Dante's Divine
Comedy should be banned from Italian schools as a racist and Islamophobic text
rather than esteemed as one of the greatest achievements of Western poetry,
according to a human rights organization that acts as a consultant for the
United Nations.
"We
want to expunge the Divine Comedy from the Ministry of Educations’ scholastic
curriculum, or at least require the necessary commentary to shed light on the
text," Valentina Sereni, president of Gherush92, told Adnkronos
News Agency.
"We do not advocate censorship or the burning of books, but we would like it acknowledged, clearly and unambiguously, that in the Divine Comedy there is racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic content," Sereni also said, according to theTelegraph. She added that "the Prophet Mohammed was subjected to a horrific punishment – his body was split from end to end so that his entrails dangled out, an image that offends Islamic culture."
Gherush92 is a
special consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and the group hopes to develop "an
'International Convention for the Protection of Cultural Diversity,' as the
fundamental legal instrument in the battle against racism."
Homosexual
leaders have opposed the ban on Dante, who placed "those who have done
violence to nature" in the seventh circle of Hell. "Franco Grillini,
the head of Gaynet, a gay rights' organisation, said the suggestion that
Dante's writings should be prohibited marked 'an excess of political
correctness,'" the Telegraph said.
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