If you want to hide something from Zambians, put it in a book

By Field Ruwe, Ed.D.

In the 1960s and 1970s, we were voracious readers, devouring the works of black and white writers: Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Tiango, Wole Soyinka, Mills and Boon, Jack Higgins, Frederick Forsyth, James Hadley Chase, Ian Fleming, Alan Patton, Wilbur Smith, Agatha Christie, David Copperfield, Shakespeare, etc. We were immersed in a vicarious world, transitioning from the real world to the world depicted in books, embarking on a journey of acquiring knowledge.

Okonkwo’s willpower, determination, anger, courage and unwavering spirit in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart gives us the power and knowledge to fight against the British colonial masters. Jack Higgins’s The Eagle Has Landed reveals how Nazi officer Colonel Radel devised a plan to kidnap and kill Winston Churchill on Hitler’s orders. Higgins gives us a glimpse into the secret operations of the British and German governments and a glimpse into World War II.

My favorite was David Yallop’s In the Name of God, which uncovered the truth about the murder of Pope John Paul I (Albino Luciani) in 1978, just 33 days after taking office. Before, I had always thought of the Vatican as a symbol of holiness on earth. However, when I learned that the Vatican Bank lost $250,000 to corruption, my view changed dramatically. Still, this book is eye-opening and fascinating.

Each well-crafted story like Yallop guides us on a different path of personal growth, enriches our writing skills, and improves our spoken English. It helps us think rationally, act wisely, and apply some of the knowledge to our daily lives. Enriching our reading material by exploring various genres such as fiction, non-fiction, and poetry broadens our knowledge of different topics, cultures, and historical eras. This helps to cultivate our intellectual curiosity and encourages us to constantly pursue learning.

Unfortunately, reading culture in Zambia has waned significantly. Many people, including graduates, find it difficult to finish a book. Worse still, a large proportion of people will not finish reading a newspaper article. According to the World Cultural Scoring Index (WCSI), Zambia has one of the lowest reading culture in the world. From primary school to university, people of all ages and academic levels abhor reading, resulting in low IQ levels.

As trivial as it may sound, reading is an important tool for social progress and is essential to the development of our country.

“It is a pity that we are not a reading nation,” said Kenneth Kaunda at the opening of the Louboutin Library in 2007. He went on to say, “Yet a vast amount of knowledge, useful and creative information that can change you and me, still exists in the printed media, in black and white books and magazines.” He added, “If you read, you will come out of the darkness that obscures your vision and keeps you trapped in poverty.”

Why aren’t we a reading society? To answer this question, it’s first helpful to explore the history of reading. Ancient Egypt played a major role in the development of reading, inventing a phonetic script called hieroglyphics around 3250 BC, followed by papyrus in 3000 BC. Phonetic reading helped the Egyptians record their past and present, and use these records to shape the future. Reading also played a key role in the development of ancient Egyptian technology, which ultimately led to major advances in architecture, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine.

The Library of Alexandria in Egypt was founded on the skill of reading and is one of the oldest libraries in the world. Alexandria became a capital of knowledge, attracting scholars from around the world and transforming the library into a renowned research institution. Reading in the Library of Alexandria led to the rise of scholars, including Apollonius of Rhodes, who wrote the epic poem The Argonautica, Eratosthenes of Cyrenaica, who calculated the circumference of the Earth, and Hero of Alexandria, who invented the first recorded steam engine.

The establishment of the first universities in Europe was influenced by a culture of reading. The word “reading” led to the founding of the University of Oxford in 1096, the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Since then, Oxford has fostered a reading culture among its students, who often refer to their studies as “reading philosophy” rather than “majoring in philosophy.”

Now let me answer the question: “Why are we not a reading society?” The answer can be found in the record of history. For black people, reading is a hard-won culture that is accompanied by blood and death. In the 16th century, the white world believed that black people lacked humanity, were inherently illiterate, and had low intelligence. Therefore, they were regarded as an inferior race and despised.

In southern Africa, the denial of the right to read was engineered by Cape Colony Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes in the 1890s, who sought to ensure that Africans remained illiterate and trapped in a system of indentured labour. In his 1894 Glen Grey Speech, Rhodes declared: “We must treat the natives in a different manner from ourselves in their barbarous condition.”

The British imperial government, influenced by Rhodes’s racist theories, deliberately excluded Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) from the Royal Charter when establishing universities in tropical Africa between 1920 and 1948. This exclusion prevented the establishment of the University of Northern Rhodesia, which would have created a reading society and, by extension, a knowledge society.

If the Queen agreed, the University of Northern Rhodesia would emulate the University of London in terms of student admissions criteria, course content, examination regulations and academic affairs. At the time, the University of London was laying the foundations of a reading culture across all its African universities, helping first-year students develop strong reading skills and a lifelong love of books. As a result, early African writers such as Chinua Achebe (University of Ibadan), (James) Ngugi wa Thiongo (Makerere University), Joseph Coleman de Graft (Gold Coast University College), George Kofi Nedwu Awonor-Williams (University of Ghana) and Kwasi Weredu (University of Ghana) emerged.

As for Zambia, the absence of universities at independence resulted in Zambians being deprived of the foundation of vigilant, rigorous, scholarly and enjoyable reading that is essential for academic achievement and national development. Kenneth Kaunda needed a large workforce to meet the demands of the labor market and was forced to rely on the racist Lockwood Commission, which recommended teaching methods and curricula that did not emphasize general reading that is essential for cognitive development. Instead, it emphasized cramming reading to pass exams. As a result, the reading ability of graduates from Zambian universities has dropped significantly, reflecting the disastrous consequences that can be seen in most of the 40,000 graduates.

Since its establishment in 1966, the University of Zambia has been at the mercy of the British government and has failed to become the home of a culture of reading in Zambia. Education experts appointed by boards such as the Zambia Higher Education Authority and the Zambia Higher Education Quality Assurance Standards and Guidelines (ZSG-QA) have failed to formulate policies that would make the University of Zambia a cornerstone of the Zambian education system like Harvard and Oxford. As a result, the University of Zambia has failed to achieve its goal of providing relevant and quality education that is vital to the development of the country’s human capital. Without a culture of reading, the University of Zambia will continue to produce graduates with inadequate professional competence and low international impact.

The growing concern among Zambians about the declining reading culture is deeply worrying. As the global economy shifts towards a knowledge-based framework, Zambia’s future is at stake due to the reading crisis it faces. Without immediate action to address this issue, all aspects of the Zambian nation, including its economic, political and social components that rely heavily on knowledge, will continue to deteriorate. Establishing campus and national reader outreach programs at the University of Zambia is essential to fostering a reading culture among students and the wider community. Without a reading culture, the University of Zambia is an ivory tower and when we walk down the stairs, we step directly into the sewer of knowledge.

The copyright of this article is owned by the Zambia Development Institute (ZDI), a Zambian think tank to be established in the United States. A comprehensive proposal was submitted to President Hichilema through the Principal Private Secretary, Bradford Machila, on May 19, 2022. The author, Dr. Field Ruwe, holds a Doctorate of Education in Organizational Leadership. He is affiliated with Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.