the ongoing National Library Board (NLB) saga with a Facebook post explaining the government's stand on the issue.

Stating that NLB's decision to ban three children's story books deemed "not pro-family" was in line with community norms, Yaacob emphasised that NLB serves the community and, in turn, must consider the values accepted by the majority of Singaporean families.

"The prevailing norms, which the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans accept, support teaching children about conventional families, but not about alternative, non-traditional families, which is what the books in question are about," he posted on Friday.

"Like in other societies, there is considerable effort by some in Singapore to shift these norms, and equally strong pushback by those who don’t wish to see change... but NLB’s approach is to reflect existing social norms, and not to challenge or seek to change them."

He added that the recent withdrawal of books was a move made only with respect to the children's section, and that NLB was not deciding what books children can or cannot read — a job that still belongs to parents.

"Rather, NLB has to decide what books should be made readily available to children, who are sometimes unsupervised,” he said.

Response to Dr Yaacob's post were mainly positive.

"The Minister has correctly pointed out that NLB libaries are the wrong platform for such intense issues to be debated on," posted Facebok user Clarence Tham. "Let's keep this debate to the playground of discerning adults and leave the children out."

Parent Rebecca Lee also agreed, saying, "Thank you for speaking the thoughts for many of us parents, indeed many atimes kids browse through books without supervision."

Yaacob's post comes following intense debate on the Internet over NLB's decision to withdraw and destroy three story books with non-conventional family themes.