Author: Francis Kahihu
Date: January 19, 2007
Type of article: Letter
Source: The Daily Nation - only available online by registration and paid subscription fee

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The seventh World Social Forum will be hosted in Kenya from this weekend. It will bring together tens of thousands of delegates to discuss, among other issues, the HIV/Aids pandemic.

The delegates will also grapple with the crucial topics of gender, privatisation, landlessness, peace and conflict, migration and the Diaspora. There will also be time for the participants to share ideas on several other fronts.

Also to feature at the forum will be youth issues, the need for debt relief for poor countries, free trade agreements, labour and housing. It is estimated that more than half of the participants at the forum will be foreign delegates.

This is, indeed, a great opportunity to market our country, and I expect the media to play a significant role at this forum.

In the past, we have witnessed no change in the programming of our media houses even during important international events such as this one. An example is the United Nations climate change talks at Gigiri, when we hosted hundreds of delegates from all over the world. Besides attending the fete, they would have liked to interact and learn more about Kenyans, their culture and systems.

We have been presented with yet another opportunity to showcase our best. This time, I hope to see more responsive programming. We should substitute some of the foreign radio and TV programmes with episodes that are truly Kenyan.

We need programmes that promote our national heritage sites such as game parks, museums and rain forests. Theatrical performances that reflect our culture would be of great value to the visitors.

A closer look at the current programming, especially by TV stations, reveals an alarming trend, with foreign content accounting for more than 75 per cent. 

This way, even the local population feels starved of information related to their own environment.

We only hear of parks when tourists are stranded in the Mara, or when a hot-air balloon fails to take off in this or that park. 

Although we are fans of nature and wildlife, we don’t show enough of our breathtaking waterfalls and other scenic beauty. 

We would rather watch marine life shows than the cheap Mexican soap operas, with their predictable plots, that do not tax viewers’ imagination, and in which suspense fails to achieve its goal.

So, as we gear up for the social forum, and in March for the World Cross country championship in Mombasa, could we see more of Kenya?

As families are requested to host delegates to the social forum, could we sit in our living rooms and watch exclusively Kenyan programmes? Could we have the opportunity to boast for once about being proud to be Kenyans?

Let’s hear the visitors say that our parks and water falls are simply gorgeous! With this, we shall have more and more people in the global arena campaigning for similar events to be hosted by Kenya. 

And this will translate into more revenue for our country. This is certainly the kind of Kenya we are looking forward to. This is a country that has a variety to offer our visitors.

We will have notched up real success when other organisations planning such international meetings decide that there is no other place to go than Kenya.

This is possible through the concerted efforts of all of us.

FRANCIS KAHIHU,
Nairobi.