It now costs 16.5% more than it did last year for the average Jamaican to read a book. Thank you, Jamaican Government.

While my first instinct is to lambaste this tax reform as a dick move by the government, I will restrain from using bad words from delivering my initial reaction and instead try to create some semblance of a rational reply to this ridiculous measure.

But first, enjoy a few statistics:
Jamaica ranks 63rd (of 163) in the world with our literacy rate of 86.4 {source}.
Girls and women have higher literacy rates than boys and men (6% and 10% differences respectively)
In 2009 the average literacy rate of youth was 95.17
In the same year for adults, 86.36
{source}

This is the kind of educational climate in which Dr. Peter Phillips sees it fit to impose a tax on printed material, with the exception of sloppily defined ‘textbooks’ (which includes children’s colouring books and of course the Bible, because Jesus would upset the temple of the moneylenders all over again if they dared to tax His Father’s book).

And besides, he adds flippantly, the Ministry of Education already provides the basic texts through the book rental programme. In HIGH SCHOOL.

And what of those students whose required readings fall outside Dr. Phillips’ nonchalant demarcations of “textbooks”? What of university students (like myself) whose books already cost more than some people make in a fortnight (and that’s just ONE book). What about people who read for leisure?

Therein lies the source of my greatest displeasure. In a nation, nay world, where young people already eschew the written word in favour of mp3’s and mp4’s taxing printed material is akin to dropping the axe cleanly on the chopping block. We readers had pretty much been confined to the gallows before but now our feet are dangling above the gap and instead of a clean break (like, say, censorship) we are faced with the pain of a slow death by asphyxiation.

I am not being melodramatic.

Even you, reader of blogs; if you are honest with yourself you can realize this. When was the last time you picked up a book that wasn’t required for school or work? If you can answer yesterday, last week or even last month, congratulations, you are among a happy and dying minority. If like most Jamaicans, the last thing you read was your Lotto ticket (or light bill), then you will be right at home in Peter’s new world order.

I of course plan to boycott this capitalistic censorship by buying books for as cheaply as possible as often as possible. Feel free to join me. I’ll be the one chaining myself to a bookstore and reading.