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When book meets art: Towards a new reading culture
By
Dodoiyi Deinbo William-West
The Microsoft Encarta defines Reading as
"an activity characterized by the translation of symbols, or letters, into
words and sentences that communicate information and mean something to the
reader. The goals of reading are wide-ranging, but essentially the
reader’s aims to understand the meaning of a written text, evaluate its
significance, and use what he or she has read to enhance his or her knowledge,
effectiveness, or pleasure."
From this definition of reading, we can
say that a country's reading culture refers to the aggregate of what her people
read with regard to building human capacity for advancement in comparison with
people in other countries. An ideal reading culture is one where deliberate,
systematic acquisition of development-oriented knowledge thrives. This could be
better appreciated when we replace 'culture' with the word 'habit'. So, when we
talk about a people's reading culture, we are talking about their reading
habit.
It is unfortunate that most Nigerians live
on a staple of glorified gossip, pornography and neo-pornography provided in
all manner of publications when they are not reading for examinations.
Therefore, faced with personal and national challenges, the average Nigerian
settles for anything, including explaining away the ills of the society. The
average Nigerian does not want to be challenged intellectually. In fact, he
does not mind feeding on or being spoon-fed with junk.
In his article, 'Utomi's Protest', Dr
Reuben Abati stated: "A standard feature of the corrupt leadership elite
in Nigeria is its anti-intellectualism, expressed in form of a sustained
opposition to any issue, idea, or activity that requires rigorous thinking, and
the competition of ideas. The greatest moments in human history have coincided
with the flourishing of ideas, genuinely encouraged by the state. In Nigeria,
the reading culture is virtually dead. When the people read, they do so for
examination purposes only, and usually absent-mindedly. When they are not
preparing for examinations that would produce the paper qualifications that
Nigerians are terribly obsessed with, they read light, materials which do not
challenge the mind."
Author of "Purple Hibiscus",
Chimanda Ngozi Adichie, puts it succinctly: "When you go to many homes in
Nigeria, it saddens me that you hardly find books. I mean books with fiction,
because what they are used to is just textbooks. And you cannot broaden your
knowledge. Books expose what you don't know about other parts of the
world."
Speaking on this issue recently, Chief
Achike Udenwa, Governor of Imo State noted that the poor reading habit of
Nigerians portends grave dangers for the future well being of the country. In
fact, he stated: '`Africans and indeed Nigerians have the poorest reading
culture". It is so bad that though depending on textbooks alone cannot
make a great man, even the textbooks have been replaced with the almighty
handout system in our schools!
Udenwa noted further: "In most cases,
the handouts are nothing more than summaries of textbooks. The political class
is also guilty of this. Hardly do they find the time to read even newspapers
and magazines!" (emphasis is mine). He said that Nigerians' hobbies have shifted
from reading to drinking, plotting coups or impeachment, cultism, robbery and
kidnapping.
Well, we had always known that the
majority of our politicians are intellectually vacuous so the governor's
comment is refreshing! At least, they have started counseling themselves! May
our politicians pursue intellectual illumination with the same passion they
hustle for stuffed Ghana-Must-Go bags and government contracts. Amen!
Through observation and information
gathered on reading habits in the country, it has become obvious that there are
three main groups of Nigerians. In the first, we find the patrons and members
of the Free Readers' Association. Though they do not provide adequate
compensation for authors' efforts, they do not pose much danger to the overall
progress of the society, they keep abreast of issues.
The second group comprises those who have
'banned' themselves from reading because they consider themselves too old to
learn anything new, at the age of 40 or less! Notable in this group are the
junk collectors, depending on the "expertise" of gbeboruns (rumor peddlers)
to make decisions! They are accidents going somewhere to occur! Unfortunately,
this group make up the majority because of our country's persisting
materialistic inclinations.
The third group, the minority, are those
who are avid readers. But they are so few; their knowledge-based inputs make
only marginal impact in the society.
Many Nigerians relish reading 'juicy'
stories about V.I.P.s or celebrities but are ignorant of the damage being done
to the ozone layer, for instance. Many people own GSM handsets but do not know
that those phones can do much more than making and receiving calls simply
because they never bothered to read their user's manual! Cars and machinery are
daily being abused because their users assume to know such machines more than
their manufacturers and so never care to peruse the user's guides.
In a thought provoking article titled 'Reading for Leisure' Bala Yahaya
states that intellectual slothfulness “ has contributed a lot to our
collective stagnation as a people”. We now tend to see things from very
myopic, sentimental and even out rightly uncivilized points of view. This
perhaps, explains why we no longer appreciate the good virtue of putting
ourselves last and others, first when such need arises. It further explains why
our national aspiration of establishing a strong, virile, independent nation
continues to elude us. At the local level, inherited values of good
neighborliness, courage, honesty, and industry are grossly discarded and in
their place selfishness, laziness, insincerity, and sycophancy become the order
of the day. This is because it is an established fact that reading of high
quality materials helps in molding, in a positive way, the character trait of
children and to some extent, redirecting that of adults."
The question now is: What should Nigerians
be reading? To be able to stand up to the realities of today's global economy,
among other things, we must seek further knowledge of environmental Issues;
opportunities that information technology offers
(E-Commerce/E-Business/E-Government/E-Education etc.); history of peoples of
the world; biographies or autobiographies of men and women who influence
history; contemporary issues affecting quality of life such as AIDS, Hepatitis
B, Polio, Population Control among others; and motivational books that educate
us on how to face life's challenges through proper management of our skills,
talents, time, money and other resources better; and so on.
This is what I will refer to as
comprehensive mind development programme (CMDP).
The less we seek for, acquire and read
mind-developing books and materials, the more the promise of real greatness
will elude us while more deaths and destruction resulting from myopic
religious, ethnic, political and social leanings will continue to plague us.
Ladies and gentlemen, people are as beautiful, tolerant, progressive and
creative as the content of their minds.
The main factors affecting the development
of a rich reading culture in our country ignorance nurtured by deteriorating
educational structures and systems as evident in the receding inclination to
search for and read quality, mind-challenging materials; intellectual indolence
spurred by warped social values; seeming success of non-readers over readers;
and, the belief that only young people can learn anything new.
Many Nigerians are quick to quibble
excuses for avoiding the challenge of acquiring knowledge through reading. The
usual excuses include being too busy to read; not having sufficient funds to
purchase books, CDs and other intellectual materials; being too old to learn;
one does not require serious reading to survive in Nigeria; and, our forebears
survived for centuries without reading.
Self-deluding though these excuses are,
Nigerians continue to embrace them. Consequently, a largely oral rather than
scribal culture thrives in the largest Black nation of the world.
We fail to realize that whilst a
predominantly oral culture sufficed a century ago, it will only stagnate a
people dependent on it in the era of the Bill Gates of this world. I agree with
Dr Abati "scribal cultures are superior to oral cultures. We live in the
age of knowledge. The competition of the future that is to come is bound to be
at the sphere of knowledge. An oral society, that is not given to
contemplation, and thought is bound in such context to remain perpetually in
transition, operating far below its potential..."
The foremost benefit derivable from
re-inventing the reading culture is the competence people acquire to make
constructive contributions to society's development. What value can a man who
ignores the information highway possibly add to his community or the world in
general in these times? Deliberate and systematic acquisition of contemporary
knowledge will challenge and consequently advance our abilities to achieve the
much mouthed re-engineering of our personal, communal and national systems in
the education, health, agriculture, manufacturing and research sectors as well
as in commerce and politics.
I believe that individuals, that is you
and I, hold the key to solving this and other problems that have left our
country potentially great since 1914!! We have made marginal progress because
everybody is hoping that "somebody" will "do something"
about problems that confront us, and nobody does anything concrete eventually.
Nigerians generally fail to internalize the challenges and relevant solutions
proffered in writings and speeches such as this.
For some of us, the "somebody"
is government, the same government that has remained largely inert in advancing
a progressive reading culture. The reason for government ineffectiveness is not
far fetched: most people in the civil service do not read anything that is not
in a file! The policy makers come up with policies that make our country a
laughing stock in international circles because we are still living in the last
century. Look at the antiques in our law books, for instance.
A well informed, forward-going individual
will make the right choices, proffer relevant solutions, and formulate apt
policies whether he is in government or not. He will impact lives and influence
enviable changes wherever he is. Imagine how our economy is being run when it
takes a presidential order to get accountants in public service to get computer
literate in 2004! I suggest that President Olusegun Obasanjo should extend the
order to all civil servants. He should also institute yearly refresher courses
in this respect. From what we know about civil servants generally, they won't
bother to refresh unless they are ordered to!
A teacher, farmer, doctor, engineer,
artist or journalist who cannot even log onto the Internet in this era when
business and government is run with the speed of thought is not only dying in
installments. He is as good as the best plan that never got executed! What can
a person who is still dwelling on textbook knowledge acquired a decade ago
offer in a world where changes occur even by the hour?
Individuals - parents, teachers, youth,
politicians whether young or old must make personal commitments to embark on
the Comprehensive Mind Development Programme (CMDP) I mentioned earlier on a
continuous basis. There is no other way up! Parents, teachers and politicians,
in particular, must pick up the gauntlet, bearing in mind that they must lead
by example, not in word.
In addition to this, we require the
following:
An overhaul of our educational system and
curricular so that from the earliest age, children will appreciate the benefits
of qualitative reading.
We must update or build home, school and
public library systems, introducing digital libraries to pupils in primary
schools. (It is a shame that thousands of students do not know how to use a
dictionary, talk less of an encyclopedia or thesaurus!).
Government should simultaneously ease
importation requirements for printing equipment and encourage the manufacture
of modern, high caliber printing equipment locally.
This will reduce cost of local printing
and consequently lead to the publishing of more and cheaper Nigerian books,
magazines, journals etc.
The mass media should discourage the
celebration of intellectually indolent persons because they cannot be true role
models in this age.
As head of production/story editor of
"Supa Strikas", a comic that challenges readers' to make right
choices, I have always been asked: Who reads comics? The reason for this is
apparent when you are informed that women generally skip cartoons or comic strips
in newspapers and magazines, several men who read such cartoon or comic strips
in newspapers and magazines will do so as long as they are cost-free because
when the same materials are compiled in a book form for sale, these men assume
membership of the Free Readers Association of Nigeria (FRAN), adults generally
believe that comic books are meant for children. Even when you find them
reading one, they are likely to tell you that they were "just flipping
through"!
The good news is that we are committed, alongside
other comic publishers, to change these assumptions. The Nigerian comic has
come to stay! With dynamic marketing strategies and relevant, development
oriented story lines, there's no killing the Nigerian comic industry!
Again, individuals must realize that
reading cannot and should not be forced on them but they could become human
antiques if they fail to invest time, money and other resources in qualitative
reading habit.
We should also pay attention to what we
read as a people so that do not sacrifice moral values on the altar of
knowledge acquisition. The principle is simple: we cannot sow cassava and reap
coco-yam!
The time to make the difference is NOW!
The place to begin is HERE! And the place to sustain this new trend is in OUR
HOMES, OUR SCHOOLS, OUR PLACES OF WORSHIP, OUR OFFICES and in the MARKET PLACE.
• Mr. Dodoiyi William-West is the General Manager,
Super Strika Entertainment Limited.
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