BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The rainy season in Ethiopia usually gives rise to many expectations as public activities assume another dimension. What agitates the public mind these days might be the rise in consumer prices, the breach of peace or the killings of innocent people in certain parts of the country. As if people are tired of these negative events, they tend to change gear and start to think about ‘colder’ issues like the rain, the inner-city floods that started by claiming a number of young lives as soon as the first showers swept through the city that is always ill-prepared for such tragic eventualities.
And now it is business as usual. People are planting tree seedlings and going to bookstores as well as public libraries in order to quench the thirst of the mind. Recently, the rainy seasons have established a pattern of life style changes that click with the cold and the isolation of people in their houses because of the rains, watching TV or better still, reading books. The book market usually picks up momentum in the rainy season and book seller are apparently doing good business despite the galloping inflation that is making it harder to make additional expenditures outside food and other essentials of daily life.
“Plant tree seedlings, read books!” This slogan should be the painted on billboards and at every street corner across the nation. One may however wonder what planting trees and reading books have in common. Both are activities that are undertaken every rainy season with a zeal and commitment unseen during the dry or sunny season. It is as if the rains are inspiring us to take care of nature as well as take care of our minds. In both cases there is a common factor expressed in the word “planting”. Planting trees and planting knowledge are similar in the sense that the former feeds us with oxygen while the latter provides us with spiritual oxygen that is vital for a vigorous and productive life.
The rainy season in Ethiopia ushers in a three month national campaign of planting tree seedlings, although the process is repeated every year without conducting a thorough and critical appraisal of the previous season’s activities and results or without drawing a balance sheet of the positive and negative elements of the experience. In this rainy season for instance, it is planned to plant 16 billion tree seedlings without estimating how many of them would grow into full-fledged trees or how many of them would perish in the course of the coming dry season. The same zeal that animates the friends of nature should also energize them to know the difference their efforts are making so that they would carefully plan their next moves.
The number of seedlings planted every year in Ethiopia is a staggering indeed. Available data indicate that these efforts have started to pay dividends. A few decades ago, Ethiopia’s tree resources were depleted to such an extent that only 4 per cent of the original forests were still alive while the rest have perished. This is now changing and communities are starting to understand the benefits of trees to maintaining the natural ecology.
Without going into the detailed science of afforestation, we can say that “Trees give off oxygen that we need to breathe. Trees reduce the amount of storm water runoff, which reduces erosion and pollution in our waterways and may reduce the effects of flooding. Many species of wildlife depend on trees for habitat. Trees provide food, protection, and homes for many birds and mammals.” Planting tree seedlings should not however turn into a seasonal fancy but a culture deeply ingrained in the struggle for ecological survival not only in Ethiopia but also in the world as a whole.
What is the point of planting so many seedlings knowing that many of them will perish as soon as the sunny season will set in? By the same token, there is no point in reading dozens of books during the raining days if you forget half of what you read when summer comes or you don’t make use of your readings when you go back to school or work. Reading books is a pleasure in its own right. Yet, it also meets some utilitarian purpose like improving our lives or acquiring more wisdom.
Tree planting may also be a messy task with the rain pouring on your head and your hands deep in muddy soil and your wet shoes sending cold signals up your legs. No positive activity is without risk or some form of pain. Yet, planting trees is also a pleasant work that adds purpose to our lives. Trees are beautiful to see, keep the climate cool and most of all; they help maintain the ecological balance in the long ran.
As we said, tree seedlings and books may be different in their physical nature but there is something they share between them in their objectives. Tree seedlings are planted to rejuvenate nature and protect it from drought and its consequences while books are read in order to fight ‘the drought of the mind’ that may even have more serious consequences on human activities. The absence of trees might lead to drought and food crisis as it was the case in the past. The absence of wisdom in our lives might spell more serious trouble.
On the other hand lack of reading creates a barren mind that might be a vehicle for all kinds of wrong ideas and misleading emotions with dire consequences on the nation. It may not make much sense to count the number of tree seedlings planted every year as it would be ridiculous to collect millions of books without knowing how many people are reading them; unless we are collecting them for future generations.
Although comparative data is not available to gauge the number of planted seedlings that will survive the dry season, we may have empirical evidence as to how many book warms use public libraries in a given season. In order to count the surviving seedlings, you have to go to the fields and see what happens with your own eyes. You may know how many books are read every rainy season without moving from your library office by counting attendance or on the basis of available data.
The newly-built Abrehot public librariy is doing a good job in collecting books from donors and keep them for users. The public response was positive and expectations very high. The slogan about a million books for the millennium generation has caught the imagination of all those involved in this grand project. What matters more than anything now is to inspire people to read more books. There is a logistic problem involved here.
Given the ongoing public transport nightmares, not everyone is capable of reveling to Abrehot to read books even if they have the inspiration to do so. One option could be to kind of decentralize Abrehot into smaller public libraries located in the ten or eleven zones in Addis Ababa so that potential book reader could go to the library that is nearest to their houses.
This cannot be done automatically because it requires additional financial and other resources before those smaller libraries would be opened at zonal levels. Perhaps the city administration might initiate the implementation of such a plan. This is a long-term project of course but one has to explore it starting from now. Otherwise the books collected at Abrehot Library might be lying idly for some time for lack of readers. This is also similar to the act of checking whether all the tree seedlings are producing the expected results by managing them properly.
By the way, what happened to the book exhibitions and sales that used to take place every year at this time? Has the current inflation hit the book industry and pushed book prizes beyond the financial means of book lovers? Book exhibitions played a positive role in encouraging readers buy books at cheaper prices or at lower prices than in bookshops. Publishers were making good business as book buyers visit the makeshift bookshops at the Exhibition Centre more frequently. Bigger and smaller booksellers could also benefit from book exhibitions and transactions that take place during the rainy season.
There is a vigorous public interest in the other arts forms like music and festivals are often organized by private promotion companies mainly because the financial stakes are high. We are constantly bombarded by adverts inviting us to pay a lot of money and enjoy food and music every week or on every public holiday. There is no such promotional work when it comes to books maybe because the stakes are low and attendance may not be as large as food and music festivals although the entrance fees are damn expensive and beyond the financial means most urbanites. But there is no reason we cannot try a books festival in order to see how books fare during public gatherings and we may drastically reduce the entrance fees in order to attract the average book readers.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 15 JULY 2022
