Editor,

Allow me to react to Sunny Ntayombya’s article, "Why I am ashamed for gawking at the Miss Rwanda contestants” (The New Times, February 18).

First of all, getting Rwandans girls together in a camp, to choose the most beautiful, most intelligent and other qualities had always been done in Rwandan tradition to choose a bride for the King.

They would spend months being groomed and prepared for the final selection. Participating in such camps would open doors even for the losers to be married to chiefs or prominent people.

Should we ban exams in schools in Rwanda so that those who fail and miss promotion should not feel ridiculed? The exams are also about choosing the smartest, sharp students and the weak ones are rejected.

What about sports? Should selections for big tournaments be banned so that all national sports people feel they are the same? What about elections? These are few examples of categories of platforms of competition where many compete but only the winner is chosen.

We should therefore not confuse these categories or platforms when it comes to Miss Rwanda.

Ngairen

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Actually some of the opinions expressed by Mr. Ntayombya resonate with mine. I like the link he makes between the patriarchal system and gender roles in Rwanda.

Ntayombya touches a sensitive issue demonstrating how our culture is in a state of transformation, struggling to adapt to new trends, especially western values. Truth be told, culture is dynamic. We have adopted western values and presently struggle to fit them into our traditions and cultures.

We are struggling to fit ‘Nyampinga’ into western-based beauty contests, communal approaches with individualism and our traditional forms of leadership and democracy with western democracy and leadership concepts.

Our religion has been substituted with western religions; we have changed our names to western names that do not have any meaning. The transition to new foreign values is long and difficult in a historically cultural society like ours.

The beauty contests in Rwanda are just the tip of an iceberg; there are more profound changes to our lives as Rwandans thanks to a dynamic culture, migration, education, and western interests than we can imagine. Do we have a choice? Yes to some extent.

No one can stop this transformation. As to whether we consider these changes as values or not, that would be yet another topic of discussion.

Daoud