After Umuganura, we should work on our 'microphone culture'

Friday was an interesting day. The night before I had gone to bed almost the same way I often do, exhausted. And so I had a deep sound sleep almost akin to that of a morgue tenant. When I got up I noticed that almost everyone was talking about an earthquake that had been felt in Rwanda, Burundi and parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. I later learnt that it measured 5.6 on the Richter scale and had happened at around 3:30am Rwandan time. There were some few people that were injured when their homes gave in to the tremors and in Eastern DR Congo three people were reported to have died. The earthquake that I never felt got me thinking about the different things that seem obvious but for some reason we never seem to notice or if we do we still shrug our shoulders and move on very fast. For example, the situation in Burundi is deteriorating with mysterious deaths and disappearances becoming quite the norm unless it is a key army official or popular rights activist. The Burundi story is one we are more comfortable to ignore as long as our passport does not have the word Burundi on the first page. On social media we are more interested in a male Zimbabwean lion, with a rather weird name for any Zimbabwean, Cecil (remember Cecil Rhodes?). Events in Burundi are set to further take a back seat for many in the region now that life is ‘back to normal programming.’ That basically refers to the fact that for many, the priority from now on will be how ‘their team’ performs in the English Premier League. Sports betting places are going to be back in full business as well as bars that invested in a DSTv kit to air the football games. Meanwhile Rwanda is making it a habit to dig up some of its cultural gems, dust them off and give them new meaning and purpose. Friday was a public holiday in Rwanda to mark what the National Harvest Day better known by its original name, Umuganura. The day is essentially a Thanksgiving Day and this year it was marked under the theme; “Umuganura, a foundation of unity and self-reliance.” It is celebrated at the beginning of the every harvest season and that will now be the first Friday of August every year. This being 2015, it has also been repackaged to suit the current times and so its meaning has been broadened from being about agricultural produce to now include achievements from other sectors such as health, education, ICT, tourism and many other aspects of the country’s development. Rwanda has previously utilised other aspects of its culture to serve as home grown solutions to the challenges the country faces. For example concepts like community mediators (Abunzi) and Gacaca have gone a long way in addressing judicial challenges. Public service workers are also expected to sign performance contracts locally known as Imihigo. Perhaps the most famous one is the Umuganda (community clean up) that happens every last Saturday of the month and is credited with Rwanda’s reputation as a clean and organised country. The determination to combine both modern and cultural ways of doing things is clearly a smart approach spearheaded by the government of Rwanda. Since we are talking about culture, we must all be tired of hearing the stereotype of African time something often mentioned casually whenever someone or a group of people fail to keep time. However I believe this is something that we need to think about more and devise a strategy to work on and fix. Related to the poor time keeping is something I like to call our love for the microphone. Before we can deal with the general issue of poor time keeping I think we can start by securing a small but vital victory concerning how we conduct ourselves when given a chance to speak. I have lost count of the number of events that start late but also drag on because those who attend simply love to talk. Even when the MC says the time is limited and begs speakers to be brief that is never heeded. Instead speaker after speaker will over shoot their allocated time and even those who were not scheduled to talk will plead to be allowed to talk. It would be a great day when poor time keeping is no longer considered as part of African culture.

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After Umuganura, we should work on our 'microphone culture'