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{
"id": 1161776,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1161776/?format=api",
"text_counter": 113,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13184,
"legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
"slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
},
"content": "The community I come from is very rich in culture. The Borana Community of Northern Kenya all the way to southern Ethiopia practiced the Gada system which is basically a very democratic system of governance that is studied the world over where every eight years, nine individuals are elected to look after the political, social, economic and cultural aspects of the community. It is a very democratic system upon which our democracy could be based because a democracy embedded in our culture, knows where we came from and a democracy that we can relate to, perhaps might serve us better than the imported versions of the democratic values that we attempt to follow at the moment. In terms of the politics of the day, not just the cultural aspect, we have very rich cultures. The Borana community has a very rich culture where by consensus every five years they would choose nine elders. I am seeing the opportunities if this Motion is passed. What i like about this is that this Motion actualizes and implements Article 11 of our Constitution, to ensure that we just do not have laws that are beautiful on papers. This kind of Motion is what breaks down our Constitution into what we do on a daily basis to actualize the dreams that our Constitution contains. Therefore, I congratulate the Senator. While looking at this, there are certain harmful cultural conditioning that we must guard against as well. I am hoping that as the Ministry formulate this cultural development policies, they will look at what is good and encourage that, but also while minimizing the harmful cultural conditioning that exist. For instance, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), early marriages, such things as wife beating as a form of love for women. These kinds of cultural conditioning is what we need to--- Yes, I said female genital mutilation and violence against women. This gives an opportunity to pick what is good in our culture and ensure certain cultural conditioning that is harmful to the less vulnerable, our children, women, people with disabilities and even to our men in certain cases, are eliminated, while we look at this. I do not wish to take so much time. I know that there are quite a number of issues on the Order Paper, but I would like to say that culture is dynamic, growing and unfolding, but we must first of all ensure we preserve, understand, highlight and celebrate what we have. This is so that we can go forward with what then will become and develop as we go alone. We have spoken word and artists. In fact, I am just from the people’s dialogue at the museum which is run by my organization, The Center for Multi-Party Democracy. All the different political parties were there. In this, we had culinary corner where people were cooking different traditional foods all the way from Denmark to Moyale. This is part of culture because the food we eat is informed by our cultural heritage. What is food for one person is poison for another, but then, through this cultural understanding even peace can be achieved. There is a lot to be said about culture and learn from. However, as this House, and as leaders, we definitely have to look at what cultural values are going to be useful to us because we are not a stagnant society, and what cultural conditioning that is not good for us can be minimized. This is where the Government comes in. However, we as Kenyans, parents, women and youth of this country, would be taking responsibility."
}