Sunday, January 30, 2011
We Are What We Read
Alas, this worthy cause is also a tall order to fill, threatened, in the present state of our country and its people, by social, economic and attitudinal impediments. Nigerians live in hard times; basic concerns of life- food on the table, roof over the head, bills to pay - dominate the thoughts of most. It is understandable then that book matters, and reading, may be far from the mind if many citizens. As Bertolt Brecht would say, “Food is the first thing; morals follow” And I agree, partially. Times like this demand even more that we read in order to know, understand, and be able to respond wisely to what we go through personally, and the events our society in general. It is said that to know more is to be more. To this end, we cannot but read. “We are what we eat”, is a popular saying. But in line with the Christian teaching that ‘man shall not live by bread alone…’ we are also what we read- and what we know. Indeed, what we know can, and do determine what and how we eat, drink, dress, and speak. If we do not read, the mind suffers atrophy and the spirit operates at the level of pedestrianism. This, to me is a sure way to personal perdition. By extension, a country of ’non-reading’ citizens is set on a course of regression, nay, self-abolition.
It is also a cause for regret that, the dominant values in Nigeria today are primitive accumulation and conspicuous consumptions by the adults, obsession with the utmost trivialities by the youths, and of mindless materialism by both young and old. The desire to cultivate the mind, to develop the intellect, - in sum, to be more - is neglected, even disdained? The consequence is that Nigeria today is as ridden with crises as can be imagined. It is my opinion that the conflicts that rage in this land and elsewhere, be they domestic, communal, social, even conflict within the self, can be resolved if we nurture the triune of body, mind and spirit. Reading is the instrumentality to achieve this. The benefits of reading are many; I shall state only a few in this essay. But first, reading in what sense?
Reading, in this context, is the voluntary education (we read for education, we are educated by reading) that we give ourselves after the classroom teachers have gone home for good. Although it is voluntary, it is more pleasurable even as we do it with more seriousness. But, make no mistake, it is of immense value because, like Sir Richard Steele: says, “[it] is to mind what exercise is to the body”.
Nigerians should therefore constantly ask themselves, and one another: What are you reading? I am convinced that this is the most relevant question of this information-centered, knowledge-driven age; it is one question that those who would survive the intellection-driven challenges of a twenty-first century global society must constantly ask themselves. Sadly, it is a question far from the consideration by most Nigerians and Africans. So, as things stand now, Africa is among the losers in this unstoppable and inescapable process called globalization said Prof. Ali Mazrui in his Du Bois-Padmore-Nkrumah Lecture some years ago. The reason for this, obviously, is the poverty of (developmental) ideas in the land. Of course, a lack of education (from reading) is the first cause of the poverty of ideas.
A nation blessed with all the natural resources in the world, but bereft of ideas cannot make up for this lack because, as succinctly put by former UN secretary-general U-Thant, it is not the resources that make the decisions; it is the decisions that make the resources. Knowledge then is a key decider of the quality of decisions – and in turn, resources. Again this is why E.F. Schumacher in his book Small is Beautiful wrote that there is no such thing as a viable nation, only a viable people. Modern Japan and Israel evidentially support this assertion.
Reading is the building block of education, and education, in its holistic form, determines the quality of the man. Aristotle, asked how much the educated was superior to the uneducated replied, as reported by Diogenes Laertius, “as much as the living is to the dead”. If he lived in our age, he might say: “as much as the First World is to the Fourth World”.
If for selfish reasons alone, we must constantly seek to know both the what and the why of things. From reading I understand that both are important because, the man who only knows what ends up working for the man who knows why. If for selfish reasons alone, we must constantly seek to know both the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of things. My reading tells me that both are important because, the man who only knows what ends up working for the man who knows why. To not read is to deny oneself a place among the cognitariat in the emerging global knowledge society wherein, to quote Taichi Sakaiya “… increased weight is given to knowledge value in the pricing of things”. Therefore to deny oneself the pleasure and the gains of reading is not only ‘stupidity’ as defined by James F. Welles, it is mentacide. According to James F. Welles’ “epistemological” definition, ‘stupidity’ is “the failure to gather and use information efficiently”. So, we do ourselves a favor to read because, armed with relevant information, (knowledge), we out-think- and out-perform - competition. This is true for every area of human endeavor that I know. Furthermore, “By reading,” wrote Joseph Wood Crutch, “ you learn to read, become more and more capable of receiving more and more completely more subtle and complicated communications…”
Reading, like travel, expands the frontier of our mind. But we can never travel enough to experience the world, meet people, share our thoughts with them and learn from one another other. Yet there is so much to learn, this is why, argued T.S Eliot, we must read, taking thus, a shortcut to meet and hear authors on the bridge of books, to adapt the phrase of Harold Shaw. Indeed, by reading the really good authors of enduring literature, we rub minds with them to nurture our own and, who knows; we may even ‘out-write’ them. Charles Lamb said “We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves; we encourage each other in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself”.
Tony Lane, writing on the importance of reading History opined that, like foreign travel, (again that comparison) it shows us that ours is not the only way to do things, that our grasp of the truth might be less than perfect, and that it is possible to learn from those with a different perspective. This much can be said too for reading in general: it tells us the stories of other peoples and from these we learn that ours are neither the worst nor the best of situation. Said Nadine Gordimer, in an interview “Books, I think saved me, perhaps from growing up, thinking that the way that people among whom I lived [in a little segregated mining town South Africa] was the only way to live”. Furthermore, reading teaches us – or should I say trains our mind – to ask and to ponder deep and important questions: Can things be done better? Is this the best I can be? Is this all there is to life? Why am I here?
Reading refines us. Do you observe that widely read (not merely well read) people are generally more humble, more polished, more cultured and more confident of whom they are in terms of character, values and other characteristics? Whereas they know too well that the Self is the true worth of a man, the others derive confidence only from what they have. So we are what we know.
Because it equips us with a large body of information from which to cross-refer facts and weigh issues, reading deepens our understanding and equips us with the analytical power to perceive hidden meanings and to detect motives. Because study equips us to think deeply and broadly, and judge more finely, we take more intelligent decisions, make wiser choices, and act from what I would term ‘inclusive thinking’ that sees the larger picture of issues.
Reading broadens our perceptions such that we refrain from narrow-mindedness, hasty judgment, and stereotyping. We are saved thereby from the disease –and sin - of bigotry or something worse. The French king, Louis IV, is quoted to have said, somewhat dismissively, “I see no point in reading”. It is a pity indeed that he failed to see such an obvious point of life. No wonder that he was an embodiment of monarchical absolutism, one who would feel threatened by an educated, and therefore a questioning, citizenry. And for good reason.
The well and widely read person is inevitably a questioning mind because, according to Goethe, “we know accurately when we know little; with knowledge, doubt increases”. So the questioning mind sees things differently, asks the why and the why not of things, thinks differently and, acts differently, or, as some might say, un-usually. But, every time the motive is to do things better; the aim is to do better things. Indeed, un-usual thinking – call it ‘thinking out of the box’ or in the words of Thinking expert Edward de Bono, ‘lateral thinking’ - often leads to new discoveries. Needless to say, this is the way of science.
Students of the Bible would appreciate how much St. Paul was a reading man from the incomparable explication of the Christian faith. In 2 Timothy 4:13, Paul told Timothy to bring along “… the books, but especially the parchments”. Does it surprise that the Pauline writings are, arguably, the most intellectually dense in the New Testament?
Reading counsels too; and I have in mind the spiritual texts as well as motivational books widely on sale today. A sober and careful reading of, say, the wisdom books in the Holy Bible, say, Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, the Book of Job, Ecclesiasticus, offer immeasurable counseling on life’s vicissitudes. The book of Ecclesiastes teaches : “For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense,/ But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it” (NKJV)’.the excellent writings of John C. Maxwell Stephen Covey, and others are quite inspirational.
Education, in the opinion of William Durant, is the progressive discovery of our ignorance. As we read more, we are humbled us to the fact that we know so much that is so little in comparison to just how much remains to know. In the words of William Harvey, “All we know is infinitely less than all that still remains unknown”. This may have caused Francis Bacon, the philosopher I mean, not the painter, that “I have taken all knowledge to be my province”. Just as well for, as Pope put it, “A little learning is a dangerous thing… [and] shallow draughts intoxicate the Brain…”
Now, it should be emphasized that to read only for knowledge would make a man merely clever, and equip him for intellectual deviousness employed, for example, to rationalize mis-governance by bad leaders; but it would not make a man wise. Surely, no one would want to live in a world of clever devils. Francis Bacon [the philosopher, I mean] therefore, counseled that we read “not to confute and contradict… but to weigh and consider”. We should do our reading then as a humble striving for Knowledge and Understanding that leads to Wisdom. And to act, repeat, act, accordingly. “The great purpose of education”, says Herbert Spencer is not knowledge, but action”. By action, I cannot imagine but that he means action for the Common Good.
It is said that knowledge is power. Not quite so. It is what you do with knowledge- call it education if you will, that earns you power. After all, the world is full of men of knowledge – professors in all sorts of disciplines - , but who do not command as much power to make things happen the way they would want, like do those who obviously know much less. Therefore, we must read and, like men of knowledge and wisdom, improve the world wherever we find ourselves. It seems to me that our country is in the present sorry state , importantly because its affairs have for long been run by a non-reading leadership. Nearly half a century after independence is Nigeria is being led for the first time by a university graduate. And these little things make a big difference. Indeed, see now who is pushing the reading agenda.
Philosopher Martin Buber wrote -and I am fully at one with him – “Books are pure, men are mixed; books are spirit and word, pure spirit and purified word; men are made up of prattle and silence, and their silence is not that of animals, but of men”. Besides, to borrow from Buber again, purely delightful books are easier to come by than purely delightful men.
Are we then to prefer books to men? I do not think so. Only, that books will converse with us in their peculiarly silent way, neither interrupting our thoughts nor arguing with us; hardly can we find men like that.
Now, although it is good to read, it is even better to study. “Reading gives us breadth, but study gives us depth” said Jerry Bridges. But beyond this and in line with Francis Bacon’s thinking, it is best to write. Reading”, he wrote, “maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man”. One other reason that we should write it that there would be nothing to read if people didn’t write, and add thereby to the universal pool of knowledge that drives human progress. But again, we cannot write unless we read, and we cannot write well unless we read incessantly an opinion of Ziauddin Sardar that I share.
But writing isn’t easy, this I know and so William F. Buckley Jr. a full time writer admits too. Hear him: “I do not like to write, for writing is extremely hard work, and I do not like extremely hard work”. He writes nonetheless, and for a living too- as columnist, editor and author. Even George Orwell, a writer of no mean stature, opined that “writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness”. And yet, he too wrote such books as influential Animal Farm and 1984, and the deeply engaging, perennially relevant essay ‘Politics and the English Language’.
Nonetheless we must, like one in search of excellence, or perfection, read - and write -, to upgrade ourselves, to raise the total quality of our being so that like a man with a lantern in a dark place, (and believe me, literally and metaphorically, darkness abounds thickly in this Nigeria) share the light of our discoveries with, and touch the lives for the good of whomsoever we meet on the journey of life. In this process, reading deepens us spiritually, and raises our personal values to a higher plane. As we become what we read, we become more excellent.
In fine, I read somewhere that if you want to know, read; but if you want to be known, write. I agree.
Onaiyekan is a a visiting member of The Guardian editorial board
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011
CORA BOOK CONFERENCE COMMUNIQUE
CORA Art & Cultural Foundation
CORA HOUSE, No. 95, Bode Thomas Street Surulere, Lagos Stampedecora.blogspot.com
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| Overview of the conference room |
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Cross section of audience at the event
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COMMUNIQUE
INTRODUCTION
1. A Book Industry Conference on the ‘Bring Back the Book’ initiative was held on Monday, January 17, 2011 at the Banquet Hall, Eko Hotels & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, under the aegis of the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) and other major stakeholders (Publishers, Librarians, Booksellers, Academia, Parents, NGOs, Writers and Schools). The sub-theme of the Conference is ‘When the President wants to bring back the book – what’s to be done?’
2. The Conference acknowledges that books and reading contribute to professional and academic success: self-discovery; cultural awareness; self-expression; engaged citizenship and collective good. It was now resolved that the development of the publishing sector and revival of the reading culture must be a priority objective of the cultural, economic and educational policy of this country.
3. The Conference considered papers on the following topics:
- The business of the book
- The creative aspects of the book
- Educational aspects of the book
- Promotional aspects of the book.
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| Cross section of participants |
RECOMMENDATIONS
4. At the end of the deliberations, the conference resolves as follows:
i. The nation deserves a functional National Library, while all 36 states and 774 local government councils should be mandated to establish and maintain functional urban, rural and mobile libraries;
ii. For the promotion and propagation of the reading culture, literature is crucial and government should promote its status and development in schools;
iii. Banking and other financial institutions should be encouraged and supported by government to see the book industry as a challenged sector for special attention;
iv. Preferential or reduced postal rates should apply to books and periodicals for cheap and efficient distribution;
iv. Preferential or reduced postal rates should apply to books and periodicals for cheap and efficient distribution;
v. Government in partnership with the private sector to set up an endowment fund for book development;
vi. Government should support book fairs, literary festivals and reading campaigns around Nigerian books within and without the country’s borders;
vii. Legislative backing and funding should be provided to Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations at local and national levels in the promotion of reading initiatives;
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A session of the conference: Consulting strategist and Ut Specialist, Erabor Okogun of Meloria Sevices; with Publisher/Book Dealer, Kolade Mosuro; Publisher/author Dillibe Onyeama of Delta Books and Convener, Enugu Book Convention and Secretary General of Nigeria Publishers Association, Kunle Sogbein |
viii. Government should patronize Nigerian and African authored books and should make use of the book chain for this purpose to enhance local capacity;
ix. Books published in indigenous languages should be actively encouraged and supported;
x. Government should provide adequate resources to the relevant agencies responsible for the eradication of illiteracy;
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| The Communique Committeee in session |
xii. Paper, machinery and equipment for printing and publishing of books should be exempted from customs tax and duties in order to make books more affordable; and
xiii. Government should set up a Book Advisory and Readership Committee (BARC) under the Presidency which will evolve ultimately into a Commission. The body will coordinate all efforts aimed at bringing back the book.
SIGNED TODAY THE 17TH DAY OF JANUARY, 2011
JUMOKE VERISSIMO KOLADE MOSURO
SECERTARY CHAIRMAN
OTHER IMAGES
 Conference Director, Deji Toye of CORA/ LODt Associates
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| Representative of DG National Mass Literacy Commission, Dr Haladu with the author and Book Activist, Mobolaji Adenubi and the Arts Editor of Nigerian Compass, Chuka Nnabuife, who moderated the session |
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| Adesuyi of Havillah Press with Jeremy Weate of Cassava Republic Press and Ayodele Arigbabu of Dada Books (COMMUNIQUÉ COMMITTEE)
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Tuesday, January 11, 2011
CORA Holds Conference On the Federal Govt's 'Bring Back the Book' Initiative
• Publishers and writers at a session during the CORA-organised 'Publishers Forum' as a prelude to the 12th Lagos Book and Art Festival, LABAF 2010
Following the launch of the ‘Bring Back The Book’ initiative being championed by President Jonathan, the Committee for Relevant Art, CORA, has resolved to hold a one-day conference of stakeholders in the Book industry and the creative and educational communities to fashion out an implementable document that could guide the President and his team in the quest to encourage reading culture as well as place literacy and the Book at the centre as our national development agenda, according to Deji Toye, CORA’s Project Director and coordinator of the Conference. The one-day Conference which will hold on Monday January 17, 2011 has the theme ‘When the President Wants to Bring Back the Book: So What’s To Be Done Now?’ It is billed for the Banquet Hall, Eko Hotels & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.
According to CORA, the launch of the Bring back the Book campaign in Lagos on December 17 by the President in a series of event attended by the Nigerian literati, including the Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka, is unprecedented in three senses:
· That a President has publicly adopted the book industry’s campaign to revive the reading culture as his personal pet project;
· That a President has officially connected the book and literacy to our national development agenda; and
· That the President chooses to present the campaign but a citizen’s project, not just a government programme.
In view of the forgoing, the January 17 conference is a desired follow-up to ensure that the dream behind the project is kept alive even as the country gradually slips into the mood of electioneering “when we tend to forget every other critical aspects of our national life”.
The conference, stated CORA, aims to “Gain the insight of stakeholders in the book industry on the current practical challenges of conceptualisation, production, distribution and consumption of books in Nigeria and its impact on the reading culture; and;
i. Obtain suggestions on what steps may be taken to address the said challenges with a view to reversing the waning reading culture, such steps including –
· any cultural/economic policies
· legal/regulatory frameworks
· market/supply-side innovations; and
· civil society initiatives.
Deliberations and suggestions at the conference will be presented to the ‘Bring Back the Book’. It should also provide a reference point for a pan-industry advocacy for the revival of the reading culture and the revitalisation of the book industry“.
“Participants are to be to be drawn from the entire value chain of the book industry including the following: Publishers, booksellers and book dealers, authors, printers, libraries/librarians, book and literary event organisers/promoters (book clubs, literary festivals etc), educationists, renowned corporate promoters of book and literary initiatives, book and education-focused MDAs and Nigerian Academy of Letters”, stated CORA.
The culture advocate organisation, which prides itself as ‘Culture Landscapists’, stated: “This event will be regarded as significant in at least the following three respects:
· To our knowledge, it is the first time in the last few decades that a Nigerian President has given a public, uncontroverted support to the campaign to return the book and the cultivation of its reading to a pride of place. This is significant in Nigeria where the success of any initiative often depends on a perception of interestedness or, better still, championship at the highest levels of government.
· Equally significant is that a sitting President has now drawn a link between book reading and literacy and even onward to national economic development. Trite as that connection might appear, we are not aware that recent economic recovery programmes and various visioning projects have made book reading as central to human capacity development (which has itself been often touted as core to the achievement of economic prosperity) as we see encapsulated in the above-quoted speech of the President delivered at the campaign event.
· Even more significantly, the strategy of taking the campaign ‘to town’ by the President will be recorded as a first, in which a matter of such communal significance will be canvassed on the streets before being thrown at policy bureaucrats. Indeed, Mr. President was reported as having dubbed the campaign a “citizens’ framework to bring back the book.”
“In the last twenty years, the CORA Art & Cultural Foundation (otherwise “Committee for Relevant Art” or “CORA”) has sustained the campaign to place the book in the front burners of national debate and literacy at the heart of national development agenda. Indeed, we have always maintained our key annual event, the Lagos Book & Art Festival as a testament to our commitment that “the only way to translate the ‘teeming population’ of Nigeria into true human capital is to develop their minds” (http://coraartfoundation.org/index.php/about-cora). Mr. President’s speech at the campaign launch shows how much consensus has now grown around this idea.
“While CORA realises the value of the media event of 20 December, 2010 in demonstrating the full faith and weight of the President in the campaign, we take the view that the real task of building the critical citizens’ framework for its sustenance has just begun. Based on our experience in organising intellectual events around book and culture in the last twenty years, the industry has faced a lot of challenges which militate against the return to the era of robust book production, acquisition and reading culture. Some of the challenges arise from the following factors:
· Standard of education and its impact on the quality of content and creative expression emerging from the Nigerian local literary community in the last few years
· Quality of technical expertise available to the industry following the exit of the multinational publishing companies and its impact on the technical quality of outputs in the Nigerian industry in the last few years (CORA has held a series of book editor’s clinics as a modest attempt to address this challenge)
· The discouraging economics of book production and distribution in Nigeria and the gradual erosion of local book printing and production in preference for Asia
· Issues of curriculum/syllabus development and quality of reading lists in Nigerian educational institutions; and
· The environment for the support of civil society efforts at promoting book and reading culture in Nigeria.
CORA states that the conference will follow the popular parliamentary style now associated with CORA-organised deliberations, although Position Papers will be presented by key stakeholder groups drawn from the following four major sectors of the industry:
· Business: Publishers, book sellers/dealers/distributors/printers
· Creative: Authors
· Educational: Librarians, teachers, school proprietors, NUC, NAL
· Promotional:
- Government (MDAs);
- NGOs/CSOs (book clubs, literary festivals, poetry salons, book fairs etc);
- Corporate donors (companies with bias for literary CSR commitments).
There will be interventions from other industry participants and from the general house.
Deji Toye
Conference Coordinator
(for CORA)
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