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"id": 216408,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Syongo",
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"legal_name": "Zaddock Madiri Syong'oh",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was talking about the exposure of our children to obscenities by the media, particularly televisions and now Frequency Modulation (FM) 2188 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 3, 2007 stations. We all know that in this country we have societies which have very sound cultures. We have a cultural heritage that has kept us going for many years. Therefore, the freedom of press cannot be a licence to destroy our cultural heritage and to expose our children to behaviour that will definitely destroy them as well as society. I am convinced that even the high rate of violence and crime and the kind of crime that we are seeing, including rape and sexual offences, are largely attributed to the kind of exposure that our youth and children are subjected to by television as well as by the FM stations. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have a terrible case in the nearby country which is now a member of the East African Community (EAC), Rwanda, where the media was used to set one community against another all belonging to one society and using stereotypes. That country experienced unbelievable pain which will take years to heal. We also saw the head of that ugly side of the media beginning to show itself during the Referendum debate when certain communities were targeted deliberately, so as to destroy their image and leadership in order to simply win the referendum game. If we were not a mature and prayerful society, maybe, we would have gone into a civil war. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to suggest and to convince my colleagues that we must put in place a piece of legislation that will control the excesses of an irresponsible media. It is only a responsible media which will flourish and not the reckless ones which are too willing to set us on the warpath and to destroy our cultural heritage and really trash the youth that are the heritage of our country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, so what mischief would one be trying to deal with in this particular Bill? I think one of them is that there should be minimal Government control of editorial policy as well as content. Secondly, we should deal with the possibility of using the media to scandalise and character-assassinate communities as well as individuals. Thirdly, we would like to control the proven capacity of the media to promote discontent and even hatred and animosity amongst communities leading to civil war and strive. Fourthly, we would like a situation where we can check on the likely and actual proven capacity of the media to promote moral decadence amongst our society which you now see even during the very early evenings when families would normally sit together and watch television. Parents with their children sit down to watch television. We all know in our society, many times we also have our mothers and mother-in-laws sitting next to each other and watching television. Today, it would be a big risk for you to sit together with your children and parents-in-law to watch television in this country in complete disregard to our cultural heritage. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, fifthly, we also should, through this Act, be able to control the possibility of monopoly of the media sector by a few investors or media owners. It is so important that there is a multiplicity of investors in this sector and that there is a multiplicity of media and fair competition, so that this old very powerful tool of communication and influence is not in the hands of a few individuals. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, much has been talked about the claim by the media saying that they are in pursuit of the truth. However, any responsible person knows that in any society and given situation, sometimes the cost of disclosing the truth is far much greater than the cost of non-disclosure. It takes a mature person little time to know that difference. If you look, for example, at the Iraq war going on now in the Middle East, not a single day will you ever see a dead American soldier shown on Cable News Network (CNN). Never a single day will you ever see a dead British soldier shown on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and yet they die. You will never see them even on BBC. It is not that they do not have a free media, they do, but they will never show a peace-keeping soldier dead on the streets of Iraq, or anywhere else. Never! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we had the September 11 bombing of the Trade July 3, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2189 Centre in the USA. Which one of us here ever saw the body of a dead American by the side of the bombing site and yet that event was covered profusely by the Western media? They never showed it. But ourselves, in this country, we show horrible scenes to our children. Right now, I can tell you that amongst our youth, human life means nothing. It is because they are so used to seeing death that they do not really care about human life. No, wonder we have, for the very first time in our history, a situation where human beings are being beheaded by youths of our society. That is where they are getting it from. It is because the media and even ourselves, as leaders, we have let all systems loose. I would like to challenge our media, that is, media owners as well as journalists, for goodness sake, to be Kenyans and members of the society that has brought them up. They should be proud of a culture that has brought them up. They should not destroy other people's children. They should not destroy this society on which they depend by being irresponsible just for the sake of selling newspapers and increasing viewership of their television stations. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I beg to support with the full understanding, as has been said before, that, indeed, the relevant Parliamentary Committee has actually done a considerable and very good work. I would like to support hon. Njoki Ndung'u that the proposed amendments should now be tabled so that we can share in them and inform our debate before we go to the Committee of the Whole House. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I beg to support."
}