Charles Baudelaire rejects this stamp, and this form, and this whole national bureau idea WHATSOEVER. Image via Wikipedia.

The Maldives—official slogan, “the sunny side of life,” unofficial slogan, “our tax code could be written on a bar napkin and you’d still have space for four or five international phone numbers”—has passed some disturbing new regulations regarding works of prose or poetry: From here on out, all books must be submitted to the national bureau of classification for approval before publication. Yes, that also means your collection of neo-symbolist poetry about Paramus, NJ, Les Fleurs du Mall.

According to the Maldivian news outlet, Minivan News, the regulations are intended to “reduc[e] the adverse effects on society that could be caused by published literature.” And while envisioning the possibility that your quatrains on the uncanny — nay, hellish — sheen on the trays of Cinnabon Classic Rolls could have an adverse effect on anyone gives you a secret thrill, the government of the Maldives is not having it. The innocence of Maldivian society must be protected from all that is decadent, lush, sinful, all that might corrupt its pure citizenry. JC Penney is a paradise of bargains in casualwear, not an absinthe-shot fever dream of ranks of disembodied souls hung aloft from silver gallows. The people don’t need to read that.

In order to receive permission to publish any piece of writing, photography or artwork either in hard copy or electronically, creators must submit the work in question, an application form, and “an MVR50 revenue stamp” to the bureau of classification, where it will be judged by the members of a national registry. Members must be Maldivian citizens aged 30 and up, Sunni Muslims, and must have at least ten years’ experience in the relevant publishing sector. In other words, those lines about the beauty of youth, specifically the youth who’s the greeter at the Foot Locker on the mezzanine level, and the dig about “pale critics pinching out stillborn reviews, I’m looking at you, Poetry Corner Editor of the Princeton Packet” are probably going to have to go, ok?

The new rules encompass all possible forms of publication of your chapbook, including “a separate recording or an album for sale, inclusion in a film or documentary, broadcasting or telecasting, making public through the internet, and circulating as a ring-tone.” What decent Maldivian matron would even want her iPhone to chant “I drink down the infinite elixir of a thousand Peach Pleasure smoothies with a free Antioxidant Boost, a sweet intoxication takes hold of me”? None of them. Really. What were you thinking.

But though your twelve-part cycle on the tawdry glories of the headband section in Accessorize is going to have to go through a rigorous review before seeing the light of an island day, there is a category of writing that won’t be affected by the regulations:

Books or pamphlets published by a political party, association, company or state institution to disseminate information among members or staff would be exempt from the requirement.

Because presumably nothing ever published by a political party, company or government has had an adverse effect on society? I thought not.