Questions to ponder as we seek to improve our reading culture

Editor, Reference is made to the article, “How can reading culture among children be improved?” (The New Times, January 4). I wish to congratulate all those who are encouraging Rwandan children to embrace a culture of reading, particularly reading books written in their mother tongue Kinyarwanda. They are painstakingly trying to revive and grow our rich culture that most contemporary parents know little of and tend to despise and label as “backward”. By the way, there is no going forward and backward on earth. Instead, in life we keep going outward, in a circle. Those of us who were born in the transition era of 1930s and 50s were constantly told that we had to become “civilised”, meaning abandoning our ancestors’ ways and embracing the ‘white man’s’ ways. So we did, with application we read whatever our eyes fell on, and were gradually pulled into the ‘white man’s’ circle, to such a point that some of us even became analysts, commentators, writers and teachers of western languages and ways. That was the colonialists’ agenda, which was then methodically and strategically inculcated into us, that, in turn, we honestly and unquestionably embraced and kept inculcating it into our children and grand-children up to this day. As a result, the latter are now the parents who, at the Rwanda Children’s Book Forum (RCBF) and elsewhere, were and still are castigated as “not acting their part as role models to encourage their children embrace recreational reading as part of efforts to improve reading culture in the country”. However, before castigating anyone, we need to collectively first seek clear answers to the following core questions; Beyond thinking in terms of mere artifacts such as books, e-books, and other educational and/or recreational reading materials, in the first place why should Rwandan offspring learn to read? What would be the purpose and advantages of inculcating a reading culture into Rwandan children, instead, for instance, of developing a listening culture based on our oral tradition? Has a methodic and conclusive comparison ever been made between orality and alphabetical visuality? And if strategically convinced that we should inculcate into our children alphabetical visuality, have we reached a collective consensus on the kind of content we should privilege? And under which format should the material be most made available? Physical books or digital content that is accessible online? Prior to adopting any knowledge transmission means, books, e-books, teachers, parents…do we actually have well conversant indigenous individuals capable of conceiving the whole package of content, form, and transmission channels, collectively adopted specifically for Rwandan “posterity”? Or shall we keep relying on foreign donors with their agenda, forms, and channels that have not, or superficially little, changed since the 30s and 50s? Shall we ever pull out and away of the ‘white man’s’ circle? Francois-Xavier Nziyonsenga Reaction to the story, “2014: How the ICT sector fared” (The New Times, January 1)

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Questions to ponder as we seek to improve our reading culture