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{
"id": 1520632,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1520632/?format=api",
"text_counter": 226,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Caroli Omondi",
"speaker": null,
"content": "practises that will advance your knowledge and standing in society. He goes on to say: ‘‘I cannot rest from travels. Yet all experiences and arcs wear through. It is not too late to seek a new world.” I believe that, as a country, we should endeavour to create a Kenyan culture borrowing from all the diverse cultural identities we have. Hon. Temporary Speaker, this Bill seeks to create two things that we do not have hitherto. It seeks to create a national database of community culture. Currently, there is no database. Whatever we are discussing here is not documented, recorded or acknowledged as belonging to a particular community. The Bill also seeks to create a register of those cultures and cultural heritage as well as cultural practitioners, groups and associations. That is the framework we need so that anybody using or accessing that information, or applying it to cultural industries, can generate income for those communities upon payment of some fees. It may look like it is not very well drafted, but it reflects the difficulty of monetising culture. Speaking as a Member of the Departmental Committee on Sports, Arts and Culture, the attempt here is to create a legal framework with a register, database and mechanism for collecting and recording our various cultural practises and norms, and then creating an opportunity for communities that developed them to benefit from cultural industries. But for communities to interface with promoters of cultural industries, we need something called prior informed consent in terms of the use of their cultural norms and practices. That, again, is envisaged in this Bill. So, anybody wishing to tap into a cultural activity or a norm from a particular community will need to have something called ‘prior informed consent’ of that community to use that culture or cultural heritage. There are many cultural industries that are already benefiting without transferring any benefits to the communities. Film-making is one of them. You create films about the Maasai culture, about Turkana, about other communities, circulate them in the world, make money, and never share the profit to the communities. Fashion industry is another one. Today, you can go to Paris and you see the Maasai red and white shuka and the checked ones all over the catwalk, and nobody is paying any money for it. Academic publications, books, articles, promotion of tourism, people coming to visit Gedi Ruins or going to visit certain archaeological sites are other examples. Cultural exhibitions are very common where people organise cultural events, money is raised but not shared with the communities. Culture is a marketing tool and we have very many instances where peoples’ cultures are used to promote goods or services, arts, items, paintings, artefacts and musical productions. Somebody talked about medicine. In Kwale, there is actually a community that has traditional mechanisms for birth control that are as effective as whatever you would get from Pfizer, but it has not been patented and it belongs to the community. There is design of clothes, furniture, as well as industrial production of foodstuffs. You find that a lot of traditional cuisine has been taken over by industries, packaged and sold, and those revenues are not shared to the community. So, I urge Members to look at the Bill positively and understand that what we are trying to do here is to create that framework whose much of the work will be by way of regulations. But it would be good to hear the views to strengthen the Bill at this particular stage. The whole idea is that the cultural industries can now be given the framework within which to pay compensation and royalties to our communities for the use of their culture and cultural heritage. Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker."
}