As the American novelist Martin Cruz Smith once put it: “The more churches a country builds, the more backwards the thinking of its population tends to be.” The same logic can be applied to the state of libraries in South Africa today. The recent report — “Vandalised Chatty Library to be Demolished” (The Herald, 12 May 2025) — reflects a deeper problem: the destruction of libraries and other public amenities highlights a broader backwardness in our collective mindset.
The article on the Chatty library only reinforces the stereotype that non-white populations are not invested in the upkeep and preservation of public — or even private — resources. There are, of course, global exceptions to this generalization: Rwanda, Botswana, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan come to mind. But here in South Africa, especially in regions like Nelson Mandela Bay, we must confront a difficult truth.
Instead of blindly rebuilding the library, the municipality should first consult with residents of Bloemendal and surrounding areas. Communities like Motherwell, Kwa-Magxaki, and Kwa-Dwesi have seen declining foot traffic to their libraries, frequent closures, and, eventually, vandalism. The pattern is clear — if people are not using these facilities, building more of them is both wasteful and performative.
Let’s be honest: education cannot be enforced. You can’t hand someone a packet of Smarties and expect them to become smart overnight. In the digital age, the internet has drastically reduced the role of traditional libraries. But more importantly, we live in a society where entitlement, status, and materialism — not education — are modeled as the highest ideals. Many of our leaders, especially those aligned with the so-called Radical Economic Transformation (RET) brigade, worship money, relevance, clout, and power. That’s what the youth emulate — not books, not learning.
As the infamously Verkrampte Witmens (VW) figure, H.F. Verwoerd, once stereotypically claimed: “If you want to hide something from Black people, put it inside a book.” Painful as it is, our younger generations aren’t storming the doors of libraries. That’s not changing anytime soon.
Building more libraries under these conditions is not a strategy — it’s political theatre. It allows public officials to justify their salaries, their presence, and their portfolios, without solving the real problem.
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