Deep literacy, an age dominated by image and the concern for leadership in future Africa

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OPINION

By Penelope B. Ssempebwa

Adam Garfinkle in his article “The Erosion of Deep Literacy” writes that deep literacy is what happens when a reader engages with an extended piece of writing in such a way as to anticipate an author’s direction and meaning.

According to him, deep literacy will likely cause a fusion of writer and reader with the potential to bear original insight. He concludes, and I agree with him, that if one does not deep read, she or he cannot cultivate a capacity to think, imagine and create.

My first encounter with deep literacy was during my secondary school years, under the pupillage of my literature teachers. The ones that most impacted me were Ms. Nyakaisiki and Ms. Wasswa.

They challenged us, the literature students, to think deeper beyond the surface message of the text to its underlying thematic statements.

In the novel No longer at ease for example, we delved into the text and explored beyond the privileged life of the character of Obi Okwonkwo, a recent graduate from an overseas university who had joined the Nigerian civil service, to the deeper messages communicated by the author Chinua Achebe such as the ugliness of neocolonialism, rising society ills like corruption in the civil service, etc.

In the play Betrayal in the City, an on-the-surface humorous play set in post-colonial Africa, we deduced the deeper messages conveyed by the playwright, Francis Imbuga, such as the dangers of illiteracy, conspiracy, a dysfunctional civil service, etc.

In prose and poetry, they challenged us to look beyond the flowery prose and rhyme of a poem to the hidden message in the stanzas. We did not have access to artificial intelligence search engines such as Ggoogle or artificial intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT to quicken the process of interpretation as to the authors’ or playwrights’ underlying thematic statements.

Therefore, our encounters with literary text meant that we had to ponder deeply and debate ideas thoroughly, inadvertently training our minds in the ability to creatively apply critical thought and analysis. Garfinkle describes deep encounters with text as having wondrous effects like a nurtured capacity for abstract thought, enabling the reader to pose and answer difficult questions, empowering creativity and imagination and refining our capacity for empathy. Deep literacy trains the mind to stretch itself beyond surface perception to a deeper understanding of issues.

Nelson Mandela writing to his son Makgatho on July 28, 1968, four days after the first man landed on the moon, said: “This is an era of intense and vicious competition in which the richest rewards are for those who have undergone thorough training... The issues that agitate humanity today call for trained minds and the man who is deficient in this respect is crippled because he is not in possession of the tools and equipment necessary to ensure success and victory in the service of country and people.” His advice is still very relevant today, decades later.

The practice of deep literacy is critical in developing leaders. Philosophy, from which other fields of knowledge stem, is born out of reflective and critical thought.

History is replete with leaders who transformed their nations because they retreated to study and to engage their minds in critical thought in order to solve societal problems or crises.

However, the practice of deep literacy seems to be getting watered down with each generation, with the deep literacy practitioners becoming an endangered species.

Today, with the force of the Internet and the visual media, image has taken a hold of the millennials and Z generation.

Online platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc use image to attract the reader and plain simple text is added to the image with a character limit so the reader is able flip fast through the many churned out short stories. This can be a recipe for the creation of a lazy mind.

Henry Kissinger, in his book Leadership, rightly asserts that what risks being lost in an age dominated by image are erudition, learnedness, serious and independent thinking.

Why should this concern us as Africans? As of 2023, Africa is the continent with the youngest population.

In a very short time this generation will be leaders of a continent that still requires serious independent critical thinkers that will ensure the survival and prosperity of the African race. While the Internet has great advantages of access to vast information at the click of the button, we should not be quick to dismiss the practice of deep literacy that fosters the development of independent critical thought, ideas and philosophy.

Great empires were built on the shoulders of those who critically applied their minds to solving societal issues. Africa needs a critical mass of this category to contribute to its survival and prosperity. For this we need the establishment of national libraries and quiet study spaces in our cities, deliberate public partnership with privately run bookshops, etc.

The National Library Act of Uganda established the National Library, a body corporate, among whose many functions is to promote the habit and culture of reading through reading campaigns and book exhibitions. I am hopeful that this will support and encourage the culture of deep reading among the younger generation who are the future leaders.

The writer is a lawyer