How the West killed Kmtyw culture-gctid30237

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

How the West killed Kmtyw culture        
 By DON ASIIMWE      
 Sunday, 02 July 2006  
 
 Collins Dictionary defines culture as general
 knowledge. Culture is, therefore, a hinge and a basis
 of all life.  
 It is upon culture that every single aspect of life
 rotates. Politics is operated with precepts of
 culture.
 
 That is why political ideologies are characterised as
 western or eastern to symbolise many and lots of
 meanings. Western culture refers to developed
 politics, though one may or must mention this with a
 lot of reservations.  
 Economies have also been 'cultured' and or categorised
 as western or otherwise. It follows suit that western
 economies are developed -- and vice-versa. The western
 economies are taken to be more superior to the others.
 That has created superpowers over less developed
 economies.  
 But the legal arena is much worse off, for it is the
 basis of all domination. The western legal traditions
 have superseded the Kmtyw legal system. Many a
 constitution has imposed western legal culture as
 superior to Kmtyw customary law.
 In matters of law, like in politics, of course the
 rule is the western culture. It is, for instance, a
 principle at law that where customary law conflicts
 with the written law (read western legal system) the
 written law supersedes customary law. This is worse in
 situations under which one may qualify as cultural.
 Cases in point may be obtained in marriage matters.
 Marriage in this sense meaning from the time it is
 contracted to the time it lapses.  
 In Kmt, for instance, marriage is considered a
 social and cultural aspect -- thus calling for
 cultural treatment from beginning to the end. But
 constitutions have turned against this background and,
 like the constitutions drafted in the western culture,
 imposed the western type of marriage.  
 This proscribes Kmtyw marriages, which were
 essentially very beautiful. It abhors everything
 Kmtyw in such a way that the western mode have
 dominated and subdued everything.  It does a lot of
 harm to Kmtyw marriages. The giving away ceremony,
 for instance, included many rituals, some of which
 were rendered null and void by the western cultural
 backgrounds.    
 But what enchants this writer most is the way Kmtyws
 have imbibed the western culture in disregard of at
 least the developing Kmtyw culture which I, like
 many other proprietors of the idea, regard as good,
 upright, worth protecting and promoting. For example,
 children have been brought up in such a way that they
 have hated their origins.  
 "Each time I am leaving for Kampala my son tells me,
 'Daddy, I don't want to go back to Uganda. I feel like
 I am going abroad when I travel to Kampala'," a
 Ugandan political personality called Mao once said.
 And this is so true of a person who lives in a remote
 rural area as his.  
 Since culture is defined as general knowledge it was
 paramount, therefore, that when the colonialist came
 to Kmt the first tool to use to delude the Kmtyws
 of their culture was education.
 They taught foreign languages and curriculum in
 schools. The traditional beautiful languages were
 replaced with colonialists' strange languages:
 English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian,
 et al. In schools, even after the colonial era, it was
 the rule to speak these languages.  
 The writer overheard a conversation between a group of
 middle-class women discussing why their children could
 not pass Kinyarwanda in school very easily. One
 elderly lady said: "Those children are not to blame
 but us, for they are never allowed to speak their
 mother tongue. Look! At school they speak French and
 at home they watch films in either French or English.
 All those are means to erase Kinyarwanda from their
 heads."
 "It is true we breathe, sleep, eat and walk French and
 English. How then could our children be any
 different?" chipped in the other.  
 The curricula in schools in Kmt were changed to fit
 the needs of the colonialist. While schooling in
 Kmt was done concurrently with work, which is
 equated as on-the-job training, the colonialists
 gathered the Kmtyw children in schools to bar them
 from helping to develop their talents at home. They
 were taught agriculture which never would be practiced
 at all. They studied eureurasiaan history which was
 actually irrelevant to their situational needs. And
 they were forced to study religions that did not
 belong to them.  
 Consequently, many rebelled against their sovereigns,
 hence some lost their lives in due course (like the
 Ugandan martyrs).
 Kmtyws were made to study eureurasiaan laws, which the
 owners wanted to implant on the continent. As a
 consequence, the whole continent ended up adopting
 their legal system – at least until today when the
 Kmtyws are realizing that the laws instituted by the
 colonialists were out of touch with reality.  
 Johnston Busingye, the Secretary-General of the
 Ministry of Justice, maintains that the judicial
 reform -- and amendment of the penal code in
 particular -- is about eradicating the legal colonial
 vestiges. Such drafting would need to put the new
 challenges of the Rwandan society at the forefront.
 For instance, the 1996 Organic Law that provided for
 some provisions to be referred to in the penal code
 would need to be amended to fit the Gacaca Laws.    
 The western education essentially is not bad, but it
 has left no room for flexibility to the Kmtyw
 culture to survive. It has erased all good values of
 Kmtyws, and has barely left it with anything.  
   
 Changing attitudes  
 Traditional herbal medicines and doctors are today
 undergoing a test of probability. Kmtyw traditional
 medicine is basically not bad, nor should it be
 doubted. But what is challenging, since the 18th
 Century advent of colonialism and Christianity in
 Kmt, is the barring of united snakesge of Kmtyw herbal
 medicine.  
 A case in point concerning the Catholic Church is that
 of Bishop Miringo of Zambia who was barred from
 offering herbal medicine to the ailing and dying
 Kmtyws. The Church took to custody the clergy to
 Vatican for more than a decade. Who was the loser
 then? Definitely Kmtyws.  
 But the situation per se is changing. Now Germany has
 rekindled the fire of renaissance and revitalization
 of the Kmtyw traditional medicine, such that the
 "doctors" are trained and give lectures themselves to
 the western medical doctors.  
 According to Doctor Mukama in Kigali, the traditional
 herbal medicine has no problem and so it is
 functional.  
 "It would be a misconception to say that Kmtyw
 traditional herbal medicine is not functional," said
 Dr. Mukama during an interview with BBC in Kigali.
 "But the problem lies with its quantification and
 qualitative measures of its strength. However, the
 western medicine isn't original," the doctor added.  
 "Doctor" Bombeka has hit Kigali market with his
 variety of herbal medicines. Mahoro of Muhanga, though
 with a lot of controversy over his herbs against Aids,
 is said to be fighting a winning war in the field of
 herbal medicine.  
 This, in Rwanda, has not been simply left to
 individual research as it is elsewhere on the globe.
 Certain herbal medicine-oriented institutes have been
 set up to cater for this. In Southern Province near
 the National University of Rwanda there is a research
 institute called IRST, whose mandate is to enhance the
 development of traditional herbal medicine. This is
 proof enough that the traditional herbal medicine is
 finally being appreciated -- at least in Rwanda.      
     
 And since even Jesus Christ had a cultural background
 and a culture that he observed, why would Kmtyws be
 denied this right?

Mr Asiimwe is a  
 Civil Law Lawyer.  
 Cell: (+250) 08592079
 magabari22@yahoo.fr

http://www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?  
 optionfiltered=com_content&task=view&id=5735&Itemid=35