Fahamu (Oxford)
Dipesh Pabari
2 December 2008
(Page 2 of 2)
"Luo youths to disrupt a planned force[d] foreskin chopping exercise launching by VP 'Judas Iscariot' and Beth Mugo. Unsterile medical surgeon instruments and contaminated multi-dose vial are already in Luo land, reveals Luo Council of Elders" (MajimboKenya.com, 9th September 2008).
The title of this post says it all about the content of the article, but what is of more interest are the public comments framed in a political context. A few excerpts are reproduced below:
* "This is ridiculous for someone like Kalonzo and Mugo (Kenyatta family) to lead the onslaught on Luo chopping project, something is fishy. Luos should support the Mzee Riaga and stop this foolishness and useless political gimmicks."
* "Akinyi, thanks for highlighting this subject. Luo must stand behind the Ker (Luo elder) and stop this act of dictatorship from Raila. Mugo is a circumcised women [sic] and she is being accused of secret women circumcision in Central Province, now the Luo are their project with Kalonzo. Luo women let us stand behind our Ker support our youths to stop this uncultural move the grand coalition."
* "Anyang' did not win any election in Kisumu Rural he was imposed on us by Raila. Now we can understand why Raila wanted him to be a minister of medical services, to help him circumcise Luo so that coming next election 2012 Raila wants to show Kikuyu how Luo men no more have a foreskin.(Foreskin vs. votes project). Raila should know that we are comfortable with being Kayi as the Kikuyus always call us. Raila will soon send Mungiki to force our women to circumcised just Mugo is doing in central province."
* "I am again highly critical of the fact that our identity as a people and party is presently under discussion and considerable debate especially when it comes to this so called 'circumcision'. I am looking at this as an attempt by some of us and our leaders to use our cultural and identity pillar as a tool that could be negotiated even in the elusive search for Kenya's Presidency. This is unacceptable for it smacks of a deliberate and selfish move to bring the Luo under the hegemonic tutelage of other communities. I completely agree with the group that seeks to stop the dilution of Luo culture through the promotion of circumcision.
Since circumcision as a defining feature of one's identity is so vital for those that maintain the practice as part of their ethnic identity, the discourse has become so embedded in the Kenyan social landscape partially due to the politicisation of ethnicity. The mutilation of non-circumcised Kenyans during the post-election violence attests to this and it is indeed a shame to see public reinforcement of the politicisation of what is essentially a public health issue coming from what one hopes would be a more informed community - i.e. the virtual community.
On the ground however, the reality has been very different. Hordes of young Luo men are prepared to wait hours and even days and, more surprisingly, are willing to take the chance of knowing their HIV status before getting circumcised regardless of the fact that, 'knowing kills' (a statement I heard so often regarding getting tested). I recently examined the reinvention of the cultural significance of male circumcision in an article published in Wajibu.
It is worth reiterating here that I never came across this sort of speak while interviewing people on a one to one basis or within Focus Group Discussions and neither did my fellow ethnographer while interviewing in Dholuo. Instead, what we found is that the majority of Luo say that culture/customs/tradition is not an important factor in deciding whether or not to circumcise. On a number of occasions when I explored this issue with informants these issues were raised only in terms of interactions with other ethnic groups, very broadly speaking in a sense of acceptance by "the other". Unlike the comments above, the percentage of respondents that stated that they would not circumcise because it is not part of their culture was insignificant. On the contrary, I came across two Luo councillors who were very proud to state that they had been circumcised purely for hygienic and health reasons. One of the conclusions that we drew in our study was that simply adopting male circumcision does not diminish your cultural identity. Circumcision does not detract from the essence of what constitutes you as a person. The question is why, six years after the ethnography was conducted and male circumcision was publicly embraced was there a plethora of statements within the blogosphere against male circumcision based on culture and politics?
Given my involvement with the on male circumcision in Kisumu (western Kenya), I have maintained contact with the Principle Investigator and over the past year, we have had several discussions on the importance of scientists engaging within the blogosphere. From Prof. Bailey's perspective, it is a question of whether the time taken to engage in the blogosphere is really worth it as he questions whether the blogosphere is reaching the necessary target audience (i.e. policy makers and implementers and local communities):
"First, how many people in Kenya really blog, and if they do blog, how many go to the site where you go? Precious few in the overall scheme of things...is it an effective way for me to spend my time if I want to influence people and policy? Do the MPs and Raila blog? I don't think so. Does Mister Onyango tilling his shamba in Siaya blog? I don't think so. Some poor STI-infested drunk poverty-stricken youth in Obunga blog? I don't think so. For that matter, does the Ker blog? I don't think so. One has to make choices about how one spends his time to be effective, and I am not convinced that blogging is IT. Similarly, if I had the money to hire someone to attend to the blogs - read them and write to them and post comments - would that be an effective way to spend our hard-earned funds rather than have that person out on the streets promoting circumcision or on radio or writing articles for the Nation. In Kenya, I don't think so..."
My response to my good friend, Prof. Bailey:
"The medium is increasingly filtering through to the target audiences. Civil servants and civil society ranging from social activists to community health workers and public health researchers; employees and thousands of others sitting in offices are using the internet, and their perceptions are being influenced by what they read. University students would much rather spend 100ksh in a cyber cafe and download everything they need to cut and paste rather than spend hours in a library scanning through books looking for something to put in their papers. The PR machinery around politicians and all the other spin doctors and fixers are increasingly made up of young internet savvy people behind the scenes. I am not saying you replace one medium with another; I am saying we need to embrace this medium. How different would this be to what you asked me to do years ago: "Go and hang on the streets and listen to what people are saying and learn from them."
* Dipesh Pabari is a Kenyan writer and freelance education and communications consultant.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
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