Cultivating reading culture is key to reviving passion and interest for Literature

There is this question, which has severally been asked, in agony. Why is literature lessening in popularity as a subject for students? In my A-level, I happened to come from a class of more than 90 Arts students. Out of this, only about 15 of us had Literature in our combination. While subjects like History, Geography, Economics and Divinity boasted of colossal numbers, mostly over 80 students, Literature class, as has always been self-made History in the school, reeked from scarcity of students. Despite this, we only had one consistent teacher to handle us on most of the books, including poetry. A few others were hired, but the administration blamed the situation on the dearth of Literature teachers.

From my experience at the time, Literature students used to be held in high esteem as they were thought to have one of the heaviest reading schedules. The argument of many other students on why they could not take Literature is because of the numerous books, some of which, like Jane Eyre and The Grapes of Wrath were too voluminous. The Beautiful Ones Are Not yet Born was termed, even by Literature students themselves as complex and myriad of imagery and symbolism. Poetry on the other hand is regarded as complex. They fail to understand that reading does not merely require passion. It requires a positive attitude towards whatever genre one wants to read. The fact that many students have a negative attitude towards Literature, which though they admire, they fear to take on as part of their subject combination.

Reading culture is lacking in this case. This should begin right from the time child begins to read. While I was still in primary, reading used to be a routine, there was time, purely dedicated to reading. The school would buy the necessary story (some of the most popular ones used to be the Moses Series, by Barbara Kimenye, an East African Author) books and make it a point that each pupil has something to read, besides the usual textbooks. I hardly notice the same culture in progress nowadays.

This is what has continued to make Literature a less popular subject by the wake of everyday. Reading culture has not been cultivated from the elementary stage of schooling. The pupils and students are not encouraged to read. They over dwell on textbook reading, and in most cases, they rely on mere 'spoon feeding' geared solely to excelling. That is why the universities and other institutions of higher learning keep receiving a bunch of half-baked high school students who can hardly do research on their own. For their 'good' grades, they get matriculated to the institutions of higher learning, but can hardly construct a sentence. Most of them are heavily handicapped by mother tongue pronunciation of English.

For the lack of reading, the children grow up knowing it is not a big deal to read story books or literature genres. It is a big deal! No wonder, in the 1960's Taban Lo Liyong' decried that East Africa is a literary desert. This ‘desert’ does not grow from nowhere. It begins with the lose of interest in reading. This trend needs to change once and for all. The education system should first and foremost encourage the reading culture amongst the students. Students should be encouraged to take up Literature en masse. More teachers need be trained to specialise in teaching Literature. More genres especially by local authors should be emphasised in order to revive the spirit and passion in the subject.

Joshua Masinde

Economic case of defilement is mere juvenile prostitution

'Defilement commercialised’ is a thorn in the flesh of good morals. The story, carried out in the Daily Monitor, 27th June, shows how our society is becoming a man eat offspring society. It’s an abuse of fundamental human rights, in this case, the rights of the girl child being used as a commodity of promiscuity for money. Why should guardians or whatever parties involved, use their young girls as investment in juvenile prostitution? Is it a failure on the part of the laws, law enforcers, the guardians of such innocent victims or lack of laws to curb this trend once and for all?

Definitely, this is a failure, first on the part of the guardians who would rather get cash out of the defiler other than take the matter beyond their irrational heads. Such guardians have lost both morals and concern for their children. They have adorned the garb of greed and ignorance. However greedy or hungry a dog is, it cannot feast on its offspring. But, in the face of a civilised society, defilers are getting away with it. The defiled remain in the hands of fate, nursing their trauma and demoralised innocence. In most cases, they live which such trauma into their adulthood and this affects their relationship with the opposite gender.

For defilement to take on such a commercialised course, the guardians and the defilers, just like entrepreneurs, take risks and seem to engage in healthy business. They bury their heads in the sand to the penalty that defilement carries, ‘sentence to death’ verses the lucrative part of defilement: some cash to shove the defiler into freedom. The defiler gets away with it regardless the number of minors he defiles.

It might be the case of morals becoming so cheap that they can be sleazed with a little money.

Some of the legislatures’ argument on enabling easier conditions for bail to decongest overcrowded courts and prison systems is irrational. It is merely used as a scapegoat to condone ‘commercialisation of defilement.’ Such escapist approaches in dealing with the issue account for the acceleration in defilement and rape cases reported. Any sound minded person cannot even give this consideration a thought other than dismissing it for sadism. If not, just like the law on adultery which was scrapped, the law on defilement might also be headed for the same fate.

Stiffer penalties should be enforced and executed by the courts of law. However big the number of defilers is, they all need to face true justice that reflects their offences. In any case, there is big enough land for construction of prisons to accommodate the defilers. But, if rational heads together with the laws are buried in the sand, defilement and rape cases will continue to thrive. It will even be economically than criminally sounding and viable.

Joshua Masinde

Challenges of Current Population Upswing

'Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth…” seems to have been taken very seriously as Ugandan population is estimated to be at 30.9 million. The United Nations Population Fund report in the New Vision on the 27th June, got me thinking how fertile the Ugandan population is. The said 7.1 births per woman is an explosive figure in a contemporary society. Though, this is a good sign of a healthy population, some issues need be addressed.

How will an estimated population of 130 million people by the year 2030 be taken care of? The dependent population, which accounts for the 50.4% of the total population is in itself a dependency burden. The population explosion as seen in the current growth rate of 3.6%, the world’s second largest after Burundi's 3.7%, will yield over-dependence burden on the economic muscle of the households and the government. The land, natural resources, infrastructure, social institutions like schools and hospitals will surely reek from the overweight of over-dependence and exploitation by the colossal population.

Households with bigger numbers of children cater for will no doubt be relegated to more impoverished status. Their capacity to save and invest will be constrained due to over-strain on their incomes. Heavy government expenditure on the needs of its colossal population, for instance, education, health care, infrastructure and security is limited. This puts the national resources at the risk of quick depletion, with the numerous needs of the population still unmet. The government capacity to save and invest in the economy is also hampered.

With the 3.6% population growth, the Millennium Development Goals will be far from reach. The immense needs of the big population become a pipe dream on which our development aspirations face their death.

With the population of 130 million people at 2030, how is the government going to provide and sustain the Universal Primary Education and the Universal Secondary Education?

The current and obvious trend in economic development and growth shows that reduced population growth complements sustainable development. The developed countries boast of the most minimal or relatively negative population growth and sounding economies. The dependent population is about 25% of the total population. The economically active and productive population constitutes the largest portion of the population. This reflects minimal dependency syndrome.

In order to address the challenges of population upswing, the government needs to reinforce mechanisms like education of the masses on the importance of population regulation, education and economic empowerment of women. People driven laws and policies need be formulated to set the maximum number of children a family should have. Raising the minimum matrimony age for girls from sixteen should be considered. Family planning methods should be encouraged. Religious leaders should have a stake in this in the case of Catholicism which does not condone birth control methods. The high costs incurred in family planning should be addressed. Above all, cultural practices like polygamy should be discouraged.

With all these in place, come 2030, the Ugandan population might still be 31 million rather than the projected 130 million!

Joshua Masinde

Burying our heads in the sand

While watching "Miss HIV", a documentary on HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa, I felt sympathetic. It's not for the reason that the scourge is at its best to inflict its wrath on our generations. My sympathy arose from the colossal exit of my fellow campusers from the auditorium where the documentary was being shown.

In this era of HIV AIDS, it is sad many students fear to know the truth about the scourge. This rules out their capacity to be better equipped to take on the challenge in the fight the AIDS scourge.

I stayed put. In mind, there lay my sympathy as the fellows, either pricked by the reality on the ground or afraid to face the grim reality passed on to them, marched out like a flock of sheep. It is universal truth that knowledge is power. The documentary, which highlighted HIV AIDS as a crisis to our existence, should have been regarded as the best of opportunities to show-case our yearning for more knowledge on how to fight this scourge. No wonder, it is common knowledge that a large number of campus students are victims of the scourge. They live in fear...afraid of the reality before themselves. No wonder, many more are falling prey to the scourge and the numbers are soaring each day.

This arises from ignorance and lack of knowledge. In the library of Books, God says that 'My people' perish for lack of knowledge.

During my orientation days as a fresher, the head of our department disclosed that most of us had come to campus with fresh blood. But, by the end of our course, more than 40% of us will certainly be HIV+. Many students in campus dread the disclosure of such knowledge about HIV AIDS to them. In addition, a majority of them end up falling victims courtesy of their ignorance.

It is a pity that some of us will never live for long to enjoy the fruits of our sweat. If we shall be lucky enough to be settled down in matrimony, kids coming along, it is certain that those kids might never embrace the chance to live under our guard. It is not a dream to find the young ones being taken care of by the old generation. The parents, who sired such innocent kids will for the lack of knowledge, perhaps have perished. The kids would be lucky to live under their grandparents' care.

My sympathy lies herein my heart still. However, there is a long way to go. The reality is on the ground. It helps a lot for knowledge seekers to stay put and absorb the knowledge passed onto them. It is sad for them to flock out en masse with the idea that they are escaping bitter reality. The days when we buried our heads in the sand are long gone. Such are times when we showed reality that we can stand the test of fear and let the enemy come in whatever form. Let the enemy come. We shall be well prepared. Assuredly, the so-called HIV AIDS enemy will fling to seven directions.

Joshua Masinde

Trends in the electronic age

The rate at which our world has gone into the electronic age (e-age), is eyebrow raising. The slow times are gradually demystifying out of the way. Life is now fast paced. No wonder, the 24 hours we are blessed for a day seem never enough for our never-ending multiple tasks.

The e-age has unveiled the trend of curiosity and detailed scrutiny into issues and events. Most of the e-age experts use it to rediscover both the past and to predict the future. In the good old days, most fellows explored their past glories, gloomy occasions and events through story-telling.

The future was predicted upon the observation of certain events, weather patterns and certain environmental trends. For instance, the sight of clouds in the high atmosphere or the mass migration of birds from one end of the world to the other denoted that rain would come. This was an invaluable art of indigenous weather forecast, which has sunk into the past. The e-age has phased it out of the way. Now, what can a mass of fog in the high atmosphere suggest in this e-age but massive pollution that exist in our environment?

The e-age presents people with the art of self-discovery. Despite the fact that it has opened the accounts of people’s life to the public in a wide sphere, it has turned the world into a tiny village of myriad complexities.

Coming to think of it, this trend is irreversible. No matter how much tears we shed or how many wars we engage in, to alleviate the effects of the e-age, the water has already flowed under the bridge. It is positive to note that some people can monitor their homes from thousands of miles away. Courtesy of internet search engines like Google Earth and Yahoo, they are updated by each second on what is going on in their homes, compounds et al.

Some spies or detectives can monitor ones’ home and private life without ones’ knowledge. They intrude on the inalienable right to privacy since they are crafting a living out of it, or are up to something sinister.

Nowadays, whenever examination results are released, one thing that someone who knows how to take advantage of the e-age can do is to download the results for their beholding. There are the particular ones whose impulse would propel them to want to know how their friend or foe performed. In the case their foe, if the results are damn awful, they will feel happy and spread the tidings. This is unethical since such should be a private issue.

This is something that some ill-intentioned fellows might use to dig in the back of those guys they have beef with. In the long run, you don’t even know who is losing out. This makes me wonder, but had our good old past been with us, we could have advanced in a very unique perspective. The histo-cultural twists and turns of fate instilled a sense of fear, morals and conviction in the minds of the people of the time. The heritage was a boost to their peaceful co-existence. But that we have let that heritage pass by, the centre can now not hold and things have fallen apart.

Joshua Masinde

Is Uganda's creative writing an endangered species?

For creative writing to undergo exponential growth in Uganda, motivation is key to this. Austin Ejiet, the author of Aida, Hurray for Somo and other stories and a seasoned columnist with the Daily Monitor points out in a rather dispassionate manner. His sombre mood reflects the disheartening state of creative writing in Uganda. He seems rather displeased with this situation.
“Creative writing is an endangered species in Uganda.” He attributes this grave situation to lack of incentives like prizes allotted to creative works to spur many people to venture into creative writing.

He credits Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s literary growth to the international sphere because of the motivation that spurred him into serious creative writing.

“Ngugi wrote Weep Not Child while he was in North Court Hall.” (Currently, Nsibirwa Hall, at Makerere University). The purpose for writing the novel was “to win the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature,” Ejiet points out. “He won it and that is why he didn’t stop writing.” He notes that Uganda has a poor History of rewarding creative writers. Musicians get better rewards and that is why most of them continue singing and live off music.

The government should come up with incentives to recognise creative works. Corporate like the MTN, Celtel and Mango should also consider setting aside rewards to recognise some of the best creative works in Uganda.

The aspect of survival has also been unfavourable to the growth of creative writing in Uganda. Most people are too busy figuring out ways of surviving rather than sitting down to write say, a poem. He sights his own example when he had a 25-year teaching stint at Makerere University.

He would start work at 8 pm and 5 pm. To him, that was too exhaustive to create any room for creative writing. The 25 years were kind of wasted in terms of his creative output.

The publishing industries also play a role in foreseeing the dying spirit of creative writing. Ninety percent of the proceeds from any creative works go to the publisher, while the author takes away a meagre ten percent.

The lack of a writers’ council or a national writers’ association has similarly foreseen a major slump in creative writing in Uganda. Were there such associations, they would practically encourage the growth of creative writing talent and support such talent to crawl out of the woods into the light of the world. They would act as the mouthpiece of the creative writers in major aspects of their ventures.

Ejiet also sights out the visual arts as a major competitor to creative writing. In the contemporary society, many people are comfortable watching pornography than sitting down to read a 500-page book.

Nevertheless, “creative writing is not a dead force in Uganda.” While he was the head of the Literature Department at Makerere University, he designed a creative writing course in 1991, though it never survived to date. Creative writing, though, has given him name recognition. The name recognition helped him gain some money sent from Japan to honour his creative writing zeal.

“The rewards do not come in ones lifetime,” he says.

He says there has been a concerted and painful progress in African writing. However, much of such writing has been the copycat of the Achebe, p’Bitek, Soyinka and Ngugi classics.

“Creative writers should come up with new and appealing genres to set a unique system of creative works. Most of the earlier African writing dwelt intensively on colonialism. This has been overtaken by events.

“Creative writing is different from writing a historical piece. In creative writing, especially on current issues, one should endeavour to keep in touch with current events. A short story would do better here.” It takes a leisurely pace, a day or a week to write a short story unlike a novel, which takes a long time, even five years!

He gives an example of Nuruddin Farah. His writing focussed on Said Barre and his tyranny while he was Somali president.

“Despite being a very bright fellow, he has nothing to say because Barre is no more.” The events during Barre’s tyrannical regime were overtaken by History.

“If you want to write a novel, look at issues in the fullness of events.”

There is so much to write about, Ejiet hints. “Life is the raw material for all literature.” That explains why most of his writings especially the short stories focus on the varied situations and absurdities in life. He employs satire to unveil the injustices in everyday life. “You can write about the most sacrilegious thing and get away with it.

Not all is lost, though. He still nurses his disappointment on the desperate situation of the Ugandan creative works, which do not retain a hold as set books in the syllabus.

“Why do they keep recycling Western classics?” There are good published writers in Uganda. Some of them have ten titles to their name but none of their books is a set book. He looks forward to the day when Ugandan creative works will be given uniform importance as the Western creative works.

Joshua Masinde

Young Enterpreneurs

I am amused at the level of expertise some of my fellow campusers can exhibit when it comes to innovation and creativity. There is this fellow who has mastered the art of entrepreneurship. I personally have a long-term dream to be a successful entrepreneur but I do not know exactly what I can lay my hands on and be successful as such.

I could not even initially think which kind of business this guy had in mind. I thought he would start up a small kiosk or a video shop for that matter. I thought of this since a course mate has opted to be a part time barber. I don't feel his business will survive the wave of a clique of friends who usually come for free shaves. Has shaved my hair twice free of charge.

That aside, Mr. Desire, the young entrepreneur am talking about has set up, not a small kiosk, but a website (http://www.urdesire.com/). Courtesy of some miserable tycoons in town, he has set up the website in order to facilitate easy access to campus babes. There has been an exponential demand and desire for campus babes by some affluent sugar daddies in town. The only setback to them is they have found it difficult to access their prospective clients.

The photos and addresses of the campus babes willing to have a share of the affluence of the tycoons will be posted on the website.

The sugar daddies have pooled a lot of money for the maintenance of the website. They will also facilitate its launch as soon as everything is put in order.

This entrepreneurship venture has inspired me a great deal. I think I should tread an entrepreneurship path in order to earn recognition and a fat wallet. I am now contemplating seriously of creating another personal web-blog (not a website because I don't know when I will afford it) where sugar mummies can hook up campus boys!

Joshua Masinde,

Appeared in Campo Vibe (BUZZ MAGAZINE, SN 27/5/07)

Prejudices and Divides

The traditional ulcer that lies beneath our diverse differences is labelled out in prejudice. Though, it is characteristic of every society at any given time, it seems to have deepened its existence within us. This was a creation of nature but we complicated its essence and attached a negative perspective to such differences.

We were once born into this world naked and innocent, but our society gave us clothes and taught us wicked ways. The innocence we were born with was stronger than any social, political and economic demarcation.

As we grew up, the process of socialisation opened our eyes wide to the reality of prejudices and divides we live with. A turn about ourselves brought into sight a society deeply cut into segments. We could not resist to assimilate such lesser values since a precedent had already been set before us.

In this Pearl of Africa, just like in most other African countries, deeply rooted cases of ethnicity and separitism are still existant. They span from the political heights to the cultural circles. Cultural and ethnic groups treat each other with suspicion. One group believes they are more significant than their brothers and sisters elsewhere. And so, they think their identity will be more pronounced if they are apportioned a federation to propel their destiny. That is pure fodder for more divides and prejudices.

Lecturer Dixon Kamukama, while presenting a lecture on 'The Ethnic Factor in our Governance and Development in Uganda and the Way Forward' noted: 'There is an unofficial negative attitude towards certain sections of our community in Uganda .' Everywhere you turn, you are met by an eye of suspicion and mistrust. This emanates from the attitude ‘we’ perceive towards certain ethno-cultural orientations. He further noted that '...if these are not tamed (they) could lead one to having a negative attitude or become intolerant to others or have prejudice.

The tradional North-South divide breaks the ranks of such prejudice that has become a norm within us. Those from the South of our pearl of Africa think they are blessed with fertile land, peace, education et al and are different from their ‘less’ fortunate brohters and sisters in the North. This brings about a whole basement of animosity, unrest and political severence.

It was about time we redifined our differences and made use of such privilege for the sake of our wellbeing. Our brotherliness is deeply rooted where we consider to exist diveristy and differences. We are one people. There is more to our differences than the mere prejudices and divides we attach to them. In fact, the world would be a dull place if such differences never existed at all.

The basic thing is to use our rational mind to harmonise our existence with one another. Just imagine having the Pearl of Africa devoid of sharp prejudices and divisions, where would we be today?

Joshua Masinde,
seejmasinde@yahoo.com