DWC Library week- Reading makes changes

On Sunday, 10 April 2011, as part of the recent kicked off event “The DWC Library week ”, I have to say that I attended one of the ultimate motivational lectures in my life, it was given by an inspirational guest speaker, Mr.Mohamed Al Hammadi. He is the Editor in Chief of National Geographic Al Arabia, the Arabic version of National Geographic magazine, which was launched in October 2010. Students from several departments attended the lecture, and they all were eager to meet the lecturer for they heard lots of great news about his writings and thoughts.

Mr. Al Hammadi inaugurated the “Library week” event and activates through his Arabic speech that was titled under “The importance of reading” .He wanted to raise awareness among students about the serious impact of the lack of reading in our Arabic societies and enrich the students’ minds through promoting libraries and books as a social concepts.

He introduced the National Geographic magazine in Al Arabiya to the audiences, and highlighted the main features that differ his magazine from other existing magazines from the numerous topics it profiles, to the well-known article writers and beneficial discussions. Even though the magazine is considered slightly new to the market, 25 thousands copy from its seventh addition has been sold in response to the high demands. And the reason is that the content of the magazine does not exist in any other Arabic magazines. He really encouraged us to pick a copy and spend time with it not to market his job, but to enrich our mental capabilities for our own sakes.

But the one most surprising point he mentioned was the average of Arabs who read comparing to the western regions. Imagine that An American individual reads 11 books in a year; on the other hand an Arabic person reads only 6 pages in one year!! It means he spend only 7 minutes from his 365 days of the year in reading! It’s seriously insane. It is even incomparable, its shame and lame! How can we the nation called by Prophet Mohammed "امة اقرآ التي لا تقرأ " “Readers Nation” does not read as much as those who doesn’t not believe in Islam and Prophet Mohammed piece be upon him!!

It was a big shock to all of us, but personally I knew deep in heart that it is 110% true since me honestly to start off don’t read!

We all fling baseless accusation to our societies, our schools and parents for not implanting the passion of reading since our childhood. We keep blaming them and disregarding our own essential role in building our knowledge from reading. We have to stop giving excuses and make a change in our Arabic societies by reading. Because reading does not only expand your own knowledge, yet it also opens our eyes on the past, present, and the future. If societies don’t read about history, education, science, heath, earth and everything exist within societies, how can they develop and enrich themselves. Societies with no knowledge will eventually corrupt and collapse if no serious action has been taken toward rising reading awareness among the new generations.

A big example Mr.Mohammed mentioned was one of the topics he discussed in his article, which talked about the current shame conditions that Arab countries fight for. The first Malaysian president who was known for wise and mental intelligence from reading ruled the country for 22 years, had remarked the country and shifted Malaysia from a poor uneducated country to one of the rich cultured and developed countries. On contrary, Yemeni people are protesting against their president, and asking for his resignation for he flipped the country’s culture and condition toward the worse. Mr.Mohammed pointed out that the reason behind it goes back to countries level of reading and cultural developments. If the society including presidents and citizens were rich in culture and knowledge, they would certainly be one of the leading communities in the world.

Thus, reading does not only help in communities, but it also enhance our personal confidence and knowledge in our life as when we read we expand our mental intelligent in things we might not heard or even thought about. In addition, reading develops our negotiating and dialoging skills in life as when we read we understand topics better, and learn how people uses words to convince, debate and make statements.

At the last moment of the lecture, I had no doubt in my mind that Mr.Mohammed made me change my perception of reading and readers. I’ve always thought that reading is something boredom and does not appeal to me among all those other temptations in the current life. Hanging out with friends, chatting on phone and addicting on useless technologies and games are things that have to be put a side, especially at this unstable period of revolutions in the Arab nations. We need to co-operate and work together to get educated and enhance our cultures if we want to lead back our Arabic countries that have been always known at the past for their greatest achievements to their previous statues.