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Unbiased African Perspective, written by King Jaramogi Khalfani Adofo Odhiambo

In a world where even the act of speaking is infused with power, names,

whether protective or emboldening, proverbial or predictive, exalted

or even seemingly indelicate, are of the highest traditional

significance. In the Western world, very few socio-cultural factors

influence the dynamics of name-giving, hence the shrugged-off, almost

rhetorical question, “What’s in a name?”


They are entirely interchangeable and unrevealing. But in African

culture, many factors are at work in the naming process and a seemingly

simple name can hold someone’s entire biography. An African name is

much more than a simple, functional tag to identify someone, it is a

symbol, an emblem. A name can shape someone’s character, mold their

social identity, and even influence their destiny.


The meaning attached to a name will determine much about the present

and the future of a child. One can often infer someone’s socio-cultural

aspects from their name: their ethnicity, their gender, but also their

day or date of birth, their family’s occupation, their social and

political class, the religion and deities they follow, the hopes and

dreams of their parents, etc. It can also express the values, ethics,

and beliefs of the culture they are born into

Traditional African names often have unique stories behind them.

Whichever ethnic group you look at, these local names reveal a wealth

of information about the bearer. Among several ethnic groups, picking

out names can be influenced by positive or negative circumstances the

family finds themselves in around the time a child is born. Often, such names are complete sentences.


Such names include among others; Balibaseka (they were mocking,

Luganda), Kokundeka (better leave me, Runyankole), Ensinikweri (that’s

how the world is, Runyankole) and the list continues

Conversely, our African identity has been wiped out to a deep extent

owing to the rejection of our naming cultures and traditions. What we

have now is a show of British imperialism and brainwashing. It seems

that giving your child African names without a first Western name is

uncool. This is terrible!


Hardly do you see non-Africans giving their children African names.

It is almost unheard of. Yet, Africans are unsatisfied with their

names. We collect names from everywhere, mainly from our colonizers.

British colonies in Africa use British names, and French colonies use

French names. Keep in mind Africa is not the only continent that was

colonized. Even the now mighty China was colonized but has since

independence emancipated herself from the colonizers' cultures

As Africans, we need to love ourselves more. We need to stand up and

identify with our culture by starting with the little things. Our

African names matter and identify us with our land and culture. There

was no King of England called Mwangi. You can't hear people in Russia

being called Nafula or Ife. It is time for us to be content to call

our children African names without a Western name to restore our

Africanness. However, this is not to mean we should be anti-Western.

This is purely a matter of a lost culture, pride, and identity; and

how that affects our present and future.


The world is moving towards a more global and less national and

continental phase. We have to embrace globalization and all its

goodies. We can't abandon scientific knowledge and technology. That

would be not very smart! But as we embrace these global benefits, we

should be able to own up to who we are. 


When we travel abroad, we should proudly say we are Adofo, Nana, Chidi,

Nagaddya or Ombati. People should stop and ask where we are from. They

should not hear our names and on seeing us think we are phonies who

can't accept out blackness and "Africanness".


It isn’t surprising however that all of my friends who come to know

about my recently adopted name have asked the question; why, why change

the name? My submission is that I’ve not changed any name because I

previously didn’t have one, what I did was Reclaiming My Identity,

which my great grandfathers had long-lost on the plantations during

the horrible days of slavery.


Therefore, what I carried all along (and what most Africans still

carry) was an identification tag (slave name) which was forcefully

adopted by our forefathers, after being stripped off their Africanness

(their African names) by their slave masters. Finally, I’ll quote just

a few wise words by the greatest of our kind;


1) “They laughed at your clothes; and made you change your clothes,

they laughed at your names; and made you change your name; but more

importantly they laughed at your God; and made you change your God.”

– John Henrik Clarke


2) “You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself, that values itself,

that values itself.” – Wangari Maathai


3) “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” – Frederick Douglass


4) “To control a people, you must first control what they think about

themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when

your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history,

he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.” – John Henrik

Clarke


5) "I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if

they knew they were slaves.” – Harriet Tubman


Whereas the first three quotes clearly explain the reason why I

personally chose to reclaim my identity by adopting an African name,

the last two also explain why the majority of Africans find pride in

having British, French, Spanish and Portuguese “identification tags”

as names. They must therefore not be blamed In his book; Know Thyself, The Honorable Dr. Na’im Akbar writes; “It is not accidental that the changing of the names of the Africans who were made into slaves was an initial step in the miseducation process.

Being given the names of their masters or from the cultural traditions

of their masters actually identified them in very basic ways as the

property of their masters. People can only belong to themselves if

their identity is an outgrowth of their history, their culture, their

reality and their survival needs.”


To expound on the matter, Credo Mutwa, in his book; Africa’s Hidden

History, has this to say; “They had deliberately so brain washed our people, that Africans had lost all self-knowledge, self-love, self-respect, self-pride and self-dependency." If you rob a people of all these things you turn them into a race of robots, forever dependent

upon you. And even if you stood up and walked away from these people,

and said to them that you were giving them back their freedom, they

would stand up and follow you wherever you are going for their minds

we're still your slaves even though their bodies were now free of your

chains. 


"It is therefore pertinent to note that slavery wasn’t all

about physical torture, but rather capturing the African mind!"


Note; This document is purely a reflection of my personal thoughts and

opinion, guided by my consciousness, developed over years of research.

I’ve got no moral authority whatsoever to judge or criticize anyone

by their opinions. Nonetheless, I wholly concur with Jesse Jackson,

that; “You may not be responsible for being down, but you must be

responsible for getting up!”

BLOG

Fish or Hook? - A Personal Call for Sustainable Solutions


WRITTEN BY: JARAMOGI KHALFANI ADOFO ODHIAMBO 



Prior to subjecting the opinions expressed in this document to debate

or conscious analysis, I challenge whoever deems it necessary to find

and digest the attached book; “Dead Aid; Why Aid Is Not Working and

How There Is a Better Way for Africa”. I advise so because Dambisa

Moyo presents a more clear and unbiased view on how we ought to help

if we must. My submission follows the SACC-Kenya Meeting of 08/29/2021

Throughout the entire month of August, the subject; Reproductive Health

(Menstrual Hygiene) has sounded as one that needs to be responded to

with some level of urgency. This is indeed a well-thought rescue

mission for thousands of our disadvantaged girls whose stories one

might not want to hear or even imagine, thanks to Queen Emma Mitchell

and Amazing Grace Centre Kenya for the safe places’ initiative. 


Taking a Free-Pads Program for example, would it be sustainable or

practical in the long run if we chose to collect donated pads say from

Columbia or anywhere else and then import them to Bungoma County,

Kenya? My submission is that such an approach wouldn’t be the most

appropriate. In the book earlier quoted, Pg. 53 under sub-heading “Aid

effectiveness: a micro—macro paradox”, Dambisa Moyo makes a very

pertinent observation as quoted hereunder;


“There’s a mosquito net maker in Africa. He manufactures around 500

nets a week. He employs ten people, who (as with many African

countries) each have to support upwards of fifteen relatives. However

hard they work, they can’t make enough nets to combat the malaria-

carrying mosquito. Enter vociferous Hollywood movie star who rallies

the masses, and goads Western governments to collect and send 100,000

mosquito nets to the itched region, at a cost of a million dollars.


The nets arrive, the nets are distributed, and a ‘good’ deed is done

With the market flooded with foreign nets, however, our mosquito net

maker is promptly put out of business. His ten workers can no longer

support their 150 dependents (who are now forced to depend on

handouts), and one mustn’t forget that in a maximum of five years the

majority of the imported nets will be torn, damaged and of no further

use. This is the micro–macro paradox. A short-term efficacious

intervention may have few discernible, sustainable long-term benefits”

Such an observation may look or sound biased for someone who’s willing

and ready to unleash aid to any part of Africa just for the sake of

it. In lie of the quoted text, I present a more practicable and

sustainable approach to such a challenge.


When Universal Primary Education was instituted in Uganda starting

1997, it took another seven years for the whole country to realize

what educationists and social workers knew all along; that enrolment

and retention are different things. For while the enrolment almost

quadrupled when free education was announced, at the end of the seven-

year primary cycle, the number of children sitting for the national.


Primary Leaving Examinations was dwindling to almost half of those who

had started out in the first year of school

Several reasons for the high dropout rate were advanced, but one was

specific to the girls – menstruation. The onset of puberty simply made

many girls stop going to school. In the less developed remote areas

like Karamoja in north eastern Uganda, it means an awfully big

proportion of the girls who had beaten other odds to join formal

school. In this still extremely traditional society, a girl simply

couldn’t be let to be among others when she was bleeding, and visibly

at that. The sad state of affairs continued until it was no longer

tenable and two decades since the institution of UPE, that had long

been followed by Universal Secondary School –USE for the second school

cycle, the government announced that it would provide sanitary towels

for all adolescent schoolgirls


The government pledge for availing sanitary pads was however hindered

by shortage of funds. But some people were ready to give up on keeping

menstruating Karimojong girls in school. Working through the

Trailblazers Mentoring foundation –TMF, UNICEF with Irish Aid; from

2016-2020 chose to run a five-year program for strengthening

education in the region. One component of the program focused on

menstrual health which involved the Making of Reusable Pads

The old adage that action speaks louder than words was completely

proven with the menstrual pads project. It simply worked and delivered

what the whole country’s budgetary process had pronounced an

impossibility. Today, the girls of Karamoja can all have clean,

reusable menstrual pads, thanks to the creative initiative of having

them manufactured in the schools by the children themselves. And no

less than a cultural revolution is taking place as boys are equally

involved in making the pads for the girls!!


In their students’ club sessions, the teenage adolescents work in

pairs – a boy and a girl – to measure, draw, cut, shape and sew the

different layers and materials that make the reusable finished

menstrual pad. Five years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine

and describe the scene. In remote, conservative Karamoja, describing

the scene would have been an impossible fantasy. But it is happening

all over the region today.


From the outset, TMF decided to incorporate the boys in the pad making

exercise and it was a smart thing to do. For one major benefits of the

boys’ involvement has been making menstruation a normal thing in this

conservative community. The boy champions in the GECs are not only

doing a good job complimenting the girls, some of them are boldly

viewing entrepreneurial prospects of making the pads for sale to women

outside the education sector. Today, girls in the Karamoja districts

so far covered by the program can only drop out of school for other

reasons, but not menstruation.


In conclusion; to help we must for that’s why we are here. However, I

would suggest to our dedicated members as we begin to lay out rescue

plans intended for the good of our people, that we must not prioritize

giving fish to them if the same or less amount of resources can be

used to train and equip them with fishing skill or even the necessary

fishing gear. Let’s opt for projects that will outlive us!! 



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