Change A Nation

The Kenyan high court ruled this week that it is not incest to have sexual relations with your first cousin. Let’s think on that for a moment. It is now legal to sleep with your father’s sister’s child for example. The person you grew up with… That sometimes was treated as a sibling.

And the sad state of morals in our tastes does not even make that the top story in our news. It was more interesting to be told about how the opposition reacted to a proposal to have the electoral body run party nominations. Politics came before morality. And that saddens me greatly

I may not be a great fan of the media but I like to think that I know how they operate. They respond to market trends as does most other business. Kenya is a very politically driven nation. So if one media house was to report on the ruling as their top story and another was to report on the politics, the viewers of the previous would switch over to the latter. It is the nature of consumer driven business. If you do not have a monopoly then you need to give better services than your competitor, especially if it can drive away consumers at the press of a button. So while I do not necessarily like the choices the media makes I can understand their position.

Practical example of this is my household. My grandmother watches/listens to news for the political aspect of it, however biased she may be about it. My mother watches the news to hear the state of the nation as well as good news which is rare to report. And then we come to me who watches the news so that I can further my business or get ideas for a new one. Political trends do not affect me so much as the cause and effect of their decisions. My grandmother represents more of the common citizen, my mother the busy middle class and me the techno savvy new working class.

The ordinary citizen is the largest consumer of major media houses. They listen to radio, watch television and read newspapers. The only thing I use the newspaper for is the crossword. I use the internet to keep informed. So the media houses are driven by the common citizen. Politics rules the day as you may have surmised.

Why did I go into this lengthy diatribe? You ask yourself. I think the issue of incest is larger and a commentary on the Kenyan way of life. Morality, for me, is a bigger issue than politics. So to change what the media reports I do not front the opinion that we change the media. I say we change the consumer. Change the morality inherent in us.

I know what you are thinking… how can I change the morality of our nation through the written word? But you are thinking of too large a beginning. All you have to do is change a few minds and they change a few and the change becomes exponential. Don’t think of a drastic one time change that lasts. Any sudden changes are bound to be temporary. Change is sometimes slow and hard. Change the morality of one person by showing them why they need to change and they will become one of the biggest proponents of change that there is. Let them make that change their own and they will stick by it longer than forced change.

To change the way our nation moves forward first we have to change the way our nation thinks. That type of large scale change is slow and fraught with difficulty. Change the way the youth think first as they are the incoming leaders and you change the way the nation of tomorrow is governed. Change the incumbent and nothing changes as they are outgoing.

Preference drives media. Media drives information spread. Information drives choice. Morality drives preference. Change the morality you change a nation.