Fearing Repeat of Past, Lebanon Bans a Book

Lebanon's progressive nature is evident in the nightlife of Beirut, but the banning of a popular book has some wondering about a primitive side. (Hussein Malla -- AP)

Soft-spoken and serious, Kassm, 38, works in a busy commercial section of northern Beirut and allows himself one Cuban cigar a week. Only a picture of Pope John Paul II adorns the walls of his small office. Behind his desk sits an envelope containing a PBS documentary titled "From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians," sent recently by the domestic security agency for his review.

Because of its title, "The Da Vinci Code" initially sneaked by the agency, whose job is to steer new books and movies on religious themes to Christian and Muslim leaders for vetting. Several hundred copies of the book were on store shelves here -- in English and French -- and selling briskly after the book's launch in the country early last month.

The Arabic-language version hit stores a few days later, and soon afterward the security agency received a tip that the book could be offensive to Christians. The authorities sent the book to Kassm.

Chebaro, the Arabic-language publisher, estimates the book would have sold 10,000 copies in Lebanon's relatively small market. He is more concerned that he will not be allowed to export the book to the rest of the Middle East. His license to do so is pending with the security agency.

Kassm's contention is that the book is not fiction, which he said "stops when you are talking about real people and real events." Dan Brown, the author, writes in a brief foreword that, while the story is fiction, the theories about Christ it draws on have been explored by historians, anthropologists and religious scholars for years. While there is no specific passage of concern, the book's suggestion that Jesus had human desires and the contention that, in Kassm's interpretation, he "sinned" by having a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene is considered particularly offensive.

"By banning this book, this advanced country is preserving the dignity of people," Kassm said. "Is so-called advanced culture limited to undermining Christians and their beliefs? Is allowing things like homosexual marriage the definition of being advanced? In Lebanon, we are being allowed to preserve our traditions."

From the hushed elegance of his corner office at al-Nahar, the country's most influential newspaper, Gebran Tueni said the episode was something out of a past Lebanon is still struggling to overcome. Tueni, the paper's publisher, is a devout Christian. On his broad desk, with a view of Beirut's waterfront and the Mediterranean in the window behind, he keeps two small crucifixes near his in-box and unlit cigar.

"The government is causing more tension between people by doing this than 'The Da Vinci Code' ever could," he said. "This is primitive. We are intelligent enough to be able to know and understand what is written in novels."

Roger Haddad, 25, is the floor manager of the Virgin Megastore's book section. Bespectacled and harried, Haddad said he never intended to read the book, suggesting it was not quite up to the standards of a French literature major from Beirut's St. Joseph University. But he said that, in the few days it was on the shelf, 80 copies dwindled to three, a pace he said was comparable to the popularity of Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho.

Haddad picked up a book from a display table titled "The Messianic Legacy," whose back cover asks "Was there more than one Christ?"

"The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception," Nikos Kazantzakis's "The Last Temptation of Christ" and a French comic book series that has a pair of teenagers finding the body of Jesus in the Paris sewers are also on the shelves.

"I don't think this Catholic Information Center even knows about these," he said. "It is absurd in Lebanon the kind of books you can find right now and the kind of books you cannot."