Laughing at the Other as a Non-reader or Poor Reader

By

Obododimma Oha

Ability to read has been associated with being civilised, or least, being able to get information that another creature has stored in a particular form. In other words, the reader has equally demonstrated an impressive skill, just like the one who used a means to send or store it. Reading is, therefore, understood as a skill that moves humanity a bit higher as manipulative creatures who want to be in charge or present. If reading has been understood as an advantage and something that moves humanity higher, one is not surprised then that women and slaves in some contexts have been prevented from knowing how to read, the result being that they have tried to go against such  politics of advantages, learning to read secretly and also using reading to try to come to awareness and to work out their freedom. Yet, reading has also been another site for derogating others (non-readers) and showing how terribly disadvantaged and foolish they have been. This short essay looks at some ways that ability to read has been presented in Igbo public discourse, especially this slant of using it to narrate others’ disadvantage.

It needs to be pointed out that reading does not have to be of the modern linear pattern in which one follows graphetic signs on the page, either from left to right, or from right to left (as in Arabic culture). In fact, modern electronic media have shown the reality of the fact that seeing and processing the graphetic sign could be from any position: top to down of the page or even down to top. The reader  could scroll from any position to process the sign.

Also, the so-called “non-readers” may possess another tradition of reading, which the case in point may try to obliterate. Thus, one has to be cautious in calling them “non-readers.” I may have the ability to read a text of linear English, but not a text of pictorial Nsibidi. That does not mean that I do not know how to read.

Many in African cultures were not really “non-literate” or just oral in their use of information. Many of them knew ways of reading signs, some of which were unfortunately private and cultic. Some devised means of writing, which were, unfortunately, not conventionalized. These “special” readers were swallowed by history, just as their other forms of knowledge vanished with them.

However, in what has become the conventional linear reading that one finds exhibited in newspapers and books, otherness has also been presented as disadvantaged. It is either that the other does not like reading or does not read at all to know the world. This is a source of otherness humour. A narrative that is used in this case is like an exaggerated dislike: “If you want to hide something from the Black person, put it inside the page of a book.” The logic is that since the Black person dislikes reading, that “thief” would not think of a page as a place to search, and so the thing is safe!

An idea  associated with this is that thoroughness and reading are linked. The non-reader who happens to be Black would not be thorough to search pages, blinded by dislike and assumptions linked to it. Every thief has to demonstrate some cleverness, and should be ready to hypothesize the most likely places of hiding a valuable!

To say the least, the assumptions and logic of this narrative may be clever, funny, but have weaknesses. Maybe because I am Black and so I am being protective and defensive! Anyway, begin from exaggeration and desire for laughter to the porous assumption that Black “thieves” are not very clever, and you would see how weakly the humour is cloaked. But the foolishness in every humour is really our own foolishness!

Another case that I would like to examine is that of the poor reader (or self-inventing reader) holding a newspaper upside-down, pretending to be reading, and proclaiming (as a comment necessitated by the reading): “Chai, Zik e kwuo ncha!” (Chai, Zik has uttered the marvellous). Perhaps this humour was authored at a time that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first president, was being mythologized as a patriot and a highly educated man. He was, historically speaking, a-larger-than-life figure and mesmerized many with his powerful English utterances. Zik, as he was popularly known, was a symbol of ideal patriotism and greatness. Even his opponents acknowledged this. As people got the rare newspapers (which were also understood as symbols of learnedness) or clustered and argued around newsstands, the utterance, “Zik  e kwuo ncha” was unavoidable as their common talk.

In that case, anyone pretending to be learned and a reader of powerful language could deceive others (who were also “non-readers”) by uttering “Zik e kwuo ncha.” Or maybe that person is a real reader and is turning the newspaper in the hand to be able to receive some snuff! Truly, “Zik e kwuo ncha.”

Laughing at the other and using ability to read calls up the history and politics of reading over time. As we look at this history, the laughter should not be directed at the other (to continue the politics by other means) but at ourselves. Yes; at our cultural selves.