ESTABLISHING AN AFRICAN PUBLISHING INDUSTRY A STUDY IN DECOLONIZATION

Abstract

IT IS, I BELIEVE, profoundly important for development and the process of decolonisation that an indigenous publishing industry should be established in independent Africa. It is also going to be extremely difficult, if the experience of the East African Publishing House is anything to go by. In the wider imperialist context it is perhaps significant that there is little pressure for this among the French-speaking countries and that much of the initiative in the English-speaking areas has come from individual British firms seeking an advantageous commercial position vis-a-vis their rivals. An indigenous publishing industry is important on several counts. It is important, first, for straightforward nationalistic reasons. Books are still probably the most effective single instrument for the purveying of ideas in the developing countries, and we cannot accept that these ideas must all originate, or first be subject to sieving, in London, New York, Paris or Brussels. It is important, secondly, on economic grounds. There is no technological reason why all the basic educational course books, and indeed most of the supplementary ones, at both primary and secondary level, should not be written, edited, designed, printed and published in Africa rather than in London, Malta, Paris or Hong Kong. This will lead to significant savings in foreign exchange and will have other obvious beneficial economic effects. Thirdly, there are inestimable cultural advantages. For example, if there had been no indigenous publisher in East Africa, Song of Lawino, by Okot p'Bitek, a cultural phenomenon of great importance for East Africa, would probably still be unpublished. I said that it would, however, be difficult to establish an indigenous publishing industry in Africa. In this, publishing is not really very different from any other industry. If you read a book we published recently called Who Controls Industry in Kenya ?1 you will begin to grasp the full extent of our problem. Western economic imperialism is a far more subtle and slippery animal than his political brother. He will do anything, compromise any principles, as long as he can still see something somewhere in it for him. He only turns really nasty when he loses all hope. The author is Publishing Director of the East African Publishing House in Nairobi. The paper was originally delivered as a talk to the Conference of the UK African Studies Association at Sussex on 19 September, 1968. His publications include The Myth of 'Mau Mau' (with Carl G. Rosberg), London, 1967. 1. Based on the Report of a Working Party established under the auspices of the National Christian Council of Kenya. 139