Books have always been the joy of my life. My family played a big role in cultivating my long love affair with books. When I was born, my father was 52, ten years older than my mother. He came from a family of Kelantanese religious scholars and small-town nobility, and following family tradition attended an Arabic primary school. However due to lack of funds to further his studies in the Middle East, he had to switch to an English secondary school by changing his age He later went to the University of Malaya (then in Singapore) to read history, and joined the civil service in the early days of independent Malaya.

In the year of my birth, in 1982, my father was already a senior bureaucrat, in his final years of serving his country. He was preoccupied with books - both English and Malay, as well as rediscovering his Arabic - and when other kids were playing with toys and Atari computers, my father dazzled me in conversations on history, politics, religion and culture. My mother and other siblings were avid readers as well, but I was fascinated with the subject matter of my father's readings.

Bibliophile

Slowly, even as I devoured the typical Enid Blytons and Tintins, I began peeking through the dust-covered 1960 set of the Grolier Book of Knowledge, which my parents had bought for my older sisters. The content was redundant, but it was sufficient for a geeky and curious standard one student to read about various interesting subjects: since it was published in 1960, the big issues were the Cold War, the space race, decolonisation and the arrival of the T.V.!

Now, nearly two decades later, I'm still a passionate bibliophile. The Internet has arrived, yet some things remain the same. The Book of Knowledge is still there, but I've assumed a massive collection of books (mainly on history, politics and religion - what else?) of my own. The interest has also spawned a fruitful hobby of writing commentaries on current affairs in the media as well as maintaining a

blog.

We have often been told that reading is an important key to acquiring knowledge, which is true. But the benefits of reading a broad and diverse range of books go even beyond that: it teaches you to be open-minded yet critical, it gives you a strong grasp of the issues, yet the paradox is that at the same time you realise how little you actually know. And without doubt, books give you a strong command of language.

There is an Islamic maxim that reading a book without a teacher is like learning from the Devil himself. This however is not a blanket prohibition on solitary reading; rather it's about the learning of the religious sciences where indeed solitary reading is insufficient to master the depth and breadth of knowledge required. After all, the first revealed verse of the Quran was "Iqra!" or "Read!".

I am reminded of this every time I visited Sheikh Mohammad Afifi al-Akiti, a young erudite Malaysian Islamic scholar based in Oxford. He is widely-read and commands a huge collection of books in his personal library in Oxford. Hence, the esteemed Sheikh is able to convincingly write in a moderate, intelligent manner true to the traditions of Islam. His vast knowledge makes his writing far more credible than the angry rants you get from your ubiquitous Muslim polemicist.

Choices

In many ways things are getting better for bibliophiles in Malaysia: in addition to MPH and second hand stalls in Central Market, KL or Chowrasta, Penang we now have the likes of international bookshops Kinokuniya and Borders; along with our own Silverfish and Skoob. I've noticed that more Malaysians are reading on the LRT as well, which, although it differs in scale, reminds me of bookish London commuters.

Blogs, a product of the Internet, allows for serious conversations to take place between Malaysians and beyond on books and ideas in a scale previously unimaginable.

But the number of Malaysians who read serious books - fiction or non-fiction - is still too small. I'm not talking about literacy, but rather, literary rates. The trivial polemics that dominate our daily life is a testimony to this malaise. We love books of self-help, not self-realisation. Compare the intellectual environment in Malaysia with that of neighbouring Indonesia (whose intelligentsia generally still

communicate in Malay, mind you!) and we instantly pale in comparison. Just as the Internet allows for interesting blogs to emerge; it allows so much hate-mongering, mind-numbing sensationalised rubbish to be forwarded in e-mails. Unfortunately, too many of this is taken seriously by even the most intelligent people. If only they had read widely, they would be able distinguish between the worthy and the worthless. And I'm not even talking about pornography.

Is this cultural? Or is it systemic? We are taught to be intellectually lazy from a young age - too many schoolchildren are taught to rely on grossly simplified revision materials rather than textbooks. The fast food mentality extends beyond our culinary cravings into our attitude to books. Our emphasis on rote-learning rather than critical thinking has allowed schoolchildren to succeed through this approach. Even from a strictly utilitarian viewpoint, we encounter problems: the concerns mentioned by employers that our graduates lack communication skills and independence is partly due to this phenomenon.

What is the way forward? As I've mentioned, our education system takes part of the blame. There should be a shift from education merely from a utilitarian approach to one that is focused on character-building and appreciation of knowledge. True a developing economy needs its doctors, lawyers, engineers and accountants - but to build a civilization we also need writers, artists and historians. If that seems too idealistic and lofty for normal citizens like us (having even exercised our democratic rights or taking part in civil society initiatives) we should focus on the things within our immediate control.

Most of those who develop a love of reading acquired it from their family, like myself for example. Parents and family members should do the same to their young now, putting books first ahead of the Playstation or television. Reading should be seen as something enjoyable, not just for exams (as if that would ever be enjoyable!) but for the love of knowledge. In this day and age of forwarded e-mails and SMSes, there is still hope, God willing. Each and every one of us can contribute towards the reading revolution in our society. Through that we can build a culture that places book, and more importantly knowledge, in its deserved place.

NIK NAZMI NIK AHMAD blogs at www.niknazmi.com and hopes to own a bookshop one day.