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Is it merely a reaction to the overflooding of US with Hispanic immigrants, illegal and legal?Tempest ban in Arizona racial pot
London, Jan. 22: Alas, poor Shakespeare. The education authorities in Tucson, Arizona, have decided to ban discussion of The Tempest in class and remove the play from school libraries.
The ban, the latest in a line of politically motivated American assaults on the Bard, is part of a battle over Arizona's treatment of its fast-growing Mexican-immigrant population, and the extent to which cultural and racial differences should be examined in class.
Long hailed as one of Shakespeare's most subtle and provocative plays, The Tempest is studied in many US schools for its insights into racism and colonialism. One of its protagonists is Caliban, a black slave on an island ruled by Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan.
Yet, the play has fallen foul of conservative Arizonans disgusted that state schools offer classes in what they regard as increasingly radicalised Mexican-American studies. Critics complained that so-called ethnic studies courses were encouraging racial conflict and promoting extreme causes, notably a redrawing of America's southern border to return disputed land to Mexico.
Threatened with financial penalties if it failed to adopt a state ban on ethnic studies, the Tucson school district caved in to a two-year-old law prohibiting courses that "promote the overthrow of the US government, promote resentment towards a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, or advocate ethnic solidarity"........
This may also describe the debate over Arizona's ethnic studies programme, which first erupted in 2007. Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, which represents many migrant labourers, told a high school audience that Republicans hated Latinos.
<I>Tempest </I>ban in Arizona racial pot
Or is it a genuine concern of the US that such books promote racial conflicts and are therefore not to be encouraged?
Or is it merely politics?