READING IS OUR CULTURE, Ntate Es'kia Mphahlele said so.

Reading is our culture, we did not start it, it is Es’kia Mphahlele who said we should read and the voices of our ancestors always make sense.

Ezekial Es’kai Mphahlele before he left us to join our ancestors left us a message, which always connects us with him in spirit. He said we should read, and he emphasised that “once a person has learned to read, there is no limit to how much he or she can grow in knowledge and the power to use it.” Ezekiel Eskia Mphahlele was the FIRST BLACK PROFESSOR at WITS (University of Witwatersrand), where he founded the African Literature Department. It is from him we learned the paramount importance of reading and engaging text, and I hope this writing will provoke some of you to start reading if you have not yet started, and also to motivate those already engaging texts to continue to empower themselves. What I am trying to achieve is very simple; I want to encourage people to read so that they can empower themselves and those around them.

We should first acknowledge that, for everything to be intelligible or to make sense in this world, we first have to bring it to language, which implies that reading and writing will always be important to human race for as long as it exists. We will not be able to make sense of words if we do not know what they mean, and it will even be worse if we do not have those words to identify objects. Es’kia Mphahlele was always concerned about deteriorating moral values among Africans and I reckon that there is nothing that Africans can refer to in trying to understand who they are and where they are going. There are few books written in African languages which again suggest that our languages are on soon to be extinct, and yes I mean it. If you and I do not start writing in our languages, who will? Let us ask ourselves that question and in answering that question we should answer it in our African Indigenous languages.

We will only be able to conserve and preserve our ancestral knowledge and indigenous languages if we start growing interest in reading. We should read like we urinate and write like we eat. In the mission of encouraging the culture of reading we should all sing like a child of Thabampshe (Ga-Sefoka), Ga-Masemola, in Sekhukhune (Limpopo) who his favourite song is: “I will rather go to bed without eating food than to go to bed without reading a book.” Reading comes first because before you can write, you first have to know how to read. I think the best gift or the best form of gratitude we can show to our ancestors like Es’kia Mphahle is to not praise them, but act like them, do like them and live a purposeful life like them. “Mediro ya bolela,” (Actions speaks louder than words). In preserving and storing knowledge we will not only be empowering ourselves, we will also be ensuring that our children and the children of our children will know the truth about their past. Let us be inspired by Ntate Mphahlele and tell our stories in our own way, no one will stop us, because we are doing it for both our ancestors and children. If Ntate Mphahlele gave us hope for a better future, ours is to prepare it for our children, so that they will be born in a beautiful world full of dream and hopes.

Mafule Phaahle Moswane always shouts that we should “start acting today for the changes that we want to see tomorrow,” what he is saying is that “you should be the change you want to see in this world,” like Mahatma Gandhi puts it. In my time on earth I vow to act in a manner that my children will not be disappointed, I pledge that I will do it for them. I do not think there is any parent who will leave his/her children suffering to safe my own. If we do not do it for our ancestors who loved us and our children who we love, let us ask ourselves-“who will?” Let us do it for our people. Imagine yourself being educated and informed, you will be one of the most useful people in the world. As an individual you will not be misled, and in society you will be able to guide, help and clarify those who need assistance. If your community does not have the library, be the library, our library was Ntate Mphahlele. You will not know most things until you read, unless you do not want to know, but IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE, YOU NEED TO LEARN MORE. IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE, YOU HAVE TO READ MORE. Take it from Morelearn Mafule Moswane. If you read fellow brother and sister, you will not only be building your own capacity but people in your life will benefit also. The knowledge you acquire by reading extensively and constantly materials of your choice will also allow you to be able to help your children with homework and assignments one day. You will not have to send your children next door to the neighbour who might not want to assist your child despite the knowledge they have. Let us do it for our children.

When you read, read many types of books so that you do not be the subject of Manichean thinking, you should understand many perspectives so that when you make decisions they are informed, when you make argument it is a cogent one. This is all for your benefit and all the people you love. Mafule Phaahle wa Thabampshe is saying this on behalf of his hero and ancestor Ntate Mphahlele. He encourages us to read because he will like us to know what is happening around us. The story of Ezekiel Es’kia Mphahle is beautiful inspiring story, it is a story worth telling, and it is a story of victory, glory and success. It did not end with him, his voice reaches us every day, he wants libraries and we know very well that “THE STORY IS STILL UNFOLDING, THE BEST IS YET TO COME, AND THE BEST PAGES OF OUR LIVES are yet to be written.”

Es’kia Mphahlele Dumela

Phaahle wa Thabampshe Sekhukhune Dumela

Afrika dumela

“Bjang kapa bjang, kae kapa kae, neng kapa neng. Ee go a direga, ee go a kgonega, ee ke a DUMELA!!