WHEN NEWS of Rwanda’s participation in Big Brother Africa (BBA) reality show broke out, people jubilated. But the jubilation was short-lived when we started debating about the morality of the reality show in line with Rwanda’s cultural norms and values. Rwanda is a country that banks a lot on its culture but we are so scared of embracing the 21st century Cultural changes yet we still want to be part of a wider global village. We have had situations where billboards have been pulled down because two girls were pecking a guy yet pecking is our formal greeting. Even though the explanation for taking them down was ‘sugar-coated’, it was mind-blowing to find people supporting such a move. If I may ask, what was wrong with that billboard? How are we going to lure investors yet we want to sabotage the creativity advertisers put into their work? We are a country that is talking about being Africa’s ICT hub yet we have parliamentarians calling for the establishment of a special unit to curb social media abuse. How this will be implemented, I wait to see, although I thought that social media is a platform for free discussion? There are many examples including the banning of some songs because the video content or lyrics is immoral in the eyes of our culture custodians. You all remember it took a whole Ministry of Culture to go to great length to announce and ban the staging of Halloween-a purely private practice that would end up in people’s homes or night clubs. No one was going to stage Halloween on the street. I understand the need to preserve our culture; but we shouldn’t be so naïve to think that embracing some change is a crime. Culture is supposed to evolve because that is how the world operates now. Who cares if you decide to wrap yourself during a swimsuit parade at a beauty contest? If the bikini moment is part of the rules of the beauty pageants, then why participate in the first place, if you think you won’t hit the stage in a bikini like other contestants? True we are a cultured people but we use it so much as a defense mechanism that it has started to look like a national policy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not encouraging anything out of the ordinary but we should be realistic. We all want our children to grow up in a good environment but this doesn’t mean that they won’t be exposed to most of these things we are trying hard to hide. Instead we should groom our children and prepare them on how to deal with the social challenges that have come with globalisation? We cannot be seriously hiding behind culture yet we know that some of these changes are already happening in our society albeit in hiding. It looks like we are trying hard to stay within cultural limits yet the urge to evolve is much stronger than our willingness. So, let’s loosen up, there’s no difference between strutting in a bikini during Miss Rwanda swimsuit and actually putting it on at the swimming pool.
