[kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs

Thu Jan 10 17:23:18 EAT 2008

Dear all,

I totally agree with this and I happened to intentionally listen to some
of the vernacular radio stations during the elections day (names
undisclosed) and the content was quite inciting and tribal.

As Geoffrey is saying I don't think there is anyone in Kenya today who
does not understand Kiswahili and therefore we can have them using
Swahili or English restrictively.

We happen to have quite a number of English stations Kiss, Easy,
Classics, Capital e.t.c and every morning as I go work I hear different
people enjoying breakfast shows from different stations and as a result
all of them are competing but are in business. 

The suggestions made earlier of the ICT bill and media self regulation
helping to resolve the issue is not very practical considering for
example that you need a Kikuyu to understand inciting information
emanating from a Kikuyu radio station and the same with other tribes.

Given the tribal alignment that we are seeing even in professional
organizations media regulation may follow suit where we may have those
supposed to ensure conformity being compromised because it is their
tribe that is being affected.

Radio stations should use languages that are nationally understandable
to all.

Regards,
James Kagwe
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-----Original Message-----
From: kictanet-bounces+jkagwe=kippra.or.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+jkagwe=kippra.or.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On
Behalf Of Geoffrey Shimanyula
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:18 PM
To: James Kagwe
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
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 at lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+gshimanyula=ke.uu.net at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On
Behalf Of bitange at jambo.co.ke
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 7:47 PM
To: gshimanyula at 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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