Domorri Foday, an Anthropologist by profession (a social media commentator and supposedly an activist ), unabashedly once said to me that he could only read if he is getting paid. I gathered that some Gambians do not like reading, representing an attitude that has ingrained itself in our collective consciousness.

People in this part of the world do not read. It follows that they do not write because writing is the consequence of reading widely and reflecting on the data gleaned thereof to reorganise it into a new form of knowledge. 

I did not get to ask why we cannot read unless we are getting paid for it or why we do it only to pass a mandatory exam. However, I figure it is because there is little material profit to get from reading. Or writing. Or any suchlike literary excursions. 

However, to believe that infers a small-mindedness that will cost us in several ways, chiefly, in the area of sociopolitical progress.

Hence the many contradictions of our blighted existence in the Gambia. Boastful public anti-intellectualism and romanticisation and public display of ignorance – “I do not read! This essay is too long! – Facebook is for social interaction, and please do not post long essays and showcase your brilliance: people screaming “aluta” on social media. 

People who live for religious zealotry, hate, and hate based on ethnicity and faith also go about screaming aluta.

Education, real education, remains the greatest weapon against hate, ignorance, religious fundamentalism, disguised misogyny, and tribal bigotry. 

Moreover, this is where our generation still has not come to terms with its failures in the Gambian national project. We are raising the younger generations who are so totally defined by hate for hate’s sake. 

We watch all the purulence on social media, gnash their teeth, and shake their heads without understanding that they are responsible to a great extent for this state of affairs. 

This is why a widely read person is an enlightened mind. He is not susceptible to the wiles of cunning politicians and cannot suffer the inefficiencies of government. He is out there, reforming institutions, reshaping policy, articulating ideals for right living, and agitating for better service delivery.

Say half of the Gambian population got a hold of Eric Hoffer’s ideas strewn across his many books, we’d be more politically conscious in the sense that we will understand the magnetic pull of larger-than-life figures like some of the political leaders, and why we are ready to lay down our lives in their service ….even when they are mostly ineffective as leaders.

Say half of the Gambian populace read Ernest Becker, we’d know why we hate each other (ethnic divisions), why we need devils in our lives (projection), why we follow charismatic individuals.

Say half of the Gambian population read Hans Roslings’ Factfulness and Prof Steve Pinker’s Enlightenment Now, we’d understand that the world is becoming better (despite the barrage of news data which seems to indicate otherwise), we’d believe in the progress and listen less to doomsday prophets and media that majors on bad news, and we’d come to see, as St. Augustine saw centuries ago in his book The City of God, that history is advancing slowly, and gradually, towards more refinement in society and culture, and the city of God on EARTH …what you may call a utopic vision.

These things enlighten us. Moreover, they tell us we have a part to play in the unfolding of history and the establishment of a better world than the one we inherited. They emancipate our minds from capitalist concerns that are major, if solely, on the accumulation of money and wealth.

Let’s read …even if it is not examinable, or it won’t immediately positively change our bank account balance because we have to fight myths, falsehoods, doomsday media/cults, and backward ideas with information. Furthermore, that takes reading.

By Alagi Yorro Jallow