Institutions are the backbone of society. When they collapse,
society follows. The collapse may happen little by little but if the
shock is sudden, so is the fall.
This week we are witnessing an institution in danger of breakdown, due to bad legislation. This institution is the family.
The
family institution has traditionally been, or should have been, the
cradle of human values. These values translate into behavioural
attitudes at school, work and social life. A good family upbringing
develops the right attitude for growth in aptitude.
This week I have had the opportunity to travel a few thousand miles for professional reasons.
Travel
is terribly exciting when one is a child and a breathtaking adventure
during adolescence. It becomes business as usual when one becomes a
professional and a lamentable, sacrificial undertaking in old age.
THE KEEN OBSERVER
The
keen observer usually takes advantage of travelling to gather valuable
experiences. Travelling provides time to observe, to discover and to
learn.
Whatever
the reason, travelling always sheds new lights to my life experience.
While appreciating that generalisations are limited, travel always
brings the traveller into contact with fellow travellers, each with
peculiar habits.
I am talking of those tourists, some
from China, who view all sites through the lens of their impressive
cameras. Each moment and object is captured – dustbins, doors, birds,
planes, cars, airports, trees and tyres.
They seem to
want to capture the world in their tiny cameras while perhaps forgetting
that the human eye and memory are far more incisive in their capture of
reality.
SELFIE WITHOUT STRETCHING
I wonder if they will ever get the time to watch so many hours of recorded material.
I
often suspect that sometimes they are not doing tourism but simply
working; capturing objects that will be copied when they go back home,
then improved and sold at a cheaper price.
Unlike the
Chinese camera lovers, another group of travellers also stand out. They
are "young" and they see the world with them in the centre, in a
"selfie". All is captured as part of the selfie often requiring
tremendous stretching and bending of limbs.
All selfie
lovers will be happy to know that Chinese innovators have designed a
camera stick that allows short-limbed selfie lovers to take a good and
comprehensive selfie without stretching their limbs to the point of
pain.
AMERICAN HONESTY
One
of the most important observations any visitor to America will make is
that the average person there has a deep sense of honesty that is really
commendable.
In the United States there are many
stores with no cashiers, many fast-food joints where you serve your own
soda, and car rental offices where you are told to choose your own car
in the parking lot and find the keys in the ignition.
I
was never screened or searched by anyone, except at the airport. There
are no police checks on any road, but if you speed, you will surely get
caught.
The streets are safe, the roads are in perfect shape, the road signs are clear, and people often leave their car doors open.
There
are a thousand ways to cheat and have a free soda, a free meal, a free
computer or a free car in the US, but when the thief is caught, he or
she will be in deep trouble; their lives will be practically over.
EVERYONE ON THEIR OWN
Such
acts result in loss of credibility, and in the US nobody can function
without a credit facility. Americans value social honesty, and there is
no doubt that this makes their country function better.
I
was sharing these positive experiences with Samuel Ngure and his wife
Janet Kemboi at a café in Ithaca, New York. Sam and Janet are brilliant
young professionals undertaking postgraduate courses at Cornell
University.
At some point Janet told me, “It all seems
to work in the US, but there is something essential that is not working
here; the family. Everyone seems to be on their own. Broken families and
shattered promises are too common.”
Janet is right.
America is a land of deep social contrasts. Honesty makes them
sustainable today, but this same honesty may be jeopardised by the
broken social fabric of tomorrow. This is already happening in some
Dutch cities like Amsterdam.
Too much focus on the
social values that protect the economy has led to a situation where
stealing money or cheating or breaking traffic rules or lying become the
only true evils in the eyes of society.
In the
process, there is a danger of forgetting to look into other important
aspects and as a result, the social structure of society starts to take a
beating.
HONESTY NEEDS FAMILY
For
several years now, marriage has been on the receiving end. It has been
beaten again and again, on radio and in television shows.
Fidelity,
which used to be a virtue, seems to have become an old-fashioned
concept, for the abnormal. This beating will turn our society into an
unsustainable man-eat-man society.
The High Court yesterday suspended the application of the November 1, 2014 deadline that required members of the clergy to obtain registration before presiding over weddings.
The
actual union of the marital bond is stronger than the administrative
procedure for registration. In this case the court is averting the
realisation of illegal weddings due to logistical problems regarding
registration and certain charges imposed on certificate issuance.
The courts acted in a reasonable manner, though the deadline will still apply sooner or later.
Courts
must be very sensitive to the protection of family and marriage. We are
still in time to reverse the ugly trend of broken societies. Sure, they
all have a reason to justify breaking apart, but they survive thanks to
their back-up systems: a sense of duty and general social honesty.
In
Kenya we have failed the honesty test and everyone is suspicious of
everyone else. The late Njenga Karume once told me that in the old days,
newspaper vendors in Nairobi used to leave newspapers unattended with a
hat on many street corners in the CBD.
In the evening
they would go back and collect the unsold papers and the money paid. It
all added up, for people would get the paper, pay the exact amount and,
if necessary, get the change from the hat.
CONTEXT FOR FAMILY LAW
Today,
if a vendor were to try this system he would sadly find no papers, no
money and no hat at the end of the day. We have lost honesty. We cannot
fail and also lose the family test.
America has honesty with a limping family. We have lost honesty, and we will be in trouble if we lose the family.
It
is important for our legislators to become aware that we should
contextualise family legislation to protect the family, and in a special
way, protect the rights of women as the pillar and foundation of unity
in the Kenyan family.
God help us if we lose the family!
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