Columns/Reviews |
The Art of Reading
Tenzin Nyinjey
George Orwell once pointed out in an article that one ominous sign of Great Britain’s decline in power and prestige on the global stage after World War II was the Englishman’s tendency and proclivity to spend more on tobaccos than books.
In his international bestseller The World is Flat three-time Pulitzer prize winner Thomas Friedman wrote that China would soon overtake US as the world’s most powerful nation, simply because American teenagers are couch potatoes, their eyes invariably glued to prime time television series, where as in the People’s Republic young guns lock themselves up in study rooms, making grand strategies to get into Ivy League universities.
And within our very own exile community, critically acclaimed Tibetan novelist Jamyang Norbu lamented that he did not find enough Tibetans to discuss his passion for literature with during the early days of his writing career. Indeed if there is one thing that Tibetans genuinely love to hate, it is this head-spinning thing called READING.
All these individuals–who have carved a niche for themselves in their respective societies– wish a profusion of book lovers in their countries. Yes they look forward to see their fellow countrymen shift their loyalty from never-ending television soaps to books. They want us to spend more time, energy and money on books. For a cynic like me this reading plea sounds more like a marketing strategy, a ploy to sell more books, than a sincere desire to empower a common person, to see him or her freed from the shackles of ignorance. After all writers owe everything–money, fame, and power–to readers. They are their lifelines.
Knowledge, which comes out of education, out of information, out of reading, is the only way out for historically suppressed communities. This was what American Talk Show Queen Oprah Winfrey said when she inaugurated a grand ten million dollar school for black children in South Africa last year. No doubt education empowers a society, which in turn creates a coherent and vibrant nation. The health of a nation depends upon how much information tonic its citizens consume everyday. This partly explains why highly developed countries go out of their ways to institute an independent and assertive media. This is why people in Japan have free access to the Internet.
The exile Tibetan community too has witnessed a revolution of sorts in the field of information. Media, both print and electronic, are thriving in our society. Issues that once were taboos are openly discussed in the public these days. Today, we have a plethora of newspapers, journals, magazines, newsletters and Web sites to choose from to broaden our horizons. We can, however, take advantage of these grand facilities if only we make a habit of befriending books. Sadly, we have not achieved a breakthrough in this. Take it or not, reading still eludes the Tibetan people.
Writers, politicians, teachers, parents, friends, colleagues, bosses, all tell us to READ. No one, however, spared a thought for what actually does it takes to become a serious reader. We have read The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and did gain a lot of happiness from it. But so far we have not found a way to get our hands on a book called The Art of Reading. We do have workshops, training and crash courses organized on theories of management, administration and conflict resolution. It would do a world of good if we could also have the same for this elusive thing called READING!
(The views in this article are those of the writer, not necessarily those of the Central Tibetan Administration.)