Not All Cultures are Created Equal
Culture is beautiful. It defines tribes, shapes beliefs, influences decisions and ideologies, and is fundamental to religious beliefs. In East Africa, (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania) certain tribes are associated with specific cultures that are unique to them. In America, the diverse cultures of people from all walks of life are well represented in one aspect: different cuisines and food delicacies. For example, tinga, tamales, and tortas from Mexican restaurants are dishes that are delicious. Chicken or lamb biryani, samosas, bhajias from the Indian restaurants; pastas, risottos and pizza from Italian restaurants are also mouthwatering. Chicken dumplings, hush puppies, barbecued chicken or pork ribs and low-country boil are American southern dishes that are equally scrumptious, not to mention the classic American foods; burgers, hotdogs, chicken wings and chicken legs, corn on the cob with potato chips or potato salad that make the menu for a cookout with friends and family.
Adopting to different foods can be easy depending on your palate and taste buds, but you need to be mostly open-minded to first try new cuisines. Anyone open to sample different flavor profiles for escargots, mussels, frog legs, or oysters? While optical appearance and presentation of food is key to determining whether to try a food for the first time or not, one is easily influenced by what they are culturally exposed to.
Food aside, there are other cultural practices which should be shunned and outlawed. This is because they cause more harm than good and conflict with the modern-day scientific facts and truths that keep women’s mental and physical health fit. Such a historically controversial cultural practice is the Kikuyu-female circumcision. This cultural practice was fundamental to the social-economic aspects of the Kikuyu tribe without which one couldn’t be married or held as a responsible man or woman. The downside of culture that can send one to a whirlwind of thoughts even when the intentions and the reasons of such practices were once justified as noble, is by not understanding why they were practiced in the first place. Understanding ideologies and debunking misconceptions takes away the shame by objectively looking at the consequences of going against the practice of the majority, resulting in one being ostracized.
The European perspective as described in her book, The Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley who moved from Britain to Thika, Kenya in 1913 as a six-year-old child and was raised in Kenya, viewed Kikuyu-female circumcision as barbaric, oafish, and uncivilized. This is because it has always been easier to describe ‘barbarism’ than to explain why the participants practiced it religiously.
The native Kikuyu women couldn’t defend their stand or freely make their choice because their ‘normal’ was anchored by their cultural beliefs. Therefore, the women’s practices (circumcision and polygamy) were demonized by the Europeans because they were contrary to the norms and practices of the European. Thanks to education and with the passage of time, self-awareness has compelled men and women of goodwill to speak out on such issues. Be it as it may, there is an alternative perspective which one can attain by listening to the voice of the Kikuyu people themselves and even better so, from both the men and women’s perspectives.
One of the things I realized as I sought to unpack this controversial practice is that my very existence in this world wouldn’t have been a possibility in the absence of both circumcision and polygamy. This is because it was a century-old practiced by my Kikuyu ancestors.
The principal chronicler of the norms and ways of the Kikuyu- Kenyan culture, of the Kikuyu tribe himself, was the first Kenyan president, Jomo Kenyatta. In his book, Facing Mount Kenya, he confirms that circumcision was an important initiation rite for both genders among the Kikuyu; that it gave a boy or a girl the status of manhood or womanhood. It was also a prerequisite for marriage. That was the key reason the practice was so hard to change. However, in the quest of education and Christianity, the Kikuyu changed and shunned their centuries-old custom. In 1931, the Kenyan Government, still under the British rule, passed laws making it a criminal offense.
In addition, Caroline Chemnangoi, a Kenyan woman working with the Norwegian Government for mental health care for persons with special needs, confirms in her book, Resilience: Reflections of Determination and God’s Providence, the supposedly cultural importance of female circumcision in communities that engage in the practice. Having gone through the practice herself, she describes the anticipatory joy she experienced as her social status in the community would be elevated as she would no longer be labeled a small girl. She expresses that she was oblivious to the fact that she gave no thought to any potential dangers from the cut. Born in the late 1970’s in a polygamous marriage to a Kikuyu mother and a Kalenjin father, it was expected of both cultures that a woman be circumcised as the rite of passage into womanhood. Chemnangoi asserts that with better understanding and no way to have escaped the practice, she condemns the act.
Much as the practice is frowned upon and outlawed today, it still does exist in secret in some communities. She suggests that to shun and devalue the practice, it calls for a change of the mindset of the men who are custodians of the culture, ideally because they are the ones expected to marry the circumcised girls. She further asserts that if the men decided against marrying circumcised women, then women in those communities would let go of the norm.
Can culture be upheld to foster better self-awareness? Absolutely! Should one divorce themselves from culture that is detrimental to their physical and mental health? Absolutely! Should one wallow in self-pity and shame because of cultural practices that are controversial but whose initial motives were well intended in the past? Absolutely not! Culture and tradition cannot justify women’s exploitation and in the 21st century, culture must be in tune with our times. Therefore unlearning, learning and re-learning is key in keeping check with culture. You know better, you do better. It is important to understand why cultural, tradition and practices exist and then from a point of knowledge, respectfully dispel the misconceptions. What is that one culture that you struggle to understand?
References
Chemnangoi, Caroline. 2018. Resilience: Reflections of Determination and God’s Providence. Nairobi: Neno Publisher. Pg 17-22
Huxley, Elspeth. 1959. Flame Trees of Thika. Memories of an African Childhood. London: Penguin Classics
Kenyatta, Jomo. 1938. Facing Mount Kenya. 12. Nairobi: East African Publishers. Pg 90-92
