[kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs

Sat Jan 12 13:05:21 EAT 2008

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 at alkags.com <alkags at 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 at yahoo.com>
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:55:29
> To:alkags at alkags.com
> Cc:KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at 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 at 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 at ke.uu.net>
> > To: mleonardo at yahoo.com
> > Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> > <kictanet at 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 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.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > kictanet mailing list
> > kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> >
> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
> >
> > This message was sent to: gshimanyula at 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 at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> >
> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
> >
> > This message was sent to: mleonardo at 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>
> _______________________________________________
> > kictanet mailing list
> > kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> >
> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
> >
> > This message was sent to: njiris2000 at yahoo.com
> > Unsubscribe or change your options at
> >
> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/njiris2000%40yahoo.com
> >
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> 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 at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
>
> This message was sent to: alkags at alkags.com
> Unsubscribe or change your options at
> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/alkags%40alkags.com
> _______________________________________________
> kictanet mailing list
> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
>
> This message was sent to: wainaina.mungai at gmail.com
> Unsubscribe or change your options at
> http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/wainaina.mungai%40gmail.com
>