The official Twitter handle of the Kenya Films and Classifications Board quotes its corporate communications manager as declaring that "Creativity has to be guided by the law". This is in relation to the protection of children from harm because of the media that they may be exposed to. This is after she retweeted what the Secretary to the KFCB had tweeted regarding the Hamilton statue standing outside the Supreme Court Building in Nairobi, "We must begin to ask hard questions and shape our future through media and art instead of opening up the space and becoming passive recipients of foreign dogma!"
"Foreign dogma" for those joining the show at this hour, is a tame euphemism for anything that the Board, its officers and employees have deemed as "aberrant" and, therefore, harmful to children.
When Uhuru Kenyatta, while attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London in April, sat for a televised interview with a CNN anchor in which he made it as plain as he could without having to come out and say it explicitly that homosexuals could not expect special protections from his Government because, in his words, the "subject is of no major importance to the people and the Republic of Kenya." He would not come out and declare that homosexuals would be protected from harassment and abuse from organs of the State.
The officers of the Kenya Film Classification Board have never hidden their animus against homosexuals, never mind that they have sometimes stated that even qualified homosexuals are fit to work for the Board. On several occasions, they have declared these humans to have committed offences simply for being homosexuals and have accused them of spreading their agenda through the media including through film, music and children's animated TV shows. According to these public officers, being a homosexual is a crime and "glorifying homosexuality" is a crime. They have taken every opportunity to truck in some of the worst tropes about homosexuals, including paedophilia and sexual crimes. And because of their aversion to homosexuals, they have made it their mission to purge cinema, the airwaves and the internet of any message, no matter how benign, that they have deemed to be a glorification of homosexuality or the promotion of the homosexual agenda.
It doesn't occur to them that they have been passed by time. Many Kenyans, out of misinformation and misunderstanding, will react with disgust if someone reveals themselves to be a homosexual, but that is a shrinking number these days. More Kenyans are more exposed to new ideas about morality and ethics because of the internet and the ease with which they can travel abroad. They are more accepting of people who are different from them. And they have greater and greater appreciation for notions of individual rights such as privacy. Fewer and fewer Kenyans, outside the realms of gossip, are truly interested in the goings on in other Kenyans' bedrooms. Only the State, in the guise of the Kenya Film Classification, still has what sometimes feels like a prurient fascination with the affairs of not just homosexuals, but the entire LGBTQI+ community. This prurience is reflected in the sometimes violent language used by the chief executive officers and his director of communications.
The Board, therefore, though out of time and out of touch, will continue to argue for the criminalisation of free expression and the punishment of those who dare to say the un-sayable in film. And while the Board leads the charge to purify the nation's films, airwaves and internet, the world will come out to celebrate the filmmakers, thinkers, writers, musicians, poets, actors, dancers and artistes who dare to show us what we never even knew we had. The Board will eventually lose. I just hoe it won't be before it ruins many lives.
"Foreign dogma" for those joining the show at this hour, is a tame euphemism for anything that the Board, its officers and employees have deemed as "aberrant" and, therefore, harmful to children.
When Uhuru Kenyatta, while attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London in April, sat for a televised interview with a CNN anchor in which he made it as plain as he could without having to come out and say it explicitly that homosexuals could not expect special protections from his Government because, in his words, the "subject is of no major importance to the people and the Republic of Kenya." He would not come out and declare that homosexuals would be protected from harassment and abuse from organs of the State.
The officers of the Kenya Film Classification Board have never hidden their animus against homosexuals, never mind that they have sometimes stated that even qualified homosexuals are fit to work for the Board. On several occasions, they have declared these humans to have committed offences simply for being homosexuals and have accused them of spreading their agenda through the media including through film, music and children's animated TV shows. According to these public officers, being a homosexual is a crime and "glorifying homosexuality" is a crime. They have taken every opportunity to truck in some of the worst tropes about homosexuals, including paedophilia and sexual crimes. And because of their aversion to homosexuals, they have made it their mission to purge cinema, the airwaves and the internet of any message, no matter how benign, that they have deemed to be a glorification of homosexuality or the promotion of the homosexual agenda.
It doesn't occur to them that they have been passed by time. Many Kenyans, out of misinformation and misunderstanding, will react with disgust if someone reveals themselves to be a homosexual, but that is a shrinking number these days. More Kenyans are more exposed to new ideas about morality and ethics because of the internet and the ease with which they can travel abroad. They are more accepting of people who are different from them. And they have greater and greater appreciation for notions of individual rights such as privacy. Fewer and fewer Kenyans, outside the realms of gossip, are truly interested in the goings on in other Kenyans' bedrooms. Only the State, in the guise of the Kenya Film Classification, still has what sometimes feels like a prurient fascination with the affairs of not just homosexuals, but the entire LGBTQI+ community. This prurience is reflected in the sometimes violent language used by the chief executive officers and his director of communications.
The Board, therefore, though out of time and out of touch, will continue to argue for the criminalisation of free expression and the punishment of those who dare to say the un-sayable in film. And while the Board leads the charge to purify the nation's films, airwaves and internet, the world will come out to celebrate the filmmakers, thinkers, writers, musicians, poets, actors, dancers and artistes who dare to show us what we never even knew we had. The Board will eventually lose. I just hoe it won't be before it ruins many lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment