“Mummy, I want a storybook,” the little girl kept asking. She was walking with her mother in one of the parks of Kurdistan’s capital Erbil. The mother answered that she did not need it, and from the way she was talking it was clear she did not really understand what her daughter wanted or why.
That little scene is so abnormal in the Kurdistan Region that it keeps popping up in my mind. A little girl, asking for a book to read whilst walking in a park. In a country where reading is in no way promoted at school, where most schools hardly even have libraries, and where many mothers, like the little girl’s, have not learned to understand the value of books.
In this case, the girl must have seen the book shop outside the park’s gate, another abnormality in a country where most people buy their books at book fairs—the main place for publishers to sell.
A country also where most publishers ask the author to pay for the publishing of his book, as I found out when I tried to get one of mine published recently. Or where in the best possible case, the translator will be paid, but not the writer.
Copyrights here are mostly not adhered to, and foreign writers might not even know their books have been translated and published in Kurdistan.
The war with ISIS and the budget problems between the Baghdad government and the Kurdistan region have made the situation worst. Now even publishers paid by the political parties no longer have money to publish books, let alone pay the author.
People have no money to buy books, I was told. But there is another side to this. At the international book fair in Erbil earlier this year, books with a religious background were sold by the dozens.
So why do people buy books for religion, but hardly for education or enjoyment? It cannot be because of the price, because compared to the rest of the world they are dead cheap—where all prices have risen enormously, those of books have remained low.
Is it because they are so cheap, that people tend to think this cannot be good? As in the changed Kurdish society people now know that quality also costs.
I think the fact that unknown makes unloved, is far more important. The lack of a tradition of reading is a main factor why in a country where so many people write, few get published and even fewer get read.
That tradition starts at home. In a home where books are present, children will read. When parents read to their children before going to bed, those kids will learn to value a book and start reading for themselves as soon as they are able.
The next phase is in school, where teachers should have reading sessions in which they read to the class and ask questions afterwards. They should stimulate children to read by inviting them to tell the class about their favorite books.
As all this does not happen in Kurdistan, children do not get the chance to develop a love for reading. And once they start working on computers they will most probably also not discover it at a later date.
In the long run, that means that the next generations of Kurds are losing the love for books, and that publishers will publish and sell less and less.
And yes, that is a problem. Books are part of a culture, they are even the keepers of that culture. They register lifestyles, thoughts, opinions and developments. They stimulate readers to think and analyze. They can even help people to make important decisions and changes in their lives.
Books are part of the slow life that in the present world is more and more getting lost. They give the reader a chance to relax, to take a break, to move his mind to something else. Research has shown that books stimulate fantasies and creativity.
A society needs its books. That is why I was happy to hear about at least some activities to stimulate reading.
The reading sessions for children a major book shop in Sulaimani is organizing, for instance. The plans inside the Kurdistan government to stimulate book stalls opening up in cafés and outside markets, and the major gift of a businessman to libraries in schools.
I hope that one day, when a little girl in the park asks for a storybook, her mother will say: “Yes honey, let’s get you one, in the book shop outside. And then I will read you a story, here, on the grass.”
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
