Campus Law Of Common Sense

There is a natural law here in campus. The law executes itself without the need for a custodian. This law is embedded in the mind and works in alliance with the law of conscience. This is the law of common sense. Some of the most conspicuous signs one could encounter while moving around campus was, 'Use Your Common Sense. Do Not Litre.' This law is applicable in other numerous situations. There are times when it needs reminding that one should use ones common sense. But on various other occasions, this law will come into play intrinsically.

One of the commonest scenes you will come across in high school is outright display of ruthlessness, whenever the situation calls for it. One area which is always haunted by incivility (common nonsense) is the Dining Hall. Leave alone the play ground on sports days when rival teams are playing. An excuse can always be availed at the display of hooliganism whenever the hosts attack the rival team after losing in a match.

In the DH, this cannot be easily excused. This is the area where the concept of survival for the fittest suits when a student in the senior class endeavours to get a lion's share of the meal at the earliest opportunity. He always has room to come for a second share before a form one misses food, right when he is getting the second or third share.

The cafeteria system is merely a hissing snake that does not poison. It dos not favourably apply in the wake of the senior students, who under the scapegoat of a lot of work, and exams around the corner, will jump queue. Nonetheless, this applies suitably in campus. It is absurd and rather weird to notice a mature student, with enough beards to earn maximum respect, jump over tables to get to the serving table before the rest. This is despite his coming to the mess thirty minutes before the rest. The law of first come first serve does apply here.

In circumstances of feuds, the high scholars will most likely arbitrate issues with the exchange of blows. However, this would not end there. Revenge would always be reserved for another day.

It looks funny for campus students to engage in a brawl in the wake of an argument. However much one is annoyed, you can't easily expect a fight to ensue. There will always be talks of, "You are a grown up... We are intellectuals... You should behave like one... We should behave like diplomats." They create intellectual scenes of brains at fight. Whoever wins becomes a celeb for a few seconds. The law of common sense strongly condemns fighting. Even the ones who do not wholly trust this law will be reluctant to engage in a fight. It is not a question of muscular might determines right.

If anyone engaged in a fight, they would be assured of losing their place at the university. It is just unsafe to fight within campus gates. Perhaps, this can be tolerated in the pubs! But be warned. The law will always be on your neck.

Joshua Masinde

Cultivating reading culture is key to reviving passion and interest for Literature

There is this question, which has severally been asked, in agony. Why is literature lessening in popularity as a subject for students? In my A-level, I happened to come from a class of more than 90 Arts students. Out of this, only about 15 of us had Literature in our combination. While subjects like History, Geography, Economics and Divinity boasted of colossal numbers, mostly over 80 students, Literature class, as has always been self-made History in the school, reeked from scarcity of students. Despite this, we only had one consistent teacher to handle us on most of the books, including poetry. A few others were hired, but the administration blamed the situation on the dearth of Literature teachers.

From my experience at the time, Literature students used to be held in high esteem as they were thought to have one of the heaviest reading schedules. The argument of many other students on why they could not take Literature is because of the numerous books, some of which, like Jane Eyre and The Grapes of Wrath were too voluminous. The Beautiful Ones Are Not yet Born was termed, even by Literature students themselves as complex and myriad of imagery and symbolism. Poetry on the other hand is regarded as complex. They fail to understand that reading does not merely require passion. It requires a positive attitude towards whatever genre one wants to read. The fact that many students have a negative attitude towards Literature, which though they admire, they fear to take on as part of their subject combination.

Reading culture is lacking in this case. This should begin right from the time child begins to read. While I was still in primary, reading used to be a routine, there was time, purely dedicated to reading. The school would buy the necessary story (some of the most popular ones used to be the Moses Series, by Barbara Kimenye, an East African Author) books and make it a point that each pupil has something to read, besides the usual textbooks. I hardly notice the same culture in progress nowadays.

This is what has continued to make Literature a less popular subject by the wake of everyday. Reading culture has not been cultivated from the elementary stage of schooling. The pupils and students are not encouraged to read. They over dwell on textbook reading, and in most cases, they rely on mere 'spoon feeding' geared solely to excelling. That is why the universities and other institutions of higher learning keep receiving a bunch of half-baked high school students who can hardly do research on their own. For their 'good' grades, they get matriculated to the institutions of higher learning, but can hardly construct a sentence. Most of them are heavily handicapped by mother tongue pronunciation of English.

For the lack of reading, the children grow up knowing it is not a big deal to read story books or literature genres. It is a big deal! No wonder, in the 1960's Taban Lo Liyong' decried that East Africa is a literary desert. This ‘desert’ does not grow from nowhere. It begins with the lose of interest in reading. This trend needs to change once and for all. The education system should first and foremost encourage the reading culture amongst the students. Students should be encouraged to take up Literature en masse. More teachers need be trained to specialise in teaching Literature. More genres especially by local authors should be emphasised in order to revive the spirit and passion in the subject.

Joshua Masinde

Economic case of defilement is mere juvenile prostitution

'Defilement commercialised’ is a thorn in the flesh of good morals. The story, carried out in the Daily Monitor, 27th June, shows how our society is becoming a man eat offspring society. It’s an abuse of fundamental human rights, in this case, the rights of the girl child being used as a commodity of promiscuity for money. Why should guardians or whatever parties involved, use their young girls as investment in juvenile prostitution? Is it a failure on the part of the laws, law enforcers, the guardians of such innocent victims or lack of laws to curb this trend once and for all?

Definitely, this is a failure, first on the part of the guardians who would rather get cash out of the defiler other than take the matter beyond their irrational heads. Such guardians have lost both morals and concern for their children. They have adorned the garb of greed and ignorance. However greedy or hungry a dog is, it cannot feast on its offspring. But, in the face of a civilised society, defilers are getting away with it. The defiled remain in the hands of fate, nursing their trauma and demoralised innocence. In most cases, they live which such trauma into their adulthood and this affects their relationship with the opposite gender.

For defilement to take on such a commercialised course, the guardians and the defilers, just like entrepreneurs, take risks and seem to engage in healthy business. They bury their heads in the sand to the penalty that defilement carries, ‘sentence to death’ verses the lucrative part of defilement: some cash to shove the defiler into freedom. The defiler gets away with it regardless the number of minors he defiles.

It might be the case of morals becoming so cheap that they can be sleazed with a little money.

Some of the legislatures’ argument on enabling easier conditions for bail to decongest overcrowded courts and prison systems is irrational. It is merely used as a scapegoat to condone ‘commercialisation of defilement.’ Such escapist approaches in dealing with the issue account for the acceleration in defilement and rape cases reported. Any sound minded person cannot even give this consideration a thought other than dismissing it for sadism. If not, just like the law on adultery which was scrapped, the law on defilement might also be headed for the same fate.

Stiffer penalties should be enforced and executed by the courts of law. However big the number of defilers is, they all need to face true justice that reflects their offences. In any case, there is big enough land for construction of prisons to accommodate the defilers. But, if rational heads together with the laws are buried in the sand, defilement and rape cases will continue to thrive. It will even be economically than criminally sounding and viable.

Joshua Masinde