Posts Tagged ‘life in Africa’
By Muli wa Kyendo
A few months ago, I said in Africa we are never bored because there are so many things happening in our Great Continent. Some of these are of such momentous importance that if they were happening in another continent, they would be “World Lead” news headlines. But we never bother because we don’t know when we are making history.
when was it that you heard of a cultural change—a whole community abandoning its ways and beliefs and adopting another? People may abandon their cultures one by one, but a n immediate total change of a community, I believe is a historical event, not only because it rarely happens, but because it has tremendous implications in all spheres of life. In Kenya, the last it happened is estimated to be in the 15th century, when a warring clan of the Maasai which was called Akavi, overran the surrounding communities forcing them to abandon their god, Mulungu or Murungu and worship the Maasai god, Ngai. Today, the communities, including the Akamba and Kenya’s largest tribe, the Kikuyu still worship Ngai. And even in the Christian churches, Ngai is still the god worshipped.
Today, we in Kenya are in the midst of another cultural change. Kenya’s second largest community, the Luo, are abandoning their culture of non-circumcision of boys. Studies have show that circumcised men are less likely to contract the dreaded Aids/HIV virus. Following this, Luos, young and old, are queuing at hospitals to be circumcised. Prominent Luo politicians, including Kenya’s Prime Minister, Raila Odinga have led the cultural change campaign with the message: Change or we perish.
The unintended consequence will be that the Luos will have removed the biggest stigma which has stood between them and leadership of the country. Most other tribes in Kenya circumcise their boys (and even daughters) and an uncircumcised man is traditionally regarded as a boy who is unfit to lead. This prejudice stood between the late Vice President Oginga Odinga (the father of Raila Odinga) and the presidency of Kenya. Without that prejudice, Raila Odinga would today be Kenya’s President.
We are anxiously waiting to see what this cultural change will bring for the Luo community, for Kenya and even for Africa.
Once upon a time, I wrote a column called ChitChat, for the “Daily Nation”, Kenya’s largest selling newspaper. We had a feature magazine supplement on Wednesday and Friday. Consequently these issues far outsold those on days that didn’t have a magazine supplement. One day, Editor–in-Chief, Peter Mwaura, called me and said, “Muli, can you write a gossip column for Tuesday and Thursday to try to improve circulation?”
Gossip to Kenyans
“Yes, I can”, I told him with youthful excitement. But soon it occurred to us that we didn’t know what kind of gossip we would write. What was gossip to the Kenyan? During those days, and even today, you could not write about a politician’s wayward behavior without being thrown into jail. The authoritarian regime of Daniel arap Moi “smelt rats” in everything that a journalist wrote. Who else could we write about? The musician? The actor and actress? These were people of no consequence and of no interest to the Kenyan. Besides, there wasn’t really any entertainment industry to talk about. So what could we write about?
“Just think of something, and let me know”, Peter said, pushing the whole problem to me.
Chitchat
As I was driving home, the word “Chitchat” kept playing on my head. At home, I wrote down the word and considered it for a while. Then an idea came to me, like a thunder bolt. I was going to wrote about the ordinary man and his contradictions – the strange things that happen to the ordinary people.
The next day, I went to Peter and presented my column concept and title to him. Whether he understood it or not, I don’t know, but he looked animated as he told me, “Well, go ahead!” The column editor was Rashid Mughal, one of the few truly gifted journalists and newspaper designers I have ever worked with.
The column became a big hit within a short time and Peter wanted us to spread it into many more issues of the “Daily Nation”. The paradox is that the column’s success became the cause for my quitting the Newspapers. But as they say, that is another story.
What Gives Our MPs the Creeps?
In one of the earliest columns, the lead story was titled, “What Gives Our MPs the Creeps?” The story narrated the efforts of a journalist, Magina Magina, (a man with a big heart, who taught me a lot about publishing) to compile a “Who is Who in Parliament” in Kenya. Magina gave the members of parliament, a 25-question form to fill in which he also wanted to know how many wives they had. By the time I talked to him, the book was a year late. MPs disliked being asked how many wives they had.
‘Our Kind of Polygamy’
I am remembering this because last Sunday, the “Sunday Nation”, a sister paper to the “Daily Nation”, in a survey, found that most Kenyan men are polygamous but they don’t say it officially. The result is that we have endless family feuds over inheritance when a rich or “big” man dies. Many wives – some genuine, and others not so genuine – pop up, a weeping child exhibit strapped on the back. And amazingly, even pastors and priests have many wives.
One Man,Two Cultures
It is the Africa we live in – with one leg in our culture and another leg in a foreign culture. Isn’t it time we defined ourselves? Surely a man will not go to hell for doing what his father, his grandfather, great grandfather and many more grandfathers before him did. Nor will he disown them without disowning himself.
Posted by Muli wa Kyendo on May 11, 2008 at 4.45pm
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