In most of the world, reading and writing are necessities. Possessing these fundamental skills opens up new worlds and experiences and helps us make sense of what closely surrounds us.
When my great-grandfather travelled to Australia for work around 80 or 90 years ago, he was one of the only men from his cohort who could read and write. He would be tasked to read letters from home for his friends and had to relay deaths, births, losses and gains months after they had occurred. How many words have broken hearts or healed souls?
In my parent’s house, knowledge was always venerated above everything else. There was no book that they didn’t buy us, no private lesson that they denied my sisters and me if they thought it would somehow help us grow in one way or another.
They had no problem refusing to buy us flashy trainers but they never said no to anything educational. It’s perhaps for these reasons that my heart aches extra hard when I hear my country’s prime minister denigrate writing in favour of wealth.
It’s your ignorance that keeps corrupt politicians in office- Anna Marie Galea
It’s genuinely pitiable when you think about it. This country already ranks last in Europe when it comes to reading books and, instead of our people in power sitting down and trying to figure out how to push those numbers up, they’re actively taking the time to dissuade people from having enquiring minds and making it sound like reading is a pastime for the foolish.
Is it any wonder that everything has turned out how it is when this message is being peddled from the very top? Does it ring alarm bells for no one when a prime minister speaks like this?
You’d think that people would at least be suspicious, if not downright angry, that a whole industry was being made to look infantile just as the National Book Council was setting up its stand at The London Book Fair but, instead, we have droves of people who will happily nod to anything their political god of choice says and only practice their so-called freedom of expression to defend the indefensible.
And what of the damage to the industry itself? Art and culture are already endangered species in this country and statements like this only further tarnish its already rusty façade.
What will it take for people to realise that true poverty does not lie in the amount of money you have in your bank account but in how bereft your life is of beauty, truth and meaning? How poor are we as a people that all we desire is money?
I will say this only once for the cheap seats at the back: it’s your ignorance that keeps corrupt politicians in office. It’s what they depend on to control you. When you choose only to watch one party station, read only one newspaper and speak to an echo chamber of people who are exactly like you, you are doing nothing except playing into their hands.
The next time someone tries to distract you with a shiny bauble, perhaps it would be prudent to stop for a second before snatching it and ask why.