#Ukenya@50 ... 11th Show :-) ... 21/11/13
Ukenya
Good Evening Friends,
We have done the 10 shows, & we are not done yet.
Tomorrow we have the 11th Show, where we continue focusing on the entertainment industry; this time, the gospel sector.
The discussants will be Kambua, Juliani & 'Njugush'.
Show runs from 7am to 8am, link to be shared as soon as possible, kama kawaida.
Cheers.
Naisula Lesuuda
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Lets engage on what it means to say 'I Am Kenyan' ... today
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Margaret Shava
Sent from my iPad
Ngunjiri Wambugu
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Njeri Gakonyo
Hi Ngunjiri et al,
First, congratulations on successfully holding these shows. Secondly, what ideas does this group have for taking the conversation further? Yesterday I attended a church service that inspired one idea which I’ve tried to capture thus:
Kenya First position opening: enablers for the difficult conversations
For some time now, many of us have been talking about the need for Kenya to go through a profound moral uplifting – we can hardly progress with these abysmal value systems. Years ago I was trying to understand how to stimulate change in values in a society. The one approach that stuck with me is that you have to get people talking about the values you want to shift. In the course of discussing experiences, pros and cons, thinking seriously about knotty questions, people can learn to stretch or move their views. I was privileged to see this in action in a very different setting, but the essential lessons are relevant for us.
Yesterday morning I visited Forest Home Chapel, a small community church in the United Methodist Church tradition, here in upstate New York. Apart from the remarkable, tangible sense of community the most striking quality I found among the people was a willingness to engage in a conversation that many are finding difficult. Here’s how it happened: as the Reverend was announcing the events for the week, she introduced a couple, also visiting the church, who were there to help Forest Home Chapel become a “reconciling congregation”. This tweaked my interest: whatever did this mean? A little further into the service, the couple stepped up to the front to explain what they were doing. They are designated coaches who can help congregations become reconcilers. They help churches to have constructive conversations about how they need to accept everyone and their motto is that “all means ALL” – no one should be left out. They have experienced people coming to them to talk about the pain they feel when Christians will not accept them – in this particular case because of their sexual orientation. Their bottom line is that Jesus called Christians to love, above everything else, His message being primarily about the grace of God, fully available to everyone.
The pastor then went on to expound on this, using author Chimamanda Adichie’s must-watch TED talk on the Danger of a Single Story. Basically, we stick people into these stereotypes which deny their full humanity and make it impossible for us to see where we are similar to them. For example, when she left Nigeria and came to the US for university, her roommate couldn’t get past the fact that she was African and how on earth could she be speaking good English and not starving or living in a war zone? That was the one story the roommate had about Africans and it prevented her from seeing Chimamanda as a full person. Chimamanda challenges us to be willing to explore and see other realities of other people and their lives. The Forest Home Chapel pastor deftly drew the parallel: going beyond the single story about “those other people” is what it means to be reconcilers. If you are a Christian, you know that the biblical command is that we all have the ministry of reconciliation. I imagine other faith traditions have similar threads.
The parallels and lessons for us in Kenya and Africa at large glimmered brightly. In the case of Kenya, we need to develop more reconciliation coaches who can help us have difficult conversations – particularly the one about everyone being a full Kenyan. This national identity question has been dogging us for too long, almost leading to an implosion in 2008. If it takes conversations to change values, can we be deliberate about developing our conversational skills beyond breakfast radio and TV talk shows to family and community spaces? These media are vital in helping us to start talking, but we must extend the conversation to other everyday opportunities.
So many are timid because they simply don’t know how to have these conversations – but some of us do. What I saw yesterday morning was a group of people who had decided to take on the issue they were dealing with head on & they are fortunate to have mechanisms and resources available to help them navigate the choppy waters of a sensitive conversation. Can those of us who uphold a Kenyan identity become skilled conversation resources for groups around the country? In fact, if someone was to crowdsource the tools individual Kenyans have created on this issue, we may have a sizeable arsenal to kick off a major push to promote the Kenyan identity – a project truly worthy of our Kenya@50 year. Njeri Gakonyo Monday 25 November, 2013
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Njeri