Time to improve our reading culture
The most costly failure of our ancestors was the failure to write. While scientists in the West preserved their discoveries on paper for easy access by their descendants, our forefathers preserved their findings orally.
Nick Twinamatsiko
The most costly failure of our ancestors was the failure to write. While scientists in the West preserved their discoveries on paper for easy access by their descendants, our forefathers preserved their findings orally.
Each generation starts where the previous one stopped. While the pen is often considered a tool of the arts, it is arguable that it is the most potent tool, even in science. So if our ancestors could write, Europeans would have found it harder to enslave and colonise us.
While historians like the late Prof. Samwiri Karugire laboured to patch together whatever fragments they could get about our past, and while novelists like Timothy Wangusa, Arthur Gakwandi, Julius Ocwinyo and Moses Isegawa have given a fictitious form of history, their books gather dust on the shelves of bookstores for as long as the Uganda National Examinations Board does not include them on the syllabus.
The failure to read has contributed to the ignorance that has served as fertile ground for the growth of cults like Joseph Kibwetere’s and Joseph Kony.
By reading local literature, we can gain insight into the realities of our past and present and are in a better position to have a desirable future. Unfortunately, books remain unread unless they can help us pass exams!
Slavery and colonialism were the prices of our ancestors’ failure to read and write. We may pay a higher price for more culpable failures.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela has attributed Zimbabwe’s woes to the tragic failure of leadership. The poor reading culture should be attributed to the same problem.
The Government has not done much to improve the reading culture. Parents and teachers have also not done much to guide children to read. If fathers read tabloids, why should the children be expected to turn out differently? If the library has no books on extra-curricular activities, why shouldn’t students think that education is about passing exams?
As the tragic failure of leadership defined the times of our ancestors, it is also likely to define our own times unless we improve our reading culture.
The writer is a social critic
The most costly failure of our ancestors was the failure to write. While scientists in the West preserved their discoveries on paper for easy access by their descendants, our forefathers preserved their findings orally.
Each generation starts where the previous one stopped. While the pen is often considered a tool of the arts, it is arguable that it is the most potent tool, even in science. So if our ancestors could write, Europeans would have found it harder to enslave and colonise us.
While historians like the late Prof. Samwiri Karugire laboured to patch together whatever fragments they could get about our past, and while novelists like Timothy Wangusa, Arthur Gakwandi, Julius Ocwinyo and Moses Isegawa have given a fictitious form of history, their books gather dust on the shelves of bookstores for as long as the Uganda National Examinations Board does not include them on the syllabus.
The failure to read has contributed to the ignorance that has served as fertile ground for the growth of cults like Joseph Kibwetere’s and Joseph Kony.
By reading local literature, we can gain insight into the realities of our past and present and are in a better position to have a desirable future. Unfortunately, books remain unread unless they can help us pass exams!
Slavery and colonialism were the prices of our ancestors’ failure to read and write. We may pay a higher price for more culpable failures.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela has attributed Zimbabwe’s woes to the tragic failure of leadership. The poor reading culture should be attributed to the same problem.
The Government has not done much to improve the reading culture. Parents and teachers have also not done much to guide children to read. If fathers read tabloids, why should the children be expected to turn out differently? If the library has no books on extra-curricular activities, why shouldn’t students think that education is about passing exams?
As the tragic failure of leadership defined the times of our ancestors, it is also likely to define our own times unless we improve our reading culture.
The writer is a social critic