Re: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Shim et al, For the first time I feel compelled to contribute to this discussions. I am basically in the same boat as Shim and trying to answer the same questions. Recently in Tanzania, I had a debate about Kenya and Tanzania and the question of tribalism came up. the first thing they say is Kenya is so tribal that each tribe has an FM radio station! Something Tanzanians can not allow and find strange. To me, a ban on tribal FM stations is long overdue. Leonard ----- Original Message ---- From: Geoffrey Shimanyula <gshimanyula@ke.uu.net> To: mleonardo@yahoo.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:18:14 PM Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs Dr. Ndemo et al, I wish to attempt to my one cent worth of contribution this mailing list by giving a story of my early schooling. Having started my schooling in a rural setting, vernacular was one of the lessons that we had to learn. The unfortunate thing was that the dialect we were learning was quite different from that which we spoke back at home. I now understand the reason for that being that no one had ever published a book in our dialect. To this date, I see no value in having learnt that dialect for it does not help me in my every day life today. Fast forward to December 30th 2008 and for the first time, my children ask me what tribe they are. This is because they are descendants of a mixed marriage. For them, the language to use is English or Kiswahili depending on the audience. And the only reason why they asked me this is because they heard of the tribal fighting's that were going on around the country. I am saying all this because as one of the contributors to this forum stated recently, over 60% of KENYANS are literate and when I say literate here I mean those who can utter a word or two in English because Kiswahili is by-and-large used all over the country with the flavor varying from one region to another. I believe that we need to be confident enough to let "other" people understand that which is being spoken and by this I am referring to the FM radio stations that use proprietary languages/dialects. I am not in any way against radio stations having a niche in terms of captive audience but I believe that they can still achieve their objective in a transparent language in this case - Kiswahili. This way, we shall eliminate all sorts of mistrusts that we are seeing today in this beautiful country. We don't need these vernacular radio stations in a country that is striving to move from the LDC quadrant. Regards, Shim... -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of bitange@jambo.co.ke Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 7:47 PM To: gshimanyula@ke.uu.net Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs Dear Yawe, Asante sana. You have said it all. We need your participation in reaching all our villages and shanties with the hope of creating wealth there. If we manage to create wealth for our people and they use that wealth to acquire properties, there will be less conflict because they have something to lose. Where I live, I know two politicians from both sides but what is striking is that they are good neighbours. They jealously guard their properties but their supporters in Kibera and Mathare fight and even kill one another. The ICT Bill is coming up and we need your views on Venacular FM stations. Perhaps we all need to revist Nyerere's philosopy of undugu. There is much to learn from our neighbours in TZ. Bitange Ndemo. _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: gshimanyula@ke.uu.net Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/gshimanyula%40ke.uu.net _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: mleonardo@yahoo.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/mleonardo%40yahoo.com ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
Dear Leonard and all, We in Kenya ignored to be one Nation one people by paying too much attention to our tribal affiliations. The vernacular stations have either been positive or negative depending on the subject matter.However, if we all used Swahili/English in all communications, we would be moving closer to being one nation, one people! The vernacular stations would do more service to this country if they converted to swahili. Dan Njiriri --- Leonard Mware <mleonardo@yahoo.com> wrote:
Shim et al, For the first time I feel compelled to contribute to this discussions. I am basically in the same boat as Shim and trying to answer the same questions. Recently in Tanzania, I had a debate about Kenya and Tanzania and the question of tribalism came up. the first thing they say is Kenya is so tribal that each tribe has an FM radio station! Something Tanzanians can not allow and find strange. To me, a ban on tribal FM stations is long overdue.
Leonard
----- Original Message ---- From: Geoffrey Shimanyula <gshimanyula@ke.uu.net> To: mleonardo@yahoo.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:18:14 PM Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dr. Ndemo et al,
I wish to attempt to my one cent worth of contribution this mailing list by giving a story of my early schooling. Having started my schooling in a rural setting, vernacular was one of the lessons that we had to learn. The unfortunate thing was that the dialect we were learning was quite different from that which we spoke back at home. I now understand the reason for that being that no one had ever published a book in our dialect. To this date, I see no value in having learnt that dialect for it does not help me in my every day life today.
Fast forward to December 30th 2008 and for the first time, my children ask me what tribe they are. This is because they are descendants of a mixed marriage. For them, the language to use is English or Kiswahili depending on the audience. And the only reason why they asked me this is because they heard of the tribal fighting's that were going on around the country.
I am saying all this because as one of the contributors to this forum stated recently, over 60% of KENYANS are literate and when I say literate here I mean those who can utter a word or two in English because Kiswahili is by-and-large used all over the country with the flavor varying from one region to another.
I believe that we need to be confident enough to let "other" people understand that which is being spoken and by this I am referring to the FM radio stations that use proprietary languages/dialects. I am not in any way against radio stations having a niche in terms of captive audience but I believe that they can still achieve their objective in a transparent language in this case - Kiswahili. This way, we shall eliminate all sorts of mistrusts that we are seeing today in this beautiful country.
We don't need these vernacular radio stations in a country that is striving to move from the LDC quadrant.
Regards,
Shim...
-----Original Message----- From:
kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke]
On Behalf Of bitange@jambo.co.ke Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 7:47 PM To: gshimanyula@ke.uu.net Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dear Yawe, Asante sana. You have said it all. We need your participation in reaching all our villages and shanties with the hope of creating wealth there. If we manage to create wealth for our people and they use that wealth to acquire properties, there will be less conflict because they have something to lose. Where I live, I know two politicians from both sides but what is striking is that they are good neighbours. They jealously guard their properties but their supporters in Kibera and Mathare fight and even kill one another.
The ICT Bill is coming up and we need your views on Venacular FM stations. Perhaps we all need to revist Nyerere's philosopy of undugu. There is much to learn from our neighbours in TZ.
Bitange Ndemo.
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My take is that media as a whole, English/Kiswahili/Vernacular-TV/Radio/Internet has significantly played a questionable role in many cases. I wish the peace campaign being carried out could also be done for many other important matters for his country such as health, land issues, education, culture etc and of course not just on circumstantial basis. We have definitely had Media freedom has not been a clear concept this far especially with regard to how it is implemented. I know that freedom goes with responsibility. We need to see this out of the self-regulation and also enforcement of set laws. May be those who pay advertising can assist, they are the ones who keep media in business. If 80% of news is kept political, then advertising rates should probably come down...... On Jan 11, 2008 1:54 PM, Dan Njiriri <njiris2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear Leonard and all,
We in Kenya ignored to be one Nation one people by paying too much attention to our tribal affiliations. The vernacular stations have either been positive or negative depending on the subject matter.However, if we all used Swahili/English in all communications, we would be moving closer to being one nation, one people!
The vernacular stations would do more service to this country if they converted to swahili.
Dan Njiriri
--- Leonard Mware <mleonardo@yahoo.com> wrote:
Shim et al, For the first time I feel compelled to contribute to this discussions. I am basically in the same boat as Shim and trying to answer the same questions. Recently in Tanzania, I had a debate about Kenya and Tanzania and the question of tribalism came up. the first thing they say is Kenya is so tribal that each tribe has an FM radio station! Something Tanzanians can not allow and find strange. To me, a ban on tribal FM stations is long overdue.
Leonard
----- Original Message ---- From: Geoffrey Shimanyula <gshimanyula@ke.uu.net> To: mleonardo@yahoo.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:18:14 PM Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dr. Ndemo et al,
I wish to attempt to my one cent worth of contribution this mailing list by giving a story of my early schooling. Having started my schooling in a rural setting, vernacular was one of the lessons that we had to learn. The unfortunate thing was that the dialect we were learning was quite different from that which we spoke back at home. I now understand the reason for that being that no one had ever published a book in our dialect. To this date, I see no value in having learnt that dialect for it does not help me in my every day life today.
Fast forward to December 30th 2008 and for the first time, my children ask me what tribe they are. This is because they are descendants of a mixed marriage. For them, the language to use is English or Kiswahili depending on the audience. And the only reason why they asked me this is because they heard of the tribal fighting's that were going on around the country.
I am saying all this because as one of the contributors to this forum stated recently, over 60% of KENYANS are literate and when I say literate here I mean those who can utter a word or two in English because Kiswahili is by-and-large used all over the country with the flavor varying from one region to another.
I believe that we need to be confident enough to let "other" people understand that which is being spoken and by this I am referring to the FM radio stations that use proprietary languages/dialects. I am not in any way against radio stations having a niche in terms of captive audience but I believe that they can still achieve their objective in a transparent language in this case - Kiswahili. This way, we shall eliminate all sorts of mistrusts that we are seeing today in this beautiful country.
We don't need these vernacular radio stations in a country that is striving to move from the LDC quadrant.
Regards,
Shim...
-----Original Message----- From:
kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke]
On Behalf Of bitange@jambo.co.ke Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 7:47 PM To: gshimanyula@ke.uu.net Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dear Yawe, Asante sana. You have said it all. We need your participation in reaching all our villages and shanties with the hope of creating wealth there. If we manage to create wealth for our people and they use that wealth to acquire properties, there will be less conflict because they have something to lose. Where I live, I know two politicians from both sides but what is striking is that they are good neighbours. They jealously guard their properties but their supporters in Kibera and Mathare fight and even kill one another.
The ICT Bill is coming up and we need your views on Venacular FM stations. Perhaps we all need to revist Nyerere's philosopy of undugu. There is much to learn from our neighbours in TZ.
Bitange Ndemo.
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-- Muthoni My Blog: http://rugongo.blogspot.com/ -------------------------------------------- Mahatma Gandhi once said:- First they ignore you, Then they laugh at you, Then they fight you, AND THEN YOU WIN!!!
We cannot and should not deny that we are different people. We are Luhya, Luo, Kikuyu and Kalenjin, Kamba, Kisii, MijiKenda etc. That is the reality and it is a Good Thing. I am a Kikuyu by descent yet I enjoy some Luo tunes and some lyrics. There are however cultural differences that have been played-up in a way that divides us. That's where the problem lies; not in language. Programming in vernacular "connects" better with majority of Kenyans in rural areas and many in urban areas. The need for the such identity can be seen in Kenyans when they are stuck in the Diaspora....where they crave for anything Kenyans (be it in Swahili, Sheng' or vernacular). So ethnic identity is not necessarily a bad thing. It has simply been abused. So what is the way forward? All media houses in Kenya should be "tamed" in some way or other. because we have seen misconduct among our English-based FM stations and Newspapers. - One way would have been the Media Council. We need to strengthen the Media Act and related laws to protect Kenyans. - I would support the retention of vernacular FM stations because they can be turned into tools for enhancing an appreciation for our diversity as one nation. Regards, Wainaina On 1/11/08, Dan Njiriri <njiris2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear Leonard and all,
We in Kenya ignored to be one Nation one people by paying too much attention to our tribal affiliations. The vernacular stations have either been positive or negative depending on the subject matter.However, if we all used Swahili/English in all communications, we would be moving closer to being one nation, one people!
The vernacular stations would do more service to this country if they converted to swahili.
Dan Njiriri
--- Leonard Mware <mleonardo@yahoo.com> wrote:
Shim et al, For the first time I feel compelled to contribute to this discussions. I am basically in the same boat as Shim and trying to answer the same questions. Recently in Tanzania, I had a debate about Kenya and Tanzania and the question of tribalism came up. the first thing they say is Kenya is so tribal that each tribe has an FM radio station! Something Tanzanians can not allow and find strange. To me, a ban on tribal FM stations is long overdue.
Leonard
----- Original Message ---- From: Geoffrey Shimanyula <gshimanyula@ke.uu.net> To: mleonardo@yahoo.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:18:14 PM Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dr. Ndemo et al,
I wish to attempt to my one cent worth of contribution this mailing list by giving a story of my early schooling. Having started my schooling in a rural setting, vernacular was one of the lessons that we had to learn. The unfortunate thing was that the dialect we were learning was quite different from that which we spoke back at home. I now understand the reason for that being that no one had ever published a book in our dialect. To this date, I see no value in having learnt that dialect for it does not help me in my every day life today.
Fast forward to December 30th 2008 and for the first time, my children ask me what tribe they are. This is because they are descendants of a mixed marriage. For them, the language to use is English or Kiswahili depending on the audience. And the only reason why they asked me this is because they heard of the tribal fighting's that were going on around the country.
I am saying all this because as one of the contributors to this forum stated recently, over 60% of KENYANS are literate and when I say literate here I mean those who can utter a word or two in English because Kiswahili is by-and-large used all over the country with the flavor varying from one region to another.
I believe that we need to be confident enough to let "other" people understand that which is being spoken and by this I am referring to the FM radio stations that use proprietary languages/dialects. I am not in any way against radio stations having a niche in terms of captive audience but I believe that they can still achieve their objective in a transparent language in this case - Kiswahili. This way, we shall eliminate all sorts of mistrusts that we are seeing today in this beautiful country.
We don't need these vernacular radio stations in a country that is striving to move from the LDC quadrant.
Regards,
Shim...
-----Original Message----- From:
kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke]
On Behalf Of bitange@jambo.co.ke Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 7:47 PM To: gshimanyula@ke.uu.net Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dear Yawe, Asante sana. You have said it all. We need your participation in reaching all our villages and shanties with the hope of creating wealth there. If we manage to create wealth for our people and they use that wealth to acquire properties, there will be less conflict because they have something to lose. Where I live, I know two politicians from both sides but what is striking is that they are good neighbours. They jealously guard their properties but their supporters in Kibera and Mathare fight and even kill one another.
The ICT Bill is coming up and we need your views on Venacular FM stations. Perhaps we all need to revist Nyerere's philosopy of undugu. There is much to learn from our neighbours in TZ.
Bitange Ndemo.
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BTW, Kenya is bound by the DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN AFRICA; African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights Adopted in Banjul, The Gambia, 23rd October 2002. ( Copy available ) --except-- III: Diversity Freedom of expression imposes an obligation on the authorities to take positive measures to promote diversity, which include among other things:- * availability and promotion of a range of information and ideas to the public; * pluralistic access to the media and other means of communication, including by vulnerable or * marginalised groups, such as women, children and refugees, as well as linguistic and cultural groups; * the promotion and protection of African voices, including through media in local languages; and * the promotion of the use of local languages in public affairs, including in the courts. --ends-- Alex --- wainaina.mungai@gmail.com wrote:
We cannot and should not deny that we are different people. We are Luhya, Luo, Kikuyu and Kalenjin, Kamba, Kisii, MijiKenda etc. That is the reality and it is a Good Thing. I am a Kikuyu by descent yet I enjoy some Luo tunes and some lyrics. There are however cultural differences that have been played-up in a way that divides us. That's where the problem lies; not in language.
Programming in vernacular "connects" better with majority of Kenyans in rural areas and many in urban areas. The need for the such identity can be seen in Kenyans when they are stuck in the Diaspora....where they crave for anything Kenyans (be it in Swahili, Sheng' or vernacular). So ethnic identity is not necessarily a bad thing. It has simply been abused.
So what is the way forward? All media houses in Kenya should be "tamed" in some way or other. because we have seen misconduct among our English-based FM stations and Newspapers.
- One way would have been the Media Council. We need to strengthen the Media Act and related laws to protect Kenyans.
- I would support the retention of vernacular FM stations because they can be turned into tools for enhancing an appreciation for our diversity as one nation.
Regards, Wainaina
On 1/11/08, Dan Njiriri <njiris2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
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Wainaina/All, One suggestion would be to put financial penalties in place which the media council could impose on violators of its professional code of conduct. These penalties could be imposed based on a number of factors, for example: a) The seriousness of the offence b) The turnover of the offender c) Whether it is a repeat offence d) Whether the offender had been previously warned or sanctioned by the council e) The number of complaints against the offender filed with the council (ie the offenders history) f) The role of the offender in the incident. An example has been given of a vernacular radio station broadcasting in a certain province on some blogs where the stations presenters did not make inflammatory comments but callers into the station did. In such a case the station could have reasonably (see c) above) used its duty of care to the public to condemn such conduct by callers, alternatively suspended the program or alternatively used slightly delayed transmission of the program so as to edit such comments. Offenders who fail to be deterred by the council could then be subjected to higher penalties such as the revocation or suspension of trading or broadcast licences (this would be similar to the LSK forwarding a complaint to the advocates complaints commission which is under the AGs office). This would of course have to take a tiered approach. The above criteria are unresearched suggestions with the intent of ensuring that media houses are not intentionally crippled as was the case with libel awards that in the past effectively shut down some of them eg Weekly Review etc. Naturally all of these cannot take place outside of a legal framework and this is where Wainaina's suggestion comes in, stakeholders and concerned citizens would need to come forward to formulate reasonable laws which hopefully a sane and working parliament would implement. The above are by no means the ultimate solution as there could be better ways of addressing the issues at hand. On Jan 11, 2008 7:00 AM, <wainaina.mungai@gmail.com> wrote:
We cannot and should not deny that we are different people. We are Luhya, Luo, Kikuyu and Kalenjin, Kamba, Kisii, MijiKenda etc. That is the reality and it is a Good Thing. I am a Kikuyu by descent yet I enjoy some Luo tunes and some lyrics. There are however cultural differences that have been played-up in a way that divides us. That's where the problem lies; not in language.
Programming in vernacular "connects" better with majority of Kenyans in rural areas and many in urban areas. The need for the such identity can be seen in Kenyans when they are stuck in the Diaspora....where they crave for anything Kenyans (be it in Swahili, Sheng' or vernacular). So ethnic identity is not necessarily a bad thing. It has simply been abused.
So what is the way forward? All media houses in Kenya should be "tamed" in some way or other. because we have seen misconduct among our English-based FM stations and Newspapers.
- One way would have been the Media Council. We need to strengthen the Media Act and related laws to protect Kenyans.
- I would support the retention of vernacular FM stations because they can be turned into tools for enhancing an appreciation for our diversity as one nation.
Regards, Wainaina
On 1/11/08, Dan Njiriri <njiris2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear Leonard and all,
We in Kenya ignored to be one Nation one people by paying too much attention to our tribal affiliations. The vernacular stations have either been positive or negative depending on the subject matter.However, if we all used Swahili/English in all communications, we would be moving closer to being one nation, one people!
The vernacular stations would do more service to this country if they converted to swahili.
Dan Njiriri
Dear Leonard and all, We in Kenya ignored to be one Nation one people by paying too much attention to our tribal affiliations. The vernacular stations have either been positive or negative depending on the subject matter.However, if we all used Swahili/English in all communications, we would be moving closer to being one nation, one people! The vernacular stations would do more service to this country if they converted to swahili. Dan Njiriri --- Leonard Mware <mleonardo@yahoo.com> wrote:
Shim et al, For the first time I feel compelled to contribute to this discussions. I am basically in the same boat as Shim and trying to answer the same questions. Recently in Tanzania, I had a debate about Kenya and Tanzania and the question of tribalism came up. the first thing they say is Kenya is so tribal that each tribe has an FM radio station! Something Tanzanians can not allow and find strange. To me, a ban on tribal FM stations is long overdue.
Leonard
----- Original Message ---- From: Geoffrey Shimanyula <gshimanyula@ke.uu.net> To: mleonardo@yahoo.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:18:14 PM Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dr. Ndemo et al,
I wish to attempt to my one cent worth of contribution this mailing list by giving a story of my early schooling. Having started my schooling in a rural setting, vernacular was one of the lessons that we had to learn. The unfortunate thing was that the dialect we were learning was quite different from that which we spoke back at home. I now understand the reason for that being that no one had ever published a book in our dialect. To this date, I see no value in having learnt that dialect for it does not help me in my every day life today.
Fast forward to December 30th 2008 and for the first time, my children ask me what tribe they are. This is because they are descendants of a mixed marriage. For them, the language to use is English or Kiswahili depending on the audience. And the only reason why they asked me this is because they heard of the tribal fighting's that were going on around the country.
I am saying all this because as one of the contributors to this forum stated recently, over 60% of KENYANS are literate and when I say literate here I mean those who can utter a word or two in English because Kiswahili is by-and-large used all over the country with the flavor varying from one region to another.
I believe that we need to be confident enough to let "other" people understand that which is being spoken and by this I am referring to the FM radio stations that use proprietary languages/dialects. I am not in any way against radio stations having a niche in terms of captive audience but I believe that they can still achieve their objective in a transparent language in this case - Kiswahili. This way, we shall eliminate all sorts of mistrusts that we are seeing today in this beautiful country.
We don't need these vernacular radio stations in a country that is striving to move from the LDC quadrant.
Regards,
Shim...
-----Original Message----- From:
kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke]
On Behalf Of bitange@jambo.co.ke Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 7:47 PM To: gshimanyula@ke.uu.net Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dear Yawe, Asante sana. You have said it all. We need your participation in reaching all our villages and shanties with the hope of creating wealth there. If we manage to create wealth for our people and they use that wealth to acquire properties, there will be less conflict because they have something to lose. Where I live, I know two politicians from both sides but what is striking is that they are good neighbours. They jealously guard their properties but their supporters in Kibera and Mathare fight and even kill one another.
The ICT Bill is coming up and we need your views on Venacular FM stations. Perhaps we all need to revist Nyerere's philosopy of undugu. There is much to learn from our neighbours in TZ.
Bitange Ndemo.
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We are examining one vision where it is all people speaking one language. How about a vision where we all speak all the languages? The implication of this therefore being that we encourage our kids to be multi-lingual people and i'm not talking about speaking french! Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Celtel Kenya -----Original Message----- From: Dan Njiriri <njiris2000@yahoo.com> Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:55:29 To:alkags@alkags.com Cc:KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs Dear Leonard and all, We in Kenya ignored to be one Nation one people by paying too much attention to our tribal affiliations. The vernacular stations have either been positive or negative depending on the subject matter.However, if we all used Swahili/English in all communications, we would be moving closer to being one nation, one people! The vernacular stations would do more service to this country if they converted to swahili. Dan Njiriri --- Leonard Mware <mleonardo@yahoo.com> wrote:
Shim et al, For the first time I feel compelled to contribute to this discussions. I am basically in the same boat as Shim and trying to answer the same questions. Recently in Tanzania, I had a debate about Kenya and Tanzania and the question of tribalism came up. the first thing they say is Kenya is so tribal that each tribe has an FM radio station! Something Tanzanians can not allow and find strange. To me, a ban on tribal FM stations is long overdue.
Leonard
----- Original Message ---- From: Geoffrey Shimanyula <gshimanyula@ke.uu.net> To: mleonardo@yahoo.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:18:14 PM Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dr. Ndemo et al,
I wish to attempt to my one cent worth of contribution this mailing list by giving a story of my early schooling. Having started my schooling in a rural setting, vernacular was one of the lessons that we had to learn. The unfortunate thing was that the dialect we were learning was quite different from that which we spoke back at home. I now understand the reason for that being that no one had ever published a book in our dialect. To this date, I see no value in having learnt that dialect for it does not help me in my every day life today.
Fast forward to December 30th 2008 and for the first time, my children ask me what tribe they are. This is because they are descendants of a mixed marriage. For them, the language to use is English or Kiswahili depending on the audience. And the only reason why they asked me this is because they heard of the tribal fighting's that were going on around the country.
I am saying all this because as one of the contributors to this forum stated recently, over 60% of KENYANS are literate and when I say literate here I mean those who can utter a word or two in English because Kiswahili is by-and-large used all over the country with the flavor varying from one region to another.
I believe that we need to be confident enough to let "other" people understand that which is being spoken and by this I am referring to the FM radio stations that use proprietary languages/dialects. I am not in any way against radio stations having a niche in terms of captive audience but I believe that they can still achieve their objective in a transparent language in this case - Kiswahili. This way, we shall eliminate all sorts of mistrusts that we are seeing today in this beautiful country.
We don't need these vernacular radio stations in a country that is striving to move from the LDC quadrant.
Regards,
Shim...
-----Original Message----- From:
kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke]
On Behalf Of bitange@jambo.co.ke Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 7:47 PM To: gshimanyula@ke.uu.net Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dear Yawe, Asante sana. You have said it all. We need your participation in reaching all our villages and shanties with the hope of creating wealth there. If we manage to create wealth for our people and they use that wealth to acquire properties, there will be less conflict because they have something to lose. Where I live, I know two politicians from both sides but what is striking is that they are good neighbours. They jealously guard their properties but their supporters in Kibera and Mathare fight and even kill one another.
The ICT Bill is coming up and we need your views on Venacular FM stations. Perhaps we all need to revist Nyerere's philosopy of undugu. There is much to learn from our neighbours in TZ.
Bitange Ndemo.
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____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: alkags@alkags.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/alkags%40alkags.com
The contributions seem to raising the following issues: My two cents marked as @@: 1. LOCAL LANGUAGE vs. LITERACY & DEVELOPMENT KAGWE: I don't think they add so much value, in any case we have a fairly literal community in Kenya and I'm almost sure there are very few in Kenya who cannot understand Kiswahili and English YAWE: With a literacy level of 60% why are we cowering into our tribal cocoons instead of becoming more cohesive? @@ I do not believe that the Literacy should be defined in English and Swahili (both languages not "ours"). Our languages are rich in content and can be significant in teaching Kenyans how to live together. The problem in Kenya's ethnic divisions is not a "language barrier" issue. We seem to agree that it's a result of manipulation by politicians and played up through irresponsible media houses. 2. MULTI-LINGUAL vs. BANNING VERNACULAR ALKAGS: How about a vision where we all speak all the languages? The implication of this therefore being that we encourage our kids to be multi-lingual people and i'm not talking about speaking french! @@ Nice idea AlKags! I think that is one way forward that may be made more effective through inter-marriage. We need a deliberate effort (projects) that encourage respect for diverisity. For instance, why not have "exchange programs" between Kikuyu villagers and a Luo villagers? Take a group from remote parts of Bondo to live in Githunguri for two weeks and some Githunguri villagers to live in Bondo. The villagers will be expected to share openly with the villagers and explain their culture and vice-versa. We could promote understanding one villager at a time. ;-) As for the learned and exposed Kenyans who still encourage the use of stereotypes, someone else could suggest a remedy ;-) 3. ROLE OF VERNACULAR RADIO NJIRIRI: The vernacular stations would do more service to this country if they converted to swahili. MWARE: To me, a ban on tribal FM stations is long overdue. KAIRO: The problem is not that there are vernacular stations, but that these stations have been used irresponsibly by their promoters. Vernacular stations if responsibly managed can play the important function of positively promoting culture and traditions; which add to our national heritage WAINAINA: I would support the retention of vernacular FM stations because they can be turned into tools for enhancing an appreciation for our diversity as one nation. YAWE: I believe that Kiswahili and English programing should take up 80% of all radio station content otherwise we might as well have the parliamentarians take a vernacular proficiency test to be allowed to participate in elections and also have our national exams done in vernacular. NDEMO: The ICT Bill is coming up and we need your views on Venacular FM stations. @@ We seem to acknowledge that vernacular radio is a powerful tool for mobilisation. Let us now use the same mobilization power to encourage understanding and preach unity. Is there a Media Owner who can protest against such a provision in the ICT Bill or Media Act? 4. ADVERTISERS & VERNACULAR FM MUTHONI: May be those who pay advertising can assist, they are the ones who keep media in business. MICHAEL: Should we not advertize on KBC radio because it is perceived to be the voice of the Government? @@ Michael has point. However, the request to advertisers is to play a more "activist" role against stations that encourage tribalism or hate speech or similar misconduct. To sell, Safaricom, EABL etc need to advertise but what we ask of them is not to support the media houses that seem to openly encourage the kind of tension that puts the lives of their customers at risk and leads to loses to them. Our request to advertisers is specific to tribalism, hate speech and related tension-building misconduct. 5. DISCIPLINE ON THE 4TH ESTATE THEURI: One suggestion would be to put financial penalties in place which the media council could impose on violators of its professional code of conduct. These penalties could be imposed based on a number of factors, for example: @@ Several times in the past, I broken ranks with members of civil society and the media who give the Press a blank cheque in the form of unregulated Media Freedom. It is sad that we had to get this far yet a significant section of the civil society seems to believe in "Press Freedom" even after 5 Administration Policemen died as a direct result of a questionable report by KTN & The Standard. What did the Media Council do? Did the Standard Group apologies? Do they now acknowledge that they and many Kenyans believe that the story was a fabrication that did not need to be aired/published? So I am for heavy penalties against such conduct by media houses. I work for one - and I believe we in the media owe Kenyans more than has been traditionally offered to viewers & listeners. 6. ICTs IN ELECTIONS & IN THE HEALING PROCESS FLORENCE: Allow me therefore to urge that the IT fraternity to start now, to get ready for the next election with all the might of project planning and funding ready. @@ As we speak, some of us in PAMONet and in KICTANet are negotiating with Safaricom on an SMS for Peace service for all Kenyans. PAMONet is the Pan-African Mobile Activists Network coordinated at/by Fahamu.org On 1/11/08, alkags@alkags.com <alkags@alkags.com> wrote:
We are examining one vision where it is all people speaking one language. How about a vision where we all speak all the languages? The implication of this therefore being that we encourage our kids to be multi-lingual people and i'm not talking about speaking french!
Sent from my BlackBerry(R) smartphone provided by Celtel Kenya
-----Original Message----- From: Dan Njiriri <njiris2000@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:55:29 To:alkags@alkags.com Cc:KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dear Leonard and all,
We in Kenya ignored to be one Nation one people by paying too much attention to our tribal affiliations. The vernacular stations have either been positive or negative depending on the subject matter.However, if we all used Swahili/English in all communications, we would be moving closer to being one nation, one people!
The vernacular stations would do more service to this country if they converted to swahili.
Dan Njiriri
--- Leonard Mware <mleonardo@yahoo.com> wrote:
Shim et al, For the first time I feel compelled to contribute to this discussions. I am basically in the same boat as Shim and trying to answer the same questions. Recently in Tanzania, I had a debate about Kenya and Tanzania and the question of tribalism came up. the first thing they say is Kenya is so tribal that each tribe has an FM radio station! Something Tanzanians can not allow and find strange. To me, a ban on tribal FM stations is long overdue.
Leonard
----- Original Message ---- From: Geoffrey Shimanyula <gshimanyula@ke.uu.net> To: mleonardo@yahoo.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:18:14 PM Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dr. Ndemo et al,
I wish to attempt to my one cent worth of contribution this mailing list by giving a story of my early schooling. Having started my schooling in a rural setting, vernacular was one of the lessons that we had to learn. The unfortunate thing was that the dialect we were learning was quite different from that which we spoke back at home. I now understand the reason for that being that no one had ever published a book in our dialect. To this date, I see no value in having learnt that dialect for it does not help me in my every day life today.
Fast forward to December 30th 2008 and for the first time, my children ask me what tribe they are. This is because they are descendants of a mixed marriage. For them, the language to use is English or Kiswahili depending on the audience. And the only reason why they asked me this is because they heard of the tribal fighting's that were going on around the country.
I am saying all this because as one of the contributors to this forum stated recently, over 60% of KENYANS are literate and when I say literate here I mean those who can utter a word or two in English because Kiswahili is by-and-large used all over the country with the flavor varying from one region to another.
I believe that we need to be confident enough to let "other" people understand that which is being spoken and by this I am referring to the FM radio stations that use proprietary languages/dialects. I am not in any way against radio stations having a niche in terms of captive audience but I believe that they can still achieve their objective in a transparent language in this case - Kiswahili. This way, we shall eliminate all sorts of mistrusts that we are seeing today in this beautiful country.
We don't need these vernacular radio stations in a country that is striving to move from the LDC quadrant.
Regards,
Shim...
-----Original Message----- From:
kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net@lists.kictanet.or.ke]
On Behalf Of bitange@jambo.co.ke Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 7:47 PM To: gshimanyula@ke.uu.net Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs
Dear Yawe, Asante sana. You have said it all. We need your participation in reaching all our villages and shanties with the hope of creating wealth there. If we manage to create wealth for our people and they use that wealth to acquire properties, there will be less conflict because they have something to lose. Where I live, I know two politicians from both sides but what is striking is that they are good neighbours. They jealously guard their properties but their supporters in Kibera and Mathare fight and even kill one another.
The ICT Bill is coming up and we need your views on Venacular FM stations. Perhaps we all need to revist Nyerere's philosopy of undugu. There is much to learn from our neighbours in TZ.
Bitange Ndemo.
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Al Kags: I'm Just an Information Society netizen contributing to knowledge sharing, but thanks. Wainaina: Thanks for this analysis and we should strive on your proposed paths. (But remember that in chang'aa havens, partaking has never been tribal:) I Just came across sober blog "Tribalism in Kenya" which says 'atavistic tribalism' is not our real problem. ---- "people from different tribes live side by side and often work in the same office. They are aware of ethnic differences and sometimes joke about them, but it usually does not go further than that." "Kenya is a polyglot nation of more than thirty different ethnicities, none of which are a demographic majority. Tribal violence is an effect of the crisis provoked by the rigged election, not its cause." "We can be certain that the violence will simply worsen the poverty that is itself the root cause of all Kenyan crises. Already we are seeing layoffs and a potential collapse of the tourism and agricultural industries. On the political front, perhaps the best we can hope is that Big Men will reach a deal and the tribes will put away their machetes and rifles. Then the Western press will trickle home, content that democracy has been re-established, while the people of Laikipia return to their daily struggle to survive." "Kenya's leaders' inability to hold the common good above their own thirst for power is infuriating." <http://africamatters.blogspot.com/2008/01/tribalism-in-kenya.html> --- The purpose of raising it is that we indulge at solving at the "macro" level. This dimension has been open in the media and I understand our silence. Observing the list rules, shall only respond non-politically aligned reactions. Alex On Jan 12, 2008 1:05 PM, <wainaina.mungai@gmail.com> wrote:
The contributions seem to raising the following issues: My two cents marked as @@:
1. LOCAL LANGUAGE vs. LITERACY & DEVELOPMENT KAGWE: I don't think they add so much value, in any case we have a fairly literal community in Kenya and I'm almost sure there are very few in Kenya who cannot understand Kiswahili and English YAWE: With a literacy level of 60% why are we cowering into our tribal cocoons instead of becoming more cohesive?
@@ I do not believe that the Literacy should be defined in English and Swahili (both languages not "ours"). Our languages are rich in content and can be significant in teaching Kenyans how to live together. The problem in Kenya's ethnic divisions is not a "language barrier" issue. We seem to agree that it's a result of manipulation by politicians and played up through irresponsible media houses.
2. MULTI-LINGUAL vs. BANNING VERNACULAR ALKAGS: How about a vision where we all speak all the languages? The implication of this therefore being that we encourage our kids to be multi-lingual people and i'm not talking about speaking french!
@@ Nice idea AlKags! I think that is one way forward that may be made more effective through inter-marriage. We need a deliberate effort (projects) that encourage respect for diverisity. For instance, why not have "exchange programs" between Kikuyu villagers and a Luo villagers? Take a group from remote parts of Bondo to live in Githunguri for two weeks and some Githunguri villagers to live in Bondo. The villagers will be expected to share openly with the villagers and explain their culture and vice-versa. We could promote understanding one villager at a time. ;-) As for the learned and exposed Kenyans who still encourage the use of stereotypes, someone else could suggest a remedy ;-)
3. ROLE OF VERNACULAR RADIO NJIRIRI: The vernacular stations would do more service to this country if they converted to swahili. MWARE: To me, a ban on tribal FM stations is long overdue. KAIRO: The problem is not that there are vernacular stations, but that these stations have been used irresponsibly by their promoters. Vernacular stations if responsibly managed can play the important function of positively promoting culture and traditions; which add to our national heritage WAINAINA: I would support the retention of vernacular FM stations because they can be turned into tools for enhancing an appreciation for our diversity as one nation. YAWE: I believe that Kiswahili and English programing should take up 80% of all radio station content otherwise we might as well have the parliamentarians take a vernacular proficiency test to be allowed to participate in elections and also have our national exams done in vernacular. NDEMO: The ICT Bill is coming up and we need your views on Venacular FM stations.
@@ We seem to acknowledge that vernacular radio is a powerful tool for mobilisation. Let us now use the same mobilization power to encourage understanding and preach unity. Is there a Media Owner who can protest against such a provision in the ICT Bill or Media Act?
4. ADVERTISERS & VERNACULAR FM MUTHONI: May be those who pay advertising can assist, they are the ones who keep media in business. MICHAEL: Should we not advertize on KBC radio because it is perceived to be the voice of the Government?
@@ Michael has point. However, the request to advertisers is to play a more "activist" role against stations that encourage tribalism or hate speech or similar misconduct. To sell, Safaricom, EABL etc need to advertise but what we ask of them is not to support the media houses that seem to openly encourage the kind of tension that puts the lives of their customers at risk and leads to loses to them. Our request to advertisers is specific to tribalism, hate speech and related tension-building misconduct.
5. DISCIPLINE ON THE 4TH ESTATE THEURI: One suggestion would be to put financial penalties in place which the media council could impose on violators of its professional code of conduct. These penalties could be imposed based on a number of factors, for example:
@@ Several times in the past, I broken ranks with members of civil society and the media who give the Press a blank cheque in the form of unregulated Media Freedom. It is sad that we had to get this far yet a significant section of the civil society seems to believe in "Press Freedom" even after 5 Administration Policemen died as a direct result of a questionable report by KTN & The Standard. What did the Media Council do? Did the Standard Group apologies? Do they now acknowledge that they and many Kenyans believe that the story was a fabrication that did not need to be aired/published? So I am for heavy penalties against such conduct by media houses. I work for one - and I believe we in the media owe Kenyans more than has been traditionally offered to viewers & listeners.
6. ICTs IN ELECTIONS & IN THE HEALING PROCESS FLORENCE: Allow me therefore to urge that the IT fraternity to start now, to get ready for the next election with all the might of project planning and funding ready.
@@ As we speak, some of us in PAMONet and in KICTANet are negotiating with Safaricom on an SMS for Peace service for all Kenyans. PAMONet is the Pan-African Mobile Activists Network coordinated at/by Fahamu.org
participants (8)
-
Alex Gakuru -
Alex Gakuru -
alkags＠alkags.com -
Dan Njiriri -
Dorcas Muthoni -
Leonard Mware -
Mike Theuri -
wainaina.mungai＠gmail.com