Bismillāh ar-Rahmān ar-Rahīm
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
I was blessed to be given the opportunity to attend the official opening of the Pesta Buku Islam 2009 on Saturday, 30th May, at Wisma Indah. The Guest of Honour at the event was Halimah Yaacob, Minister of Parliament for Jurong GRC.
The emcee started off with a short speech and talked about how Pesta Buku Islam (PBI) has been happening since 2002. He also mentioned a book by Robert B. Downs “Books that Changed The World” and went on to say on how books are not dead and they have the ability to rouse emotions and to change the order of things in this world.
Ustaz Zulkifli Othman, Head Organising Commitee of PBI 09, took over the mic and thanked everyone for their continued support over the years, especially to Masjid Kassim – whose premises are being utilised for the book fair. He said the book fair had 2 objectives: To inculcate the love for reading and to revive the publishing industry.
He said he has been to many book fairs around the world and the difference in the book fairs in Cairo, Syria and Malaysia and the one in Singapore is that in other countries, there’s a significant presence of students attending the book fairs with their teachers. He hopes that this trend would be picked up by the teachers in Singapore and that coming to the book fair would be a shared activity that is enjoyed by both students and teachers.
After him, Mdm Halimah Yaacob started her address. She spoke about the ingredients needed for a good society and mentioned how understanding and scholarly excellence are some of it. She says the culture of reading has many competitors ranging from computers and television and this culture should be instilled from young. She suggested that parents read to their children at least a few minutes of each day.
She said that for most of us, our reading materials are related to school or our work. This may result in a narrowed view and we should read widely. She also presented us with a challenge: Could Singapore produce our own Nobel Prize winner? Mdm Halimah Yaacob then said that Singapore has a library in almost every estate and that we should all utilise it to our benefit.
After her speech, several books were launched such as pre-school and children books by Darul Andalus, Manasik Haji & Umrah by Pustaka Nasional and we also got to watch a preview of Solat 3D by Salaam Media. Solat 3D got a lot of attention and interest from the audience alhamdulillah!
If you have yet to pay a visit to the book fair, make your way down today!
Ameera Begum Aslam
[email protected]
