The one-by-one closure of bookstores has been on the rise throughout the world with even major franchises affected. However, whereas in most countries bookstores are closing due to a shift in trend towards e-books and increasing online readership, that of the Saeed Book Bank in Peshawar is more due to a lack of reading culture in the province altogether as the reason for its closure. Indeed, for a province forced into cumbersome times with a tumultuous state of security, this is a gloomy outcome.
Books are avenues to creation, imagination, entertainment and critical thinking. They contain vast knowledge about the world as the reader knows it, as well as through the lens of a fellow citizen of the world. Books broaden the mind and allow people to dream, think and formulate ideas, opinions, and understanding of life. The sad ending to the Saeed Book Bank means it is the end of imagination and of one of Peshawar’s last forums of art and entertainment. Of course, the bookstore could have also met with a future terrorist attack as the province is regularly in the line of militant’s fire and the people have had to incorporate this reality into their daily lives. It is unfair that this last source of entertainment and escape from the claustrophobic influence of the Taliban in the region could not be saved. Here, there should have been government support to save the bookstore business because it served a purpose to humanity.
Alas, we continue to hinder the nation’s progress. Instead of opening more bookstores and libraries to implement more reading programmes for adults and children in our provinces, we allow meaningful entities, such as this sole bookstore in Peshawar, go out of business. With the recent educational reforms in the province to improve access to and quality of education, this trend of bookstores shutting down may perhaps be stopped. We continue to pump more rupees in defence programmes and shopping malls, which is fine, but it should not lead to the neglect and closure of bookstores, which is a reflection of our society and evidence of its lackadaisical attitude towards literacy and education.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 8th, 2014.
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Not only Saeed book bank but the only Cantt reading room , which that area had for decades was grabbed by the property mafia and they built a commercial plaza over there. They did it in collusion with the corrupt staff of the Peshawar Cantt board.
Few years ago, an extremely intricate heritage building of Falak-Sair cinema ( Lansdowne theatre ) was replaced with concrete monstrosity...and they did it after paying heavy bribes to Cantt officials.
That cinema was located across the Saeed book bank.
British Council library and French Cultural centres in the same neighborhood were grabbed by the property mafia and now they have their eyes on the Capitol Cinema and London Books, which exist opposite , where Saeed book Bank once stood.
Cantt office staff work for Property mafia and nothing of heritage or cultural value will be left for future generations.
THE sleep has been long and deep. In 2005 Harvard University produced more scientific papers than 17 Arabic-speaking countries combined. The world’s 1.6 billion Muslims have produced only two Nobel laureates in chemistry and physics. Both moved to the West: the only living one, the chemist Ahmed Hassan Zewail, is at the California Institute of Technology. By contrast Jews, outnumbered 100 to one by Muslims, have won 79. The 57 countries in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference spend a puny 0.81% of GDP on research and development, about a third of the world average. America, which has the world’s biggest science budget, spends 2.9%; Israel lavishes 4.4%. Many blame Islam’s supposed innate hostility to science. Some universities seem keener on prayer than study. Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, for example, has three mosques on campus, with a fourth planned, but no bookshop.....This is from leading international weekly published for UK
Postmen in India get hernia because of delivering heavy books to apartments and we are closing up bookshops? .. I guess We should have paid attention to "WHAT" we taught them and "HOW LONG" we kept them in school. Look on the bright side we have the worlds highest number of child Motorcycle repair mechanics and of course we could also take up learning Hindi later to be a part of the educated masses. enjoy the show wont last long
i think two major reasons behind book stores closure is rise in cost of books and computer. Now every one can read every kind of book in pdf format and on websites. so why to bother about buying very high costly books. The govt should make policies to keep printing material at low cost.