MEDIA HUB – Closes shop
in Uganda and melts away quietly – and, it is not news item in Uganda
Sam Mwaka-karama
For most of
the world’s elite; those with the money, a good comfortable home is endowed
with a sizeable home library.
Seasonal
book buying is a must-do in those homes. A home that is host to several author’s
works is a knowledgeable home. Children who grow-up in such homes are a
university degree guaranteed kids.
However, a phenomenon
is developing itself in my country – Uganda. There are no elites to support a
bookshop. Foreign book outlets like the Media Hub get eaten up by local book
vendors and street peddlers… only in Uganda is this possible! Media Hub went
under and melted away!
National
book activities are centered on the textbook industry. These local publishers,
target schools, colleges, tertiary institutions and lay organizations. There is
a myth about dis-interest in novels, especially the outright foreign ones…
The new generation
seems to be middle of the road about fiction. There is a new kind of writers
who appeal to these young; ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ or books on ‘Power of….’ Or ‘How
to blah blah blah’ and those host of religious books by various world famous
Pastors and Preachers.
Those have
placed the lid on internationally known book vending shops. Media Hub just
closed its shop which was situated on the upper floor of the Oasis Mall in
Kampala. That typically international characteristic of book vending can only
survive as a locally founded and owned enterprise or family business. Below
that level is the street pavement vendors [whose stock you will never see]
because they are a huge prey for the City Council. Often you will notice (Book
Seller) notice on a small placard with telephone number and, perhaps some
silent guy fidgeting on his cell phone.
Those are
the piranhas who ate-up the Media Hub! And all those old international
bookshops…
They will
sell you a title you wouldn’t expect them to have! They turn and churn the
belly of the top notch elites because even their English is subterranean – they
might or might not lead you to where their stock actually come from; mostly
they might just place a call and shortly someone walks by with the title in
hand. You pay and get lost! For some reason it is all so clandestine… like
dealing in contraband!
The big
international gallery bookshops folding-up here and there seem to think – that it
is the advent of the eBook era and the Kindle reading tabs that is changing
people’s reading habit. So that the print book is getting out of circulation.
Which to me
leaves one question unanswered – what has it got to do with the elite home
library of print books the prestige home stock? When the Chinese created the
Plastic flowers, did it wipe-out natural flowers?
The reason
the African elite are not buying books is more cynical and mean than that! It
is called the DEATH of the African Reading Culture. That is why; when the Media
Hub closed shop in Uganda, the issue was not news worthy in the country. **
