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"id": 380667,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/380667/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "July 24, 2013 SENATE DEBATES 31 Sen. (Prof.) Lonyangapuo",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I want to join my colleagues in thanking Sen. (Dr.) Kuti for bringing to our attention what we know is affecting our Kenyan society today, where we are seeing behaviours that were never heard of before. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the wise say – although the original saying is in Swahili – “Whoever leaves his culture becomes a slave.” we have suddenly become very sure slaves of other foreign lifestyles. Do you know that Africans have their own cultures? We have over 42 ethnic cultures in Kenya and the good discipline we used to have, other than the bad behaviours like cattle rustling which used to take place, for example, between one ethnic group and another one--- But essentially, what this culture was doing was to put sense and morality into the lives of our children and adults. If you can remember, we had many systems in our society where women would meet and there was a way they would teach the young girls. Similarly, when adult men met, they would educate the young boys. But when we brought in civilization, which is very good, this civilization has gone to extremes to the extent that, today, we are hearing what Sen. G.G. Kariuki was talking about, where we have a new group that is boldly trying to bring their presence into Kenya, where ladies can marry ladies and men can marry men. Just mention that in a village where culture is still being talked about and they will invoke the spirit of God and gods upon you and you will cease to exist! So, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, for us to move forward as a nation in the generation we are in now and in the years to come, this Motion says that the present Government and the future Governments have to put systematic and institutionalized cultural programmes at the national level so that through the syllabuses generated for schools, through the training that is given even to our own disciplined forces, it can be part of the curriculum used to train them so that we can be able to put away negative influences. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, you have heard Sen. G.G. Kariuki wondering whether the thinking of West Pokot County, which is still rich in culture, is backward compared to their colleagues in Kikuyu land. If you can recall, about four or five years ago, there was a group that used to terrorise people in Central Province and parts of Nairobi, called Mungiki . Who were they? These are part of our children who, somehow along the way started thinking that we had become too urbanized. We have a situation where parents and adults do not talk to their children. Instead, they listen to their radios and watch their televisions and think that they are automatically educated to know how to live. We end up having petty thieves. People try to borrow, transfer and transport cultures from what they see in the media in an attempt to make life better for themselves. In the process, these petty crimes come along. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when we were growing up in the early 1970s, some of us who were in school at that time –and I know Sen. G.G. Kariuki was one of those people – during independence, you will remember we used to have Ministers and we used to sing in school. It was automatic that you had to sing in primary schools; there was an agenda that the nation had revealed and the Minister had read, so we used to sing. Who was the late Minister for Education in 1974/1975? Was it Jonathan Ng’eno--- No, no, no; that was the Speaker. It was this fellow who did research on rats, the late Dr. Taita The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}