Kelvin Nyamache: Why A Country That Does Not Read Cannot Be Free

It has often occurred to me, while watching the noisy ambitions of modern statesmen and the breathless scurry of the multitude after the illusions of political triumph, that the real work of building a nation is done in silence, by minds better engaged in thought than in parade. It is a melancholy observation, but one that insists on being made, that the more a people loses its familiarity with the habit of reading, the more it surrenders itself to charlatans who peddle hope without instruction, and slogans without meaning.

There was a time, not very long ago in the measurement of history, when to read was counted a virtue, and to think was considered the first mark of a citizen. In those days, books were kept close to the hearth, and learning was spoken of with the kind of reverence now reserved for fleeting riches and vulgar fame. But time, like a careless housemaid, time has scattered those treasures and left behind a country where loudness is mistaken for leadership and ignorance walks brazenly down the avenues of power.

It requires no acute observer to notice that in Kenya today, reading has been relegated to the domain of examination rooms and neglected libraries, while the public square has been surrendered to the shallow clamour of half-baked opinions. The citizen no longer wrestles with ideas; he recites catchphrases. He no longer labours through argument; he tweets affirmations.

In such a country, freedom cannot but suffer.

Freedom is not the child of chants and slogans. It is the grandchild of thought, and thought is the child of reading. When Plato proposed that a republic could only be truly governed by philosopher-kings, he did not mean that philosophers must wear purple robes and sit in ivory towers; he meant that the habits of reflection, of deep and careful consideration, must precede the exercise of power. People who abandon the book also abandon the capacity for resistance, the appetite for truth, and the longing for betterment.

In the absence of reading, what rises instead is the cheap dramatics of politicians, the coarseness of public discourse, and the blind acceptance of whatever gospel is shouted loudest. The man who does not read will believe anything; he will follow anyone; he will vote for anyone. He becomes a subject of manipulation, a clay in the hands of unworthy masters.

History offers too many and too painful. Tyrannies, when they take root, are often preceded by an assault on thought. In Rwanda, propaganda killed the mind before it killed the body. In Nazi Germany, books were burned before men were. Colonial masters forbade reading in the vernacular precisely because they feared what knowledge might spark in the souls of the oppressed.

Here in Kenya, it is a bitter irony that the chains once broken by readers of Marx, of Fanon, of Nyerere, are now being refashioned by a generation whose literacy barely surpasses the ability to read text messages. Where the mind has been starved, the will must soon follow.

I recall, with no small measure of sadness, the old men of Gusiiland — men whose education was often but a few stolen years in missionary schools, yet who treasured every book they laid hands on. They understood, instinctively, that to know was to resist. They understood, even without the luxuries of the modern age, that reading was the anchor of dignity. One of them, my grandfather, often said to me: “a child who does not read cannot fight for his future.”

How different from the child of today, who marches to political rallies in the sun, chanting songs he cannot explain, celebrating leaders he cannot question, surrendering his destiny to merchants of deceit.

The consequences are visible everywhere. In Parliament, where grandiloquence has replaced wisdom. In the markets, where superstition thrives unchecked. In homes, where education is seen as a ticket to employment, but seldom as a discipline of character. In society, where fame has overtaken integrity as the chief measure of a life well lived.

Meanwhile, the budget is passed in the dead of night, the constitution is amended with casual contempt, and public resources are squandered with the glee of drunkards at a village feast. And the people cheer, or shrug, or weep quietly into their pillows, because they have long forgotten how to think, and therefore how to resist.

The societies that endure, that flourish, that build pyramids and parliaments and philosophies, are those where reading is a public habit and reflection a private duty. One cannot point to America’s Federalist Papers, or Britain’s Magna Carta, or India’s Non-Cooperation Movement, without also pointing to the books that nourished them.

In contrast, what nourishment does a Kenyan citizen now receive? Facebook posts. WhatsApp forwards. Shallow manifestos and even shallower promises. The mind, deprived of nourishment, atrophies. The nation, deprived of thinking citizens, crumbles.

It is therefore not merely a cultural loss when reading declines; it is a political catastrophe.

No police force, no constitution however robust, no army however disciplined, can defend a nation whose people have surrendered their minds to frivolity. Democracy, liberty, justice — these are not guaranteed by paper and ink, but by a vigilant and thinking populace.

Thus, if Kenya is to survive the storms that gather upon every horizon — tribalism, corruption, inequality, ignorance — it must return to the humble, stubborn habit of reading. We must teach our children that a book is a weapon. We must teach our leaders that a speech unaccompanied by knowledge is but noise. We must teach ourselves that reading is no luxury, no pastime of the idle, but the most urgent political act of our age.

The man who does not read is easily ruled.

The woman who does not read is easily cheated.

The nation that does not read is already enslaved.

Let every village revive its libraries. Let every town build book clubs with as much zeal as it builds churches. Let every schoolmaster, every parent, every chief, every preacher, every legislator, understand that the future will belong to those who read it into existence.

Otherwise, we shall continue, like drunkards in a storm, to stumble from one crisis to another, forever blaming fate, while the real culprit stares us in the face — our own abandoned minds.

A country that does not read cannot be free.

It can only dream of freedom, while remaining forever a prisoner of its own ignorance.

Author Kelvin Nyamache is the CEO of Edulight International Consultancy, is a teacher and life coach based in Nairobi Kenya

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