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A society that shuns books
2008-02-12 09:51:48
By Editor
Board a bus or a plane in Tanzania, and you will hardly see anyone reading a book while on transit.
However kindly we might want to rephrase this reality, ours is a society that lacks an appreciable reading culture.
Indeed, the absence of a reading culture in our country is a major concern, and is evident in people from all walks of life, starting with a sweeper to a company executive.
What has gone wrong? How come that in spite of the growing number of educated people, our culture of reading is wanting, and we are so much different from people of other societies who have been trained to hunger for knowledge from tender age.
In our case, people study to excel in exams and attain recognition, but there are very few who have the hobby of reading and being informed.
A seminar that discussed the lack of reading that took place during a book festival in Dar es Salaam in 2006 was told that limited availability of books, prevalence of idle minds, poverty and illiteracy were some of the factors that were responsible for the situation.
In areas where you find a few people who are accustomed to reading, they might actually be more engrossed with a `bad taste reading culture,`-that is-reading mainly about gossip but nothing else.
In this 21st century of science and technology, we stand to be seriously left behind because of lacking a creative culture of reading.
This situation has resulted into academic illiteracy, lack of self-confidence and critical thinking in our young people, such that many are unable to stand for competition in the international or regional job market.
How do we undertake the promotion of reading culture? How do we end readers’ apathy? How do we become a nation of avid, life-long readers?
To achieve a culture of reading, given the way things are at the moment, we need a push from above, we need government authorities who seriously promote the culture of reading and whose bookshelves are not rusted or dusted because they are also good readers themselves.
It is a pity that in our country, once people are awarded with degrees or certificates, then they are quite happy for doing away with book-reading altogether!
We have got so many groups and non governmental organizations in our midst, but why are we not having people who are dedicated to reversing this shameful tide?
As part of undertaking their social responsibility, companies should also sponsor the reading culture.
As a way of fighting readers` apathy in the rural areas, we need to develop a reading culture among the rural masses by empowering them with literacy.
A poor reading culture in the villages contributes to lowering of education standards in places where those who have been to school are barely the majority.
We are all looking forward to having better living standards, but can any economic achievements that we are going to register be sustainable in a society of lazy readers? Don`t we realize that the world is moving faster than us?
Let us make the promotion of a reading culture our top priority. Here we quote a Malawian don who once wrote: `A reading nation is an informed and knowledgeable society.`
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