This blogger's parents did not have a plan when they had him; they swiftly came up with one, though. That plan cost them dearly: fiscally, emotionally and socially. But they were determined; they taught their son how to act, talk, listen and think. They decreed that he would be brought up along the Christian values of hard work, thrift, and honesty. They enforced these values with a tyrannical hand; thirty odd years later, this blogger is glad his parents were tyrants because if they had not been, this blogger would be dead in a ditch somewhere outside Agra in India.
In this weeks blog, Luis Franceschi asks that Kenyans need to change their values in order to enjoy an orderly and comfortable life as that to be found in Luxembourg or Brussels or Cologne. (70 Kenyan students visit Brussels, Luxembourg and Cologne, Daily Nation, Friday 04/04/14.) This blogger is compelled to agree with Mr Franceschi. In a small number of cases, the job of instilling the right values in our children is taken up by institutions other than the family, especially where a child has been orphaned or taken away from its parents. By and large, however, the values we learn are taught in the home, and when we discard them we are a reflection of the values of the parents and the elders in that family.
It is not as far-fetched as one might think in the age of the twenty-four hour movie or music channel, the internet, or the world of online and offline video games. If a child spends all its time in front of the idiot tube, not being mentally nourished with information or education, instead being bombarded with sleaze, sex, corruption, lying and cheating in the name of entertainment, it is the parent that allowed that to happen who is responsible for the values that the child is picking up from the medium. It is the parent that permits its child to spend hours on hours listening to music that has little to recommend it spiritually, academically or morally. It is the parent who is responsible of the awkward socialisation of its child when it cannot interact comfortably with other because the child has spent a considerable portion of its existence with its fingers glued to a video game console.
When we look at the men and women we elect to high office, the men and women we appoint to positions of trust, and the men and women we trust to keep us safe, doing the wrong thing every time they are faced with a choice, why can't take the analysis of their behaviour to its logical conclusion and ask what did their parents, and elders teach them? In the 9th Parliament, a Member from the Rift Valley was nicknamed Baba Dennis for allegedly fathering a child with a girl young enough to be his daughter and then refusing to take parental responsibility for the child. Why did we not ask whether those were the values that the MP instilled in his own children or whether these were the values his parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts instilled in him?
The desire to be first at all times whether or not we deserve to be first is not in-born; it is learnt. In Kenya, it is reflected every day when motorists will not wait for the lights to turn before making their, usually wrong and dangerous, move. It is reflected in the sharp elbowing into lifts even before they empty of their previous passengers. It is reflected in the cheating that has become endemic in institutions of learning, encouraged by the faculty and parents alike, during examinations. It is reflected with the impatience with learning; we want to know, but we do not want to understand. It is the desire for the fastest buck possible. Today, it is our only national value. Greed!
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