Books to educate the people
Books to educate the people
Without subtracting from our appreciation of the tireless
efforts of the organizers of the Jakarta Book Fair which is
slated to close tomorrow, Sunday, August 22, at the Jakarta
Convention Center, it seems fair to say that the lack of any
visible progress in the number and variety of books and booklets
exhibited as compared to previous years presents a rather
accurate picture of the state of affairs in the world of books in
Indonesia.
To judge by the statements that have been made by this
country's public figures, it would seem that everybody was in
clear agreement on the importance of books, and the access of
information in general for the progress of the nation, and for
keeping Indonesia abreast with other nations in a world in which
the availability of well-educated and well-trained manpower, is
becoming more and more a necessity.
The reality as it appears in our daily lives, however, tells a
different story. For most Indonesians, books remain a luxury and
good books are difficult to find in most towns and cities in this
country, let alone in the smaller towns in remote and rural
areas. Even in Jakarta, it is only recently that good bookstores
have sprung up, but even so, most of those books remain outside
the reach of the great majority of Indonesians.
To the government's credit, it must be said that sales taxes
on certain categories of books were only recently rescinded, but
more needs to be done in this respect. This is why the Indonesian
Publishers Association (Ikapi) has suggested that the value added
taxes that publishers are still required to pay be annulled as
well.
A by-product of the sky-high price of books is the rampant
phenomenon of piracy, which, in turn, eats into the already
meager profits book publishers are making and into the income of
authors. This, of course, explains why so few Indonesians who are
actually well qualified to write, are reluctant to do so. After
all, authors and experts too must eat. The main victims are local
authors, since imported books seldom enjoy the widespread
popularity that makes piracy profitable.
As if all those constraints that authors and publishers are
facing aren't enough, another obstacle has cropped up in the wake
of the government's current move to decentralize its powers and
give more say to the regional administrations.
Decentralization of government powers, of course, has clear
benefits. Among other things, as far as schooling and education
are concerned, it allows schools in the various regions of this
vast archipelago to adjust their teaching material of schools to
their respective needs.
This means that books that have so far been selected for use
by the Ministry of National Education in all the country's
regions may not be considered suitable for certain regencies and
have to be replaced. The quandary with which publishers are
confronted is that printing and publishing books for those
regions, especially the more remote ones where schools are few
and pupils fewer still, cannot be produces in an economically
viable manner.
Whatever the case may be, however, books remain one of the
most important tools for achieving the Indonesian national ideal
of what is described in the Constitution as mencerdaskan bangsa,
or educating the nation. One way or another, books and all other
reading material that can contribute to the attainment of that
ideal must be made available everyone, if possible.
The fact that India has for decades managed to make cheap
books available to all its citizens and that Malaysia has done
the same by making most educational and informative material tax-
free, not to mention other countries, is proof that it can be
done as long as the will is there. Let's hope that Indonesia,
with its huge need for skilled and educated manpower -- and
educated citizens in general, for that matter -- will soon follow
suit.