A Nation that Reads is a Successful Nation

It's been a long time I haven't posted anything on this blog. Reason? Simple, I don't have time just like all of my rakan seperjuangan. It's all about work and work now. So, I will post the speech that I wrote for my student for a speech competition.

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Assalamualaikum and a very good morning to the chairperson, judges, teachers and students. Today, I will present on an interesting topic ‘The Nation that reads is a successful nation.’ When we mention nation we will straight away relate to us being a Malaysian nation. In fact, we have more than 80 nations in the world and it couldn’t be agreed more that Muslim also makes up one nation. Well, it is undeniable that reading can lead to a successful nation. Looking at the perspective of Islam, we can’t help but remember the fact that the first revelation granted to our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is ‘Iqra’ which means ‘Read’. This in itself helps to explain why reading has such an amazing power to the change of the nation because it’s the Almighty God who asks us to read! God doesn’t merely encourage us to read but He also orders us to read! Therefore, there must be some reason why one can be successful by reading.

So how reading can lead to a successful nation? Let us together examine this more in depth. So we have to look at history for history is the greatest teacher and those who don’t learn from history are prone to repeat the same mistakes. I’d like to draw your attention to the golden age of Islamic Civilization. It’s the time of the glory of Islam. Hey, remember we, the Muslims, were once the conqueror of the world. We dominated two thirds of the world! What a great achievement we had! What a successful nation we were! Yes I have to agree with the fact that we had such a great military and not to forget great leaders whose piousness was beyond imagination which in fact leading to the success. But, we must also remember we also have scholars who contributed to the glory of Islam. We are proud to have Ibnu Sina, Ibnu Khaldun, Ibnu Haitam and lots and lots more who were experts in the field of medicine, philosophy, music, mathematics and many more. These scholars learnt not only by thinking but they also spent a great deal of time reading and studying books by scholars of other civilizations such as Greek and Rome. They also learnt a lot by reading and studying the Holy Quran, which is the greatest source of knowledge. Reading makes them know a lot of knowledge and as the saying goes, ‘Knowledge is power!’ With the knowledge, they use it to develop the Muslim Nation which is the Ummah. They apply the knowledge to invent technologies which makes everyday lives easier. When life gets easier people can save an amount of time doing things for the development of self and of course the nation. So, definitely a great civilization is the product of a nation who reads.

But that was the past and at present time, we can also see a development like this happening to the nations in the Western countries. According to a survey comparing the amount of books read every year by university students in Malaysia and Australia, it is shocking to know that Malaysian students only read 3 books per year (excluding academic books they have to study for their course at uni). I repeat only 3 books per year! This is different for students in Australia! They read at least 100 books every year! At least 100 books!!! Can you imagine why they are developing so fast! It is because of the fact that they read more than us! So, this is enough to prove why a successful nation is a reading nation. And I’d also like to quote the late Dato’ who said that those who read are those who lead. Therefore, if we want to be the leader of the world and successful as a great nation we must read! No way for us to deny this fact!

Again, how reading can produce a successful nation? We must remember that to read is to know and to learn. And to learn is to change. When we read we are actually changing and developing our mind to see the world in another perspective. This means that when we read we are in the process of understanding the world better. Understanding the world helps a lot especially for a nation to compete with the other nation or unless we’ll be forever left behind. We’re left behind because we’re ignorant and we can’t see the real picture of the scenario. Being ignorant means you’ll have the tendency to be trapped in an unwanted situation. This is what happening to the nations whose people is ignorant. Why? This is because they don’t know about a lot of things. And in order to know you must read!

So, to end my speech, I would like to urge everyone here to read because to be a successful nation we have to read. We’ll be history when we’re ignorant! So let’s fight this disease of ignorance by reading! It’s your choice to either make history or become history! Thank you!