There is no dignity in Mitumba culture. I have preached enough against this but I will still preach because it seems that we also have mitumba brains. Earning my daily upkeep, I swore never. To buy mitumba. I will not buy mitumba clothes or shoes because I value a certain basic level of dignity. There is no dignity in buying what others have used.
While South Africans buy more than 800,000 brand new cars and just 15,000 used cars annually, in Kenya it is the reverse. We buy over 800,000 used cars and just under 20,000 brand new cars. Mitumba culture in our motor vehicle industry means that we don’t have latest cars which are less than 10 years old on our roads. We have two or three UK stolen range rovers which are 5 years and below while the almost sole buyer of new cars is our government. We can’t improve our transport industry with archaic machines.
Even the roads we celebrate as modern are at least 70 years old in design and operation. We can’t claim to have our best road being Thika Chiethahighway while it doesn’t even have basic smart cameras to detect over-speeding and manage traffic. The road doesn’t have any special lanes for fast response in case of emergency. It has ugly bumps, bends and curves only fit for a museum.
A modern car is smart, comfortable, friendly to the driver and other road users than we have ever witnessed. Try any 2015 or 2014 car. You will be surprised
Walking through our clothes markets, you will find it full of Chinese, Malaysian and Indian knock-offs which have been banned anywhere. Getting anything original is hard in Kenya. We have so killed our cotton / textile industry and so ensured the complete dependence on cheap imports from far east and Turkey. Kicomi is dead while we have the land and capacity to do much more cotton farming.
You will find our brothers and sistes buying not only mitumba outer garmets but also brassiers, innerwears and even thongs. There is no dignity in mitumba.
More to the entertainment industry. We have a complete mitumba methods and content in the industry. We rely on over watched Nigerian and Tanzanian content while we have failed to even think of improving our own creative industry.
The Wyre, Kaligraph, Sautisol, Redsan and other leading local artists depend on mitumba accent, content and delivery to ply their trades. It’s widely known that the furthest from Kayole Kaligraph has travelled is Malindi. But you will find him desperately trying to deliver rap lyrics in American accent. The musicians like Ndarling P, Kalamashaka, Emmy Kosgey, Nonini and Jua Kali who try to be original are called names and relegated to the periphery.
You can’t be American better than Americans. Tanzanian and Nigerian music are tops because they deliver their content in authentic indigenious ways while using the Western platforms and other imports just to minorly improve on their original ideas.
We even have a growing culture of mitumba foodstuff. Walk through the city and you will see Kenyans walking through hotels looking for leftovers for their dogs. It’s hard to track if only their dogs consume such. Can’t you cook for your dogs or buy them better ready meals? It has to be mitumba.
We even have mitumba politicians. A good number of our leaders are products of recycled ideologies. No fresh energies evident in their leadership. We have had 3 families dominate Kenyan leadership since independence.
Our education. We rely on cooked and recycled methods and contents in our educational institutions. We have cheats graduate with faked honours through cooked exams and university assignments done by others. We must stop the mitumba mentality and try to be original.
Now Vera Sidika with even mitumba flesh is the ish in town. I will never support the Mitumba culture. Die if it hurts but every human being must have basic ideals and principles.
By Robert Alai on Facebook
