Nkosana Sibuyi

Posted by Nkosana Sibuyi: 24 August 2011

Introductory remarks

This epistle was published in the Tribute Magazine, May 2000. It was a contribution intended to encourage people to read, think, analyse and develop viable alternatives for a South African society undergoing transformation.

READING REVOLUTION AS THE FESTIVAL OF THE MASSES

It is indisputable that a reading nation is a winning nation. Reading inculcates a culture of learning, questioning, as well as engaging in constructive and informed debates. It shapes people’s orientation, consciousness, approaches and conditions for societal and cultural development. In the same vein, reading as a backbone of intellectual empowerment, is a direct negation of ignorance, illiteracy and intellectual emptiness.

Over and above, reading builds an informed nation because “a nation uninformed is a nation doomed.” Further, it raises a heightened level of consciousness for one to have an erudite understanding of the worldview. Reading is an empowerment tool that boosts confidence, self-assertiveness and belief in one’s convictions as well as the preparedness to defend one’s position against all odds.

The Easy Reading for Adults (ERA) initiative, a non-governmental organisation leading a national effort to promote reading has declared 2000-2010 as a decade of reading. ERA believes that reading is a key to national development and individual growth. It determines the quality of all forms of learning and communication. This initiative follows the findings of the national survey of adult literacy, which revealed that reading in South Africa has declined dramatically.

After this audit, Professor John Aitchison observed that “the ecology of reading is South Africa has been destroyed. Homes and schools are mostly deserts of reading matter. Public libraries are thin on the ground and poorly supported. Books and paper are expensive and beyond the reach of the majority of South Africans. Few communities have bookshops. Few teachers understand their roles as instructors, practitioners and promoters of reading. Social contexts are hostile to reading. Institutional support of reading development is minimal compared to what it is like in the world’s leading economies.”

Undoubtedly, this is clarion call demanding that we roll up our sleeves and start building a reading nation for the betterment of posterity and economic development. The profound Chinese epigram postulates that “after three days without reading, talk becomes flavourless.” This Chinese axiom, in and of itself, is a prism in which challenges of ignorance and illiteracy as symptoms of the dearth of a reading culture must be viewed. In South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki was quoted in one of the Sunday papers as having affirmed and emphasised the significance of a voracious reading culture. Accordingly, he challenges African intellectuals and academics to read painstakingly with a view to shaping the tide of change in the country and influence policy making processes. “ It really would be very good if people could read”, he said.

If these sentiments are anything to go by, the challenges facing black South Africans are more daunting than ever before. The dawn of the democratic dispensation seems to have opened more room for complacency in other quarters of our society. More often than not, some other black people are swimming under the illusion that now that we have attained freedom, there is no pressing need for us to be involved in the struggle. In a sense, this could be attributed to the objective reality that the country must now be engaged in a new terrain of the struggle to change the current conditions in a transforming society. It would be foolhardy to suggest that the struggle is over. It is important to note that the struggle has taken a new shape, form and content. The struggle to fight against the obvious lack of a reading culture, inexperience and illiteracy, not only becomes necessary, but compulsory and timely. To a remarkable degree, this will afford the country a possibility to close the chasm that exists between literacy and illiteracy at this epoch declared by President Thabo Mbeki as the African century.

There are a number of intellectual giants who have become beacons and loadstars of a voracious reading culture as reflected in their seminal works. Amongst others, former PAC president and Lecturer,Robert Sobukwe, Dr Pallo Jordan, President Thabo Mbeki, Dr Kgalusha Drake Koka, Dr Kwesi Prah, Professor Ngugi wa Thiongo, Professor Mamood Mamdani and the late Steve Biko are products of a reading culture. These are some of the cadres who have (or had) a working knowledge and understanding of the African experience. These are some of the intellectuals who understand how change as a permanent process, manifests itself and affects how society conducts its activities.

In the light of the pervasive lack of a reading culture in South Africa, one is compelled to conclude that it will take decades to produce cadres such as these in the long term. Complacency is likely to open up a floodgate of opportunists who will manipulate the poorest of the poor to achieve their loathsome intentions. If reading is not stipulated as a compulsory ritual for the people of this country, we will, unfortunately, face the temptation of being led by snobs. What a painful experience that would be!

In his erudite book, Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson writes about the umbilical relationship between reading and the holistic development of modern nationhood in a changing society. The following questions cannot be ignored at our own peril: Why the lack of a voracious reading culture among black South Africans? Is it because ignorance, straitjacketed politicking or the pernicious pull-him (her) down syndrome captures our imaginations? Is it because the dawn of democratic epoch has opened more room for complacency? Certainly not.

We are a capable nation. Our primary task is to channel our energies to nation-building projects aimed at resuscitating a tireless commitment to reading. In this day and age, the quality of debates in which we display a semblance of ignorance, shallowness and air of arrogance that fails to engage the facts as they present themselves. It therefore becomes necessary that education classes, conducted as an offensive against the erstwhile apartheid system, be revitalised. These classes should be geared towards fighting against ignorance and illiteracy. The National Department of Education has introduced Tirisano (working together) as a mechanism to revive the culture of reading, learning and teaching in our schools. It is heart-warming that the department has recommitted itself to addressing the appalling rate of illiteracy in the country. It is these and other initiatives that will encourage and cultivate a culture of reading, analysis, and thinking in South Africa.

Reading cuts across all spheres of life. It is not a terrain for the privileged few, but an activity that should transformed into a national crusade aimed at shaping the consciousness of the African Child. Unless a culture of reading is instilled among South Africans of all hues, ignorance will continue to assume a centre stage in human development. Perhaps Hendrick Willem van Leon, the Dutch American journalist and lecture was right when he asserted that “any frontal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always to defend their most precious possession-ignorance.” In a South African context, this is a challenge that imposes an obligation to have the tenacity to propel the country onto the apex of insatiable reading culture. We cannot allow a dark cloud to hang over the democratic gains ushered in o the occasion of the 1994 breakthrough. Consistent with these, an antidote for ignorance is reading. Reading plays a pertinent role in the nation’s cultural, intellectual and social empowerment, and therefore constitutes a basic tenet for human emancipation against miseducation and misinformation.

Professor Eskia Mpahlele, the world renowned academic, proposes the establishment of reading centres or societies as remedy to the paucity of a reading culture in the country. In his view, these centres will promote a reading culture amongst black people, enable them to collect reading material, promote intelligent and purposeful discussion including analysis of material and thus put reading into effect by influencing certain aspects of the community, especially where mass education is needed. The content of these classes should be tailor made to redirect the transformation of the discourse analysis of the country and mark the dawn of a reading revolution as the festival of the masses.
Book clubs, reading centres, community halls, buses, taxis, trains and libraries should be used as centres of reading. This should be coupled with constructive debates that will lay a basis for policy making, development and implementation at a national level. The challenge, as Dr Xolela Mangcu puts it, is to make ours a reading nation and accept that citizens of such nation will always challenge power-wielders.

In conclusion, for the Decade of Reading to become a success, it should filter down to the rural areas such as Ga-Mamoleka in the Northern (now Limpopo) Province. Like the danger of HIV and AIDS, one cannot help but wait for a moment of grace when each speech delivered in schools, workplaces, legislatures, parliament, graduation ceremonies, birthday parties, sermons in churches, seminars and conferences can sincerely say something about the significance of reading. Interestingly, for people to know about HIV and AIDS, for example, it is their responsibility not only to listen to radio or watch television, but to read painstakingly.