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TANGAZA COLLEGE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN AFRICA
flit mina OF COMSVMMISM Oil You fit IA LAM SABA, KIISCRA MAIR081
AUTHOR: LESA NORBERT SDB
SUPERVISOR: DR. MARY GETUI
FEBRUARY 2001
NAIROBI - KENYA TANGAZA COLLEGE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN AFRICA
Mg impAct OF COMSOMERMI4 Ott rooms 11141 WHit SABA Infiggit - NAIROBI
•
AUTHOR: I.F.SA NORBERT
SUPERVISOR: DR. MARY GETUI
This is a long essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies.
February 2001
NAIROBI - KENYA
• •
STUDENT'S DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this long essay has not been submitted for academic credit to any other institution. All sources have been cited in full.
Signed: 24444.
LESA NORBERT SDB
This long essay has been submitted for examination with my approval as the college supervisor.
Signed: 4‘/L-1111, DR. MARY GETUI (SUPERVISOR)
4 11
Dedication
I dedicate this work to:
- The Lesa family who have been supportive in many ways. - The young people of Laini Saba, Kibera — Nairobi. - All who have been my teachers in one way or another.
4 111
Acknowledgements
I want to take this opportunity to thank God and all those who have made it possible for the completion of this work:
- Dr. Mary Getui, my supervisor and the one who taught me to love African Studies; The community of Utume, the staff and the brothers for their support in the past years of togetherness; Fr. Roy Fosker, for correcting my work; - Br. John Cosgrove, a confrere from the U.S.A, for helping me with materials, books and periodicals; Brs. Anthony Lobo sdb and Eustace Siame sdb, for computer work; The youth group of Laini Saba, in Kibera; - All my friends from Tangaza who have been inspiring, Canice, Wilfried, John Paul, Paul Idra, Roberto Carlos, Phyllis, Denise, Raphael; - Fr. George Kocholical sdb, for his help with the questionnaire; - My batch in the community of Utume (1997 — 2001), Ladis, Augustine, Leopold and Camille, for teaching me to love books and life.
• iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Student's Declaration
Dedication 11 Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv General Introduction 1
0.1 Background of the Study 2 0.2 Statement of the Problem 3 0.3 Objectives of the Study 4 0.4 Scope and Limitation of the Study 4
Chapter One: Consumerism and its Implications 6 1.1 What is Consumerism 6 1.2 Historical Overview of Consumerism in the West 8 1.3 The Effects of Consumerism on the African Society 14
Chapter Two: The Susceptibility of Youth to the Influence of Consumerism 18 2.1 Youth: Victims of Consumerism 18 2.2 The Influence of Mass Media 22 2.3 Consumerism and Youth Morality 27 2.4 Youth: Defy or Embrace Traditional African Values 31
Chapter Three: Consumerism as a Pastoral Challenge 36 3.1 Young People and the Church in a Consumeristic Society 36 3.2 Consumerism and New Evangelization 41
Conclusion 47 Bibliography 50 Appendix 55 The impact of consumerism on youth I
Pt
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
Since 1998 I have been working in the Catholic Parish of Laini Saba, in the Kibera
slum, with young people between the ages of 14 and 30 years. Kibera slums had a population
of 600,000 in 1998, representing 25% of the whole Nairobi population. It is one of the most
congested slum settlements in Kenya with an average population density of 2,300 persons per
hectare. Laini Saba alone was estimated to have a population of 40,000 in 1998. Kibera is a
conglomeration of temporary dwellings, most of which are small mud-plastered rooms.
Usually one family lives in one room. It comprises nine villages; Shilanga, Lindi, Laini Saba,
Soweto, Makina, Mashimoni, Gatwikira, Kisumu Ndogo and Kianda. Kibera's residents are
marginalized, underpaid and unemployed poor people who have no social security and are
exposed to all kinds of social abuses. They experience the bitter realities of poverty that cause
gross inequality, deprivation and malnutrition.'
The organization of this essay is around three topical areas, each of which are aspects
of the question under study. The three areas each provide an opportunity to gain insight into
possible answers to the question of consumerism.
Chapter One will investigate consumerism and its implications. The definition of
consumerism will be given as the basis for the whole essay. The history of consumerism in
the West will be explored from different perspectives used by different scholars, each in
search of an answer to when, how, and why consumerism began. Finally I will consider how
consumerism has entered the fabric of an African society, and look at the effects on the
African society in general.
Chapter Two will look closely at the susceptibility of youth to the influence of
consumerism. The sections to be tackled are: Youth as victims of consumerism, in which I
4 Information from Christ the King Parish, Kibera. Pastoral and Evangelization programme, 1999-2000. The impact of consumerism on youth 2
will try to show how this group is the most at risk. I will also look at the influence of mass
media on youth, with all the cultural changes it has brought. Consumerism and youth morality
will be covered also, since this is in line with the effects of consumerism on the behaviour of
young people. Finally, the last section will deal with youth and traditional African values.
Traditional African values vary from place to place. The most noticeable ones, common to
many cultures, are respect for elders, initiation rites, songs and the dances etc. Whether youth are for or against these African traditions will be my main concern.
Chapter Three will tackle consumerism as a pastoral challenge. This part has two
sections: the first, young people and the Church in the consumeristic society tackles the
problem of the Church's response to the culture of modernity and youth. The second section
will be on consumerism and new evangelization in a society affected by this culture of modernity. The understanding of the term "New Evangelization" will be dealt with as viewed
by different people. Occasionally, I may have recourse to a general approach as far as the
young people are concerned, and not to be restricted to Laini Saba group. This will be in line
with the common characteristics of this group. Finally the terms `Kibera' and 'Laini Saba' will be used interchangeably, to mean only one thing, "slum", in my case Laini Saba village.
0.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY.
When I was first assigned to do my apostolate among the youth of Laini Saba, I was rather appalled by the tough living conditions of the people of this area. Most of them live in extreme poverty. As I continued going there I discovered that the young people with whom I work try to be unique in many ways, for example, their dressing, habits, and lifestyles. I asked myself, 'why'? Whenever I visited them, I was shocked by the deplorable standard of living
in their homes, yet consumerism is truly present in Laini Saba and many young people have The impact of consumerism on youth 3
become victims of it. Some people may argue that consumerism can only affect the affluent.
However, I believe that the opposite is also possible: that consumerism is experienced even in the slums. I have been trying determine the Church's in curbing this problem of consumerism, since it has become a pastoral challenge.
0.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.
Many people in contemporary Africa say that Africa has become an extension of the
West. By this they imply the effects of materialism in Africa, by so-called 'Westernization'.
My first impression about Kibera was a distorted one because of the many hardships people endure. This is a place were people buy everything they need starting from water. Big men expose many of the young people to danger, especially small girls who become victims of sexual abuse. In this place the refuse is never collected by the City Council, posing the danger of the outbreak of diseases. Many people have resorted to drinking local brew, which is quite hazardous to their health. Since I was interested in the young people, I discovered that their manner of dressing, the music they listen to, the movies they watch, the discotheques they go to at night, showed that they belong to another environment, different from that of the slum. I became confused because there was no reconciliation between the way they, young people, appear and live and the life of Laini Saba in general, where the situation is atrocious because of the lack of the basic necessities of life. This made me conclude that there is a consumerist mentality at play, which has affected many young people. This is a problem and needs to be addressed. The youth that have become victims need attention in order to create in them awareness about consumerism. The impact of consumerism on youth 4
0.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY.
-Consumerism is a virus with no cultural condom on the part of the youth to block it",
to use the very descriptive language of Brian Swimme (1996).2 Young people are the most
susceptible to any change in society, and in this case Laini Saba, being a slum in the big city
of Nairobi. is no exception at all.
My main objectives of this research study are as follows:
1. To note clearly that consumerism is present in the slums of Africa.
2. To obtain the views of the youth and others about consumerism.
3. To make the pastors of the Church aware of the need to evangelize this culture of
modernity.
4. To provoke myself and other youth workers to reflect on the culture of modernity and its
implications in this present age, in order to be able to work authentically with and for the
young people.
0.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY.
It has already been established that practically consumerism has not excluded anyone.
It is, therefore, a very serious problem for the African consciousness, like the problems of
killings, devil worship, corruption, political instability, poverty, the scourge of A.I.D.S, etc.,
for it is perceived in all sectors of human endeavour.
Steven Miles said that consumerism has become the way of life.' However, the scope
of this work is narrowed to youth only. Since this trend of consumerism, as a universal
2 Brian Swimme, The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos (New York: Orbis Books, 1996), 16. Consumerism as a Way of Life (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1998), 145. 4 Steven Miles, The impact of consumerism on youth 5
phenomenon, has affected a large group of youth, I have narrowed it much further to the
youth of Kibera slums, especially Laini Saba in Nairobi. My questionnaire was only focused
on this particular group. However, the work is sometimes presented with a universal tone, that
is, youth in general and not only those of Laini Saba in Kibera slums, since the issues
affecting them are quite the same. My work is very much in line with observable facts about
the youth.
4 The impact of consumerism on youth 6
CHAPTER ONE: CONSUMERISM AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
1.1 WHAT IS CONSUMERISM
Africa is slowly becoming, or is already a consumer-oriented society. This is largely due to the influence from the West. Every day we wake up to something new; news and television programmes give us the style of life for a particular day. The American Heritage
Dictionary defines consumerism as "the theory that a progressively greater consumption of goods is economically beneficial." Fritz M. Brunner in his article on 'Consumerism and
Relationships' writes: "This theory is at the heart of the American economic system based on capitalism and free markets74 But again the word that forms the root for this theory,
"consume", means, according to the Oxford Student's Dictionary, to ingest, use up, to waste, to squander, or to destroy totally. According to the two definitions, there seems to exist a tension. It is a tension that comes from expecting something beneficial to result from that which carries an idea of waste, squandering, and destruction. Therefore, the concept of consumerism becomes a very complex one.
However, from the scientific point of view, as Brunner puts it; "we exist within a consuming universe, and thus the basic nature of the universe is to consume."5 Therefore, people are being consumed by their choices in the society in which they live. Consumerism has become the air they breathe, the life they live by. They always want to have what represents success in the world, status symbols. But whatever status symbol they have, they are carried by it even as they carry it. Consumerism makes them stop existing as persons and makes them become moving objects in the society, for they have no power to control it. It
'Fritz M. Brunner, "Consumerism and Relationships", The ACCA Review. 1996, 10. Brunner. The impact of consumerism on youth 7
controls them. James Armstrong describes consumerism as self-destructive hedonism, in which we measure our success in the light of the 'things' we accumulate: the homes, cars, boats, planes, clothes, trips, stocks and bonds, and frills without end.6 However, Miles gives a beautiful imagery of a pen, describing the effects of consumerism on an individual:
The Mont Blanc pen carried me to Paris every bit as much as I carried it Now it was crushed under my feet, and in a way, I was crushed To some extent the worth of my life was built and expressed by my relationship with the pen. I created a style of life that bound the pen to me and me to it
It was my possession and I was also possessed and consumed by it. 7
Miles gives a very good example of how consumerism makes a person's self-esteem attached to an object. Aylward Shorter and Edwin Onyancha define consumerism as "a form of materialism that implies a preoccupation with the acquisition of material things in the shape of consumer products, a preoccupation which leads to religious indifferentism."8 It is no longer he/she who exists, but the objects that the person possesses. This has made a human being develop a more special relationship to the objects or products than to God. The more possessions one has, the greater the satisfaction. In short, material values have replaced those of God. This is a form of secularism. Shorter and Onyancha have affirmed this by writing that consumerism is the form of secularism most prevalent in the contemporary world.'
Consumerism has become a religion with many faithful followers. This is shown in human beings wanting to consume more than is needed the longing, and the desire is no longer for
6 James Armstrong, From the Underside: Evangelism from a Third World Vantage Point (New York: Orbis Books, 1981), 24. 'Miles, 2. 8 Aylward Shorter and Edwin Onyancha, Secularism in Africa. A Case Study: Nairobi City (Limuru: Kolbe Press, 1997), 22. 9 Shorter and Onyancha. The impact of consumerism on youth 8
the divine but for material things. The world-view has been turned upside down because life's
choices are viewed in terms of wanting to consume because of diverse consumer styles and
tastes.
Miles writes: "Our homes might be described as temples to the religion of
Consumerism." This is a religion accompanied by a culture of modernity, a culture of
technology, where life is viewed in terms of what one possesses. So apart from consuming
many things, the person finds himself/herself consumed by these many things. Religion
expresses faith, and in this way faith can be described as that which a person holds as the
practical truth about reality. Swimme has written, regarding religion, that the fact that
consumerism has become the dominant world faith is largely invisible to us, so it is helpful to
understand clearly that to hand our children over to the consumer culture is to place them in
the care of the planet's most sophisticated religious preachers." In this way the young people
have become worshippers of idols, such as role models, money, etc. The children are affected
by what they watch on television and by the kind of music they listen to, and this has become
their world-view, their cosmology. Everyone is trying to build the sense of self, based upon
the theory of consumerism.
1.2 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF CONSUMERISM IN THE WEST.
Where did the notion of consumerism come from ? What are the different ways in
which consumerism has featured historically? How do people with different perspectives
discuss consumerism? The history of consumerism will help detect how the traits of this
I° Miles, I. 4 Brian Swimme, The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos (New York: Orbis Books, 1996), 19, The impact of consumerism on youth 9
concept were first observed in Africa, but my approach will be to highlight the effects of consumerism which are experienced in the contemporary society.
Robert Bocock places the beginning of consumerism in the last half of the 17th
Century, during the Post-Civil War period in England. Puritanism, according to him, especially in its Calvinist form, exercised considerable influence upon early bourgeoisie of agricultural and manufacturing capitalism. This developed around a free-wage workforce that pursued the peaceful, systematic, rational generation of profits through the sale of commodities produced for a free market.' Puritanism invoked values that started shaping the society. There was an increase in spending on clothes, fancy meals, expensive housing. These values started with the Reformation era in the le Century and helped in the development of capitalism in the areas of both agriculture and industry. There is seen the idea of a 'consumer boom', which led to the development of larger-scale industrial production processes.
18th During the Century there was again a boom in the fashion and pottery industries in England. Grant MacCracken writes: "Goods, especially fashions and pottery became tokens of the status game and they were being consumed with alacrity."" People now bought for fashion, not out of need. The status of someone depended on what the latest fashion might be.
What was bought at a holiday time because of the bonus, for instance, now became available at markets and fairs on a regular basis. Brunner writes that the attitude toward items changed so that what were once considered luxuries came to be thought of as decencies, which in turn became necessities:4 Everything was perceived in terms of material things and no longer the individual. At the centre of every activity was spending on luxuries, thus one ended up being consumed by this consumer culture. Daniel Harris tries to show that during this period
12 Robert Bocock, Consumption (London:Routledge, 1993), 78. a Grant McCracken, Culture and Consumption (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 15. 14 Brunner, 12. The impact of consumerism on youth 10
S
aesthetics and fashion ruled over usefulness. Formerly, an item was kept until it became
useless; people now replaced it with what was newer and more fashionable .15
There were three interrelated changes that influenced the modern character of
consumption. The first was the emergence of the department store which brought with it new
ways of displaying goods and new ideas about marketing. The second was a new marketing
technique which involved propaganda about new products and the third was the beginning of
new consumer lifestyles based on an interaction of people with products. Brunner notes that
even during the French Revolution, the focus of consumption in France shifted from the
aristocracy to the public. Chefs came out of the aristocratic hotels into public restaurants,
dressmakers and tailors, who had only served nobility, now opened public shops. This was
also related to the beginning of department stores in Paris.'6 This period introduced the notion
4 that an individual could create a lifestyle. McCracken describes this as follows:
The elitist style of consumption is a more obvious gesture in the use of goods to shape and carry cultural meaning. The cultivation of this elite style is nothing less than the effort to use the emerging language of goods to create a single omnibus cultural concept that specified a new definition of this person's relationship to his/her larger society, and a set of orienting concepts and values for social action.'
It seems McCracken is addressing the relationship between culture and consumption. It is
necessary to note that changes in consumer patterns caused changes in culture, or vice versa,
changes in culture caused changes in consumer patterns.
Another man who tackles the issue of consumerism is Willis Harman who was an
15 Daniel Harris, Cute, Quaint, Hungry & Romantic The Aesthetics ofConsumer m (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 22. 16 Brunner, 13. "McCracken, 20. The impact of consumerism on youth 11 4t.
th educator and a scientist. He puts the booming of consumerism in America at about the 18
Century. The values of diligence, sobriety, and thrift brought to America from middle-class
England became a predominant influence in America. Harman confirms this stand: "The
contemporary view assumed that the idle poor brought poverty upon themselves; poverty was
made so disgraceful that a person would labour to the extent of his/her capacity to avoid such
a stigma."I8 At least from the look of things, the 19th Century brought a greater emphasis on
self-improvement. Harman says that during this period, wealth became an end in itself;
compulsive industry, discipline and self-denial were the means to that end:9 By 1950 there
was a system, which affected the American society, which became mass consumption society.
At that time people were using and throwing away. Harman notes that Americans learned that
frugality was no longer a prime virtue, rather it was bad for the economy. Consuming became 4 the new ethic and people began to call one another `consumers'.20
Another period was identified by Daniel Horowitz, who approached consumerism as a
historian concerned with an intellectual history of attitudes about consumption. He focused
his studies on the period from 1875 to 1940. He writes in his book entitled "The Morality of
Spending: Attitudes Toward the Consumer Society" that consumer culture is not imposed by
external forces, nor is it a spontaneous expression of ordinary people. Rather, a more
reciprocal model best explains how consumption has achieved such a significant role in our
lives.' Consumer culture is a complicated phenomenon, whose arrival and growth have
involved a struggle in which some powerful people and institutions have tried to impose their
vision of a good society. Recipients have responded by purchasing (or not purchasing) goods
la Willis Harman, Global minds change: The Promise of the Last Years of the Twentieth Century (Indianapolis: Knowledge Systems, 1988), 42. 19 Harman, 37. 2U Harman, 78. 21 Daniel Horowitz, The Morality of Spending: Attitudes Toward the Consumer Society in America, 1887 - 1940 (Chicago: Elephant Paperbacks, 1997), 47. The impact of consumerism on youth 12
and experiences, to which they have given meaning to a considerable extent from their own personal, social and cultural histories. Horowitz had recourse to the romanticists group, whose message was the pursuit of more, dictated by fashion and competition with neighbours, which led only to an increased need to labour."
The focus becomes 'me and it' and not 'me and hirn/her'. As such there was a stress on the need for labour more than on the individual. Individuals were perceived in terms of what they could produce in the society.
Henry Dethloff and Keith Bryant developed an understanding of the history of consumerism from a business perspective based on American society. According to their discovery, America was primarily a business society, and for this reason the nation's economy was based on a capitalistic structure which had been generally supported by the other major institutions — political, religious and educational.' There was a search for economic profit, which dominated the nation's culture. So the society's measure of well being was the amount of goods and quality of services one obtained. The history of business began with an overview of the developments of Western Europe from Greek and Roman times.
The business boom in Europe made the two authors attribute business industry as the beginning of consumerism in America. They noted:
There were small-scale businesses even before the Golden age of Greece. Traders and merchants in the time of the Roman empire provided the wealthy with luxury goods. Mass consumption in this largely agrarian society remained at a primitive levet But the Romans did institute laws that governed commercial activity and a uniform currency system."
22 Horowitz, 52. 23 Keith Bryant, Jr. & Henry Dethloff, A History of American Business (NJ: Prentince Hall, 1983), 1 24 Bryant & Dethloff, 85. The impact of consumerism on youth 13
This industrial boom made the two authors to turn to the religious institutions, as it is noted already that the capitalistic structure supported this kind of institution. This was almost at the time of reformation in the Church, which had many social consequences in the society.
The Roman Catholic Church was challenged on several fronts. Henry VIII was such a figure, who refused to submit to the Church on the matters of diplomacy and economics. There was also the Protestant Reformation in which Martin Luther demanded internal change and reform. In this regard Dethloff and Bryant point out clearly the aspect of economics and business as approached by Calvinism. The description of this point is as follows:
The Protestant reformer John Calvin believed in a harsh and angry God who had predestined that only a Jew of the world's people will be saved While all had to live a lift of hard work, piety and diligence, few would escape damnation. He urged that individuals dedicate themselves to their endeavours to demonstrate their membership in the elect. One should be committed to work, accumulation, and economic success, worthiness and material possessions became synonymous. The Calvinists believed that wealth was not for ostentation, but rather to be used as capital."
This body of doctrine, known as the Protestant work ethic, came to dominate the secular attitudes of many European Protestants. It provided a philosophical basis upon which a capitalistic economic structure could be erected. This phenomenon was also identified by
Bryant and Dethloff who equated it with materialism, with having more goods and personal comfort, and saw that this was becoming a predominant characteristic in society." It can be said that the history of business was the history of the world, because the presentation of history was expressed predominantly in the language of business.
25 Bryant & Dethloff, 145. 26 Bryant & Dethloff, 358. The impact of consumerism on youth 14
1.3 THE EFFECTS OF CONSUMERISM ON THE AFRICAN SOCIETY.
Africa as a continent has undergone many changes, some of which have left scars. As a continent, in the 1990s alone, we have experienced wars, famine, religious upheavals, political anarchies etc., which have put Africa in a pitiable state. Where do these problems come from? Can we put the blame on some greedy African leaders? It is difficult to give an answer in one word. However, I will try to show, in this section, that many factors have contributed to the present situation of consumerism in Africa. My main focus is to show how consumerism has affected the African society. The first signs are seen with the coming of colonialists. Many things were imposed; an African was made to become a machine of production. Mass production became a priority and since there was no machinery, human force replaced machinery.
A. Adu Boahen points out that in some colonies, especially in the Belgian and
Portuguese colonies, Africans were, in fact, forced to grow certain cash crops, such as cotton, and set production targets, say for rubber, especially in the Belgian Congo, and those who failed to reach those targets were treated with extreme brutality." But unfortunately many
African groups, especially the traditional leaders, accepted the colonial rule because of the material things, such as guns, ammunition, and food stuff, they were being given to be appeased.
Most of the ethnic groups accepted European rule as part of an irresistible order, one that brought many benefits. For the ruling classes, traditional or created, it brought a new strength and security of status and new forms of wealth and power." This made them produce
27 A. Adu Boahen, African Perspectives. on Colonialism (Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 60. 28 Boahen, 62. The impact of consumerism on youth 15
what they did not consume and consume what they did not produce, a clear proof of the
exploitative nature of the colonial political economy. What does this imply?
It implies that many of the products they consumed came from outside Africa. This was a
clear sign of the virus of consumerism penetrating the African soil.
It is important to note that human beings were also seen in terms of objects and not
subjects. There began a system of exchanging human beings for goods by greedy chiefs. This
was branded the Slave Trade. Mattias Ogutu and Simon Kenyanchui reflecting along these
lines concluded that there was an emergence of entrepreneurship and that ethnic groups such
as the Yao and the Akamba of Eastern Africa depended on the slave trade wholly for their
livelihood." Again, Ralph Austen confirms that at the beginning of the Industrial Age, in the
late 18" Century, Africa served Europe mainly as a supplier of slaves for sugar plantations, a
4 highly prosperous affair, making major contribution to the eventual take-off into full
industrial development." However, slavery was finally abolished, though it had done much
harm to the African society in terms of human power and human dignity.
The missionaries were also agents of consumerism in Africa, though they were
instrumental in the abolition of slavery. Apart from spreading Christianity, missionaries
advocated economic advancement for the African. Njiro cites two notable missionaries: David
Livingstone saw the salvation of Africa as being through Commerce, Christianity and
Civilization, while Buxom, a notable anti-slavery activist, said that redemption of Africa was
by the Bible and the plough.' Christianity also seemed to favour the aristocrats in many
African kingdoms in order to be allowed to establish missions in some particular areas.
Missionaries were required to give some material things to the chiefs of certain localities. As
29 Mattias A. Ogutu & Simon S. Kenyanchui, An Introduction to African History (Nairobi Nairobi University Press, 1991), 137. m Ralph Austen, African Economic History (London: James Currey Ltd, 1987), 109. 31 Esther I. Njiro, A History of Africa in the 10 Century (Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 1985), 187.
The impact of consumerism on youth 16
a result, many African chiefs became victims of materialism. They shifted their attention from
their people to material things.
However. in contemporary Africa, the consumer culture has taken a different course.
The consumption of technology, fashion, popular music, sport etc., is now present
everywhere, In Africa sport has become the most predominant item in business. Therefore, it
is perhaps the single area of contemporary social life to have been most profoundly altered in
recent years by the everyday impact of consumerism as a way of life. The most noticeable
sport to be affected by in Africa is soccer. Miles writes: "Advertisers, marketers and media
have suddenly realised the potential of football as a vehicle of profit"." In Kenya the Premier
Football League has been divided into two zones since 1999. Due to the falling standards of
football in the country, Kenya Breweries Ltd., and the British American Tobacco (K) Ltd,
4 pumped in huge sums of money to boost football. While boosting football they were also
promoting or selling their merchandise, because even the two zones are named after the two
companies.
There is Tusker Zone for Kenya Breweries Ltd., and Sportsman Zone for British
American Tobacco (K) Ltd.' The latest trend in the soccer world is the poaching of young
African players by big European clubs, who in turn are paying huge sums of money to poor
African football clubs for these young players. This phenomenon has been branded as another
kind of slave trade by many soccer critics in Africa." And now FIFA, the world football
governing body, has set the age of 18 as the lowest age at which African players can be
poached by European clubs." Soccer also affects the individual fans. Nobody forces them to
purchase the merchandise which clubs produce such as scarves, hats and T-shirts. It is the
32 Miles, 12.
31 Daily Nation. September 5, 2000. Kennedy Limwanya, Times of Zambia, March 7, 1999. 15 Kennedy Limwanya, Times of Zambia, May 26, 1999. The impact of consumerism on youth 17
only way the soccer fan can identify himself/herself with the club. Therefore soccer has really become business in Africa, a profit-making enterprise. This shows the surge of consumerism.
Another aspect of consumerism to have invaded Africa is the world of fashions. Miles comments on fashions as follows: "At an individual level, fashion offers social obedience alongside individual differentiation, while from a broader perspective it reflects the underlying workings of a mobile society."" An individual can get from fashion what he/she pleases, a sense of individuality alongside a feeling of belonging. Young people are so much obsessed with new styles and designs that the traditional fashions are now looked on as for the primitive past. Now if new fashions create a lifestyle, how much are they, young people, in control of this new lifestyle?
Consumerism provide opportunities that appear to offer the ambient for moulding new habits, patterns and models of everyday life, significantly altering the young people's aspirations and needs thereby justifying their conduct of behaviour insofar as they have to conform to their yearnings. The culture which consumerism has created is very complex for
Africa to cope with. I am trying to focus my attention on the young people whom I have seen to be affected most, because of their uncertainty in their search for identity. As such, they have embraced this new culture, consumerism, because it has provided new settings.
36 Miles, 91. The impact of consumerism on youth 18 tit
CHAPTER TWO: THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF YOUTH TO THE INFLUENCE OF
CONSUMERISM.
2.1. YOUTH: VICTIMS OF CONSUMERISM.
Having already outlined the social and economic impact of consumerism on the
African society, I would like to develop the theme of young people being the most at risk in a
consumeristic society. These young people are always preoccupied with new trends in the
society where they find themselves. It becomes difficult for them to decipher what is good or
bad. They easily take in everything for the sake experimentation, imitation or curiosity. As a
result they become victims of whatever change is occurring in their midst. Jean-Marc Ela has
4 rightly put it:
During this period of change in African society, thousands of young people in large cities have thrown themselves on an opiate that cures boredom and comforts unemployment by its 'qualitative ' leap into the artificial paradises created by the gods of Europe and America. The cinema, based on escape and materialism, has become a key feature of the mass subculture and an actual school for crime for budding juvenile delinquents in crowded urban settlements."
I am particularly interested in showing how the young people of Kibera slum are
victims of the consumer culture. I have been able to detect many elements of consumerism in
this slum but before I go further, I would like to give a brief understanding of the word
'slum'.
-1 37 Jean-Marc Ela, My Faith as an African (Marylcnoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), 156-157. The impact of consumerism on youth 19
Shorter defines the term 'slum' as being applied to deteriorating and sub-standard permanent housing." He [Shorted has given a good description of what I have observed in Kibera slum.
The squatter settlement is typically a `shanty-town,' that is, a collection of impermanent dwellings made of recuperated waste materials Shacks and shanties are built of wooden packing cases, cardboard and indeed any serviceable item of refiise." And yet from my observation, many of my respondents do not appear, in their manner of dressing and talking, that they belong to the slums. Rodney Gage has a psychological insight concerning the young:
Young people no longer look to their parents for their identity, instead, they look to their peers. Their identity, sense of direction, and sphere of relationships will form the basis for the most important decisions they will make in their lives.40
It suffices to say that a good number of them have not accepted the reality in which they are. One of the ways they can show they are not from the slum is the way they dress.
This may be perceived as a psychological dilemma insofar as there is no acceptance of the reality, there is no dedication to the reality, to the truth. As a result they become dreamers.
Some of my respondents had to confide in me that they have very many dreams, which show a bright light at the end of the tunnel. This leads them to their own world-view about the reality in Kibera slum. Scott Peck, has given a solution about this situation:
The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world, the more our minds are befuddled by falsehood, misconceptions and illusions, the less we will be able to determine correct courses of action and make wise decisions.°'
38 Aylward Shorter, The Church in the African City (London: Cassel Publishers Ltd, 1991), 48. N Shorter. " Rodney Gage, 1J my parents knew: Discovering your Teenager's Unspoken Needs (Mumbai: St Paul Press Training School, 1995), 48. 41 Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled: A New Psychology of Love. traditional values and Spiritual Growth (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), 44. The impact of consumerism on youth 20
At the root of all these misconceptions or illusions is peer pressure. Some of them make friends, from well-to-do families, whom they meet in secondary schools. They become copycats because they have to match their friends in the way of talking, the manner of dressing and the behaviour patterns.
Consumerism of new fashions is most noticeable among the youth group with whom 1 conducted my research in Kibera. Through clothing they keenly express their subjective interpretations and desires. However, the money they have cannot buy very expensive clothes in the city centre, therefore they prefer to buy mitumba" clothes from the market, where 100
Kenyan shillings, given by parents or raised from a piece work done, can buy a good second- hand pair of jeans, or a blouse in the case of girls. These mitumba clothes not only give them what they need, namely clothing they can afford, it also gives them what they want, the ability to dress stylishly rather than wear rags or unfashionable clothes. Karen Tranberg Hansen, in her article in a periodical on Africa, writes that the 'allure' or 'craze' for 'foreign' that young people display in clothing consumption (both new and used clothes) turns this particular commodity into a central token of modernity." This is to say that young people's preoccupation with clothing is an important key to becoming modern in Kibera slum. For them clothing, whether mitumba or new, offers a special exposure to the interaction between the local and the West, and because of this, dress mediates both individual and collective identities and desires. The second-hand clothes tell a story of a global encounter that offers insights into the diverse meanings of the West in young people's lives.
42 A Swahili word for second-hand clothes. "Karen Tranberg Hansen, "Second-Hand Clothing Encounters In Zambia: Global Discourses, Western Commodities, and Local Histories" AFRICA. Vol, 69 No. 3. 1999, 344. The impact of consumerism on youth 21 tt
Didier Gondola, talking about fashions for young people, writes: "Beyond the real clothing,
the tangible object, there exists a wearing, a speaking, and even dancing and singing of and
about clothes."" This is true of some of my respondents who have never accepted the reality
of Kibera slum. One girl confided in me that through her manner of dressing, no boy from the
slum would dare approach her to entice her, because they cannot match her in terms of
dressing. So, for her the clothes speak a language that indicates she does not belong to the
slum. Many of my respondents told me that new fashions distinguish them from washamba."
They do not like anything common, or imitations, but prefer something that is outstanding and
makes people admire them. In this way they become self-actualized because they have a
visible distinguishing mark, clothing. Miles agrees with this subjective approach that fashion
and clothing are used as weapons and defenses in that they express the ideologies held by
social groups, which may be opposed, to the ideologies of other groups in the social order."
This is a clear sign that consumerism has penetrated even the slums, and that young people
are the first victims, since they are always vulnerable to any change, whether negative or
positive.
Moreover, it is necessary to note that even in the slum, two classes can be noticed.
There are those who are extremely poor and those who are economically stable, possibly
because the father of the house works in the industrial area and the mother is a marketeer.
Consequently, the ambience of competition is created between the two classes for the young
ones. Competition is one of the components created in consumerism.
44 Didier Gondola, Dream and Drama: "The Search for Elegance among Congolese Youth" African Studies Review, Vol.,42, April 1999, 37.
45 A Swahili word for 'Farmers', but in the ordinary sense means ' people from the bush'. 4° Miles, 98. The impact of consumerism on youth 22
According to the philosophy of consumerism, competition brings about gratification in
an individual within a certain context or situation." Those from the lower class will never
dare admit they have terrible conditions in their homes and those from the middle class try to
prove their status. It can be observed as one moves around Kibera slum that some housing
structures are substantially more spacious than others. The idea of landlords comes in here.
Some rich people who have big mansions in the city suburbs own the squatters in Kibera. It is
estimated that one may own ten to fifteen housing structures with rentals ranging from 800
Kenyan shillings to 3000 Kenyan shillings each. So when a house is more spacious, the rent is
usually high. Shorter cites Obudho and Mhlanga as saying that in a Kibera squatter village,
most squatter land has been acquired by politicians and government employees. " The poor
families will go for the cheapest dwellings, with rent at 500 Kenyan shillings per month. But
again their children do not accept that they are coming from these rather very cheap houses.
This kind of approach can be attributed to the influence of consumerism, which is very much
present in Laini Saba.
2.2. THE INFLUENCE OF MASS MEDIA.
If we were to believe everything we read in the newspapers and watch on the
television, it would not take us long to be convinced that the consumer society is essentially a
technological society. Technology forms the core of the cultural transformations in society.
So information and communication technologies are becoming a key component in our
contemporary society. Does the mass media influence young people in the slums?
47 David Walsh, Consumerism and Competition: When Is It All Too Much? (Minneapolis: Deaconess Press, 1990), 57. R.A. Obhudo and C.C. Mhlanga, Slum and Squatter Settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa (New York: .. 1988 -t quoted in Alyward Shorter, The Church in the African City, 1991), 49. The impact of consumerism on youth 23
A culture that influences youth both negatively and positively has been created by the mass media. I will begin with one medium of communication, television. I have seen television antennas on many housing structures in Laini Saba. Television sets should be relatively cheap, since these people from the low-income class can afford them. I have come across small rooms, which can easily accommodate about fifteen viewers, where video shows are shown to the public for 10 Kenyan shillings.
Shorter and Onyancha write: "Television sets are no longer a luxury item owned exclusively by affluent and middle-income residents in the African city. They have been around for a long time now, and relatively cheap, second-hand equipment is easily obtainable.' Then how does television affect the youth in Kibera? A good number of my respondents agreed that they do watch a lot of television. On television, many of the advertisements are targeted at youth, because they form the biggest audience. Kane has provided five steps of the standard procedure in organizing an advert:
Attract attention (introduction): Capture audience interest and focus it on the product. Appeal to the need (develop problem): Convince the audience that the need exists. - Provide satisfaction (demonstrate solution): Determine what should be done to meet the need. - Visualization (graphic illustration): Show other people, other places, which prove the product is the solution to the need. - Call for action (conclusion): Present the punch line, the final appeal for commitment or purchase ."
Behind every advert, these elements are involved. Therefore, it captures more specific human needs and desires, such as sympathy, adventure, curiosity, conformity etc., but what is
- -
49 Shorter & Onyancha, 73. 5° Pat Kane, "A TV News Approach To Oral Communication", Theory & Research Into Practice,1985, 18. The impact of consumerism on youth 24
important in the world of advertising is how to persuade and gratify the audience.
Consequently this shapes the habits of buying. Mica Nava has written about the power of
advertising that those involved are capable not only of convincing us to buy, but also of
creating false needs, of indoctrinating us into social conformity.' Young viewers are
considered the most at risk of being corrupted and duped by entreaties to buy. As a result they
buy even useless things in order to satisfy their ego, like ripped jeans, because it is
fashionable. Swimme with his experience of media wrote that an advert's job is to make
young people unhappy with what they have and what they are." Looking at the situation in
Kibera, it is clear that the young people are always craving to have more. This is due, among
other reasons, to the power of advertising, which has affected their psyches. I am sure they are
not aware of the harm being done to them. They have become addicted and obsessed with so 4 many illusions, which are making them create false worlds and false needs. Swimme says our
children receive their cosmology, their basic grasp of the world's meaning, from
advertisement." The characteristic of this view is the notion that there exists a simple cause
and effect relationship between advertising and the purchasing of commodities. So it is not
only assumed that advertisements work but that the young are more likely than any other
sector of the population to be taken in by the psychologically informed scheming of the
marketeers. What makes advertising challenging is the singleness of its purpose which is only
to create an atmosphere where the person is left with no option but to consume or purchase
the product. This is exactly the situation in which many of the young people of Kibera find
themselves. The only dilemma with my respondents is that they lack hard cash to purchase
whatever they long for. This makes them become compulsive buyers whenever they have
51 Mica Nava, Changing Cultures: Feminism, Youth & Consumerism (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1992), 172. 52 Swimme, 16. 33 Swimme, 17. The impact of consumerism on youth 25
money, i.e., desperately buying things they longed for, to satisfy the need.
Consumerism involves the lifestyle. Lifestyle here implies a pattern of behaviour by a
subject.' This is mainly due to the influence of the world outside of oneself As a result they
would want to satisfy their deep aspirations by having recourse to another world outside of
themselves. This involves risks of losing their own identity. Miles writes: "In consumerism individuality is increasingly subject to external forces and arguably standardization, thereby creating a situation within which the individual is increasingly susceptible to personal crises.' Many of the young in Kibera find themselves in the situation narrated by Miles, since they do not come to terms with the life in the slums.
Another area of interest, which I have observed as having impact on the young in
Kibera, is the use of magazines. Magazines may carry both negative and positive messages.
Many of my respondents who read magazines said they like the type that has love stories, e.g.,
The Spice, Emotions, Blues, etc.,56 which are found on the streets in the town. All these magazines carry the messages of sex. Young minds are always very curious and the knowing comes with the proving. Sex is now being commercialized. It has also entered the arena of consumerism. One of my informants told me that there are some young teenage girls who go to the pubs in Kibera at night where usually they are asked to be nude for sometime. This can be done on an improvised stage or around the tables of curious onlookers. Afterwards the owner of the pub will give some money to the girl, not more than a hundred shillings.
Consequently, the girl would find her way to the market the following day, where she will get mitumba clothes, maybe a nice blouse costing less than fifty shillings. This can encourage child sexual abuse, since it can easily be reduced to pornography. Consumerism, therefore, provides ingredients for a risk society. On these lines Miles comments that consumerism is
54 Brunner, 35. 55 Miles, 158. 46 Confer appendix 58 and 59. The impact of consumerism on youth 26
'4
necessarily an arena of conflict in the sense that the individual is perpetually trying to come to
terms with the sorts of stresses, strains and tensions that characterize the multi-dimensional
nature of the consuming experience." Consumerism is therefore creating another world in
Kibera, a world filled with useless objects which young people, in order to bc exploited and
degraded, are taught by society to regard as useful. What my informant told me shows how
society is slowly heading for decadence. If care is not used, the use of magazines can lead to
promiscuity at its best in Kibera. If this is what they call progress, then they are becoming
maniacs obsessed with the idea of this progress, but a false progress, a progress that stinks."
What do we do about offensive lyrics and the domination pop singers have over our
young people? These are the questions I ask myself as I move past pubs and kiosks in Kibera
on the way to the Church on Sunday mornings. Music is very loud and played at every corner
-mc of Laini Saba. This music varies from African to Western hits. But the Western type of music
is influencing the youth very much. Now they talk of 'Blues', the type that is sex suggestive,
and 'Rap', which has abusive language all through by some American rappers, like Snoopy
Doggy Doggy, Tupac Shakur, and Coolio. Many of my respondents who listen to the radio
prefer Western music to other educative or formative programmes. In Nairobi a new radio
station was launched last year around June/July. It is called NEW KISS 100- FM, where
music is played for twenty-four hours. The kind of music played is 95% Western. This
channel has become the favourite for many young people in Kibera. Jeffrey Johnson
conducted a research on the influence of music on young minds in the USA. This is how his
respondents replied: "It cheers them up. If they are down, they just put a favourite tape on and
lie on the bed and shut out the world.
"Miles, 157. 58 Brunner, 27. -r The impact of consumerism on youth 27
It says stuff about what's happening in their relationships."" So music for the young is the
safe haven for their feelings. My respondents feel the same about music: worried about life,
they become less confused through listening to some songs, since as an art, music is believed
to be connected to the soul. Unfortunately, a good number of them have started imitating, in
talking, the American music artists and the kind of talking which in many ways is abusive. In
this way one can see the extension of the West.
2.3. CONSUMERISM AND YOUTH MORALITY
I have been asking myself whether there is such a thing as youth morality. This is the
question every person should ask. Talking to my respondents, I discovered that their
understanding of morality is very subjective. What they consider as moral values, may be
questioned by the older generation, e.g., the manner of dressing, the manner of relationships
between opposite sex, etc. Again a problem may be raised here as to why differences exist in
understanding the same morality. Should the approach to morality be subjective or objective?
Joseph Fuchs has given an answer in his book "Moral Demands and Personal Obligations";
There are diverse understandings of morality over the whole world It is possible that these diverse understandings are not only subjectively but also objectively correct, for morality is concerned, not with an abstract ideal world but with the world known to the human person, that is, with the world as the person knows it'
At least Fuchs approves of the co-existence of subjective and objective morality. Does this
then justify why young people think differently, in looking at morality, from the older
59 Jeffrey Johnson, "Evangelizing Youth Through Popular Music", In Reynolds R. Ekstrom & John Roberto, eds., Access Guide to Evangelization (New York: Don Bosco Multimedia, 1989), 122. " Josef Fuchs, Moral Demands & Personal Obligations (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, -r 1993), 22. The impact of consumerism on youth 28
generation? The Oxford Dictionary gives the definition of morality as "principles of good
behaviour, conforming to moral principles of goodness or rightness." The New Catholic
Encyclopaedia defines morality as "the quality attributable to human action by reason of its
conformity or lack of conformity to standards or rules according to which it should be
regulated.'' There is always a particular system of morals. In this case Christian morality is different from Muslim or Hindu morality. So whatever aspect of morality I will try to mention will be in accordance with Christian morality, since my audience is largely Christian and
African. What is youth morality? Morality involves human actions. It can be subjective, i.e., individual morality; or objective, i.e., universal morality or societal morality. Youth morality can then be a morality embraced by young people. It is typically subjective, because it falls only in the category of youth. What may be a value for the young people, may be a disvalue for the older generation. I can give an example of music. A kind of music which young people listen to may not be as appealing to the older generation as to the young people. Fuchs has written that each individual and society ultimately has a morality of its own." Here he is talking about subjective morality, which is the morality I have come to know among the young people of Laini Saba. It is a morality, which pertains to their way of behaviour, their way of understanding reality regardless of whether it contradicts the older generation or not.
How does consumerism come in? How is it related to the subjective way of understanding morality by young people? As I have mentioned earlier, consumerism has affected young people in many ways. hi a way it has become the standard measure of the behaviour of the young people in Kibera. The behavioural systems of many a young person in
Kibera are largely due to the external influences, consumerism being the primary vehicle. In fact all that I have mentioned earlier on in this chapter, such as fashions, music, magazines.
b' Juan Bautista Morales, "Morality". In New Catholic Encyclopaedia, vol.ix (Washington DC: Jack Heraty and Associates, Inc., 1967), 1129. 62 Fuchs, 115. The impact of consumerism on youth 29
breeds the behaviour of these young people. As a result consumerism and human behaviour are intertwined. Miles, commenting on young people, has written that as part of the consumer culture they are very adept at the symbolic work of developing their own styles and of reading off and decoding musical orientations in the construction of an overall lifestyle." Miles confirms that their lifestyle is primarily dependent on external influences. In this case, if particular music does not fit that lifestyle then it is rejected. One of my informants told me that his manner of dressing, his manner of behaviour could not be tolerated up country in his village. This simply shows that young people, especially in Kibera, have adopted a culture, which may not be accepted by their own people in the Ushago." That is why at the beginning of this section I noted that they have a subjective way of approaching the issues of morality, because they have created a very uncomfortable ambiance for the older generation in the manner of their behaviour. One girl in Kibera confided to me that to hug a boy is a big scandal for her parents if they see her. This is what they are watching on those Soap Operas, like 'Sunset Beach', 'No One But You' etc shown on the television channel, Kenya
Television Network (KTN). Hannah Kinoti has written in her essay that Africa is at the crossroads. Morality has been superimposed, and in certain respects rudely crossed, by other influences of the day and age in which we find ourselves."
However, sometimes the young people are not guilty of the manner of their behaviour.
Once I attended a so-called pre-wedding party in the Catholic Church of Laini Saba, and the youth were invited to entertain the crowd, which was present. They chose to dance ndombolo."
63 Miles, 116. 64 Swahili slang for 'village'. 65 Hannah W. Kinoti, "African Morality: Past and Present" In Moral and Ethical Issues in African Christianity: Exploratory Essays in Moral Theology, ed. J.N.K. Mugambi and A. Nasimiyu-Wasike (Nairobi: Initiatives Publishers, 1992), 73. 66 A famous dance among the young Africans from the Congo D.R. The impact of consumerism on youth 30
The way the girls danced confused many elderly people. These girls were just trying to
imitate how the Congolese ladies dance on TV. This was considered as an act of immorality
by many in the crowd. In the minds of the young people, it was just one of the ordinary
dances to entertain the crowd. This is why subjective morality is always at conflict with the
objective one. The elders try in their own way to be objective in the way they look at reality.
An elderly person in Africa is considered a sage, a person of wisdom to whom many people
could go for advice, and so they are the hives of the African traditions. One's longevity is
connected to the good life the person has lived. But they contradict what the young people
consider as values. Kinoti has explained the crisis between the young and the old. Elderly
people lament daily that they are meeting behaviour that shocks them: sexual immorality,
affectless relationship, skepticism about religious matters and many things, which hasten the
old to their graves.' One of my respondents said that old people will never understand the
behaviour of young people, as long as they are no longer young, and will not dare accept the
changes brought by technology. I think he was implying the changes brought by the culture of
modernity, i.e., the progress of science, the technical changes of the industrial revolution and
urban revolution with roots from the West, which always oppose the traditional structures in
every society. This simply shows how the young people in Kibera have embraced this culture
of modernity with all its values and disvalues. Many of my respondents told me that whatever
helps them to acquire a status in the society and especially recognition, is a value. That which
makes them actualize their individualities is a value. In this case the consumer culture has
helped them to fulfil some of their dreams because it satisfies their needs.
67 Kinoti, 73.
-r- The impact of consumerism on youth 31
2.4. YOUTH: DEFY OR EMBRACE TRADITIONAL AFRICAN VALUES.
Despite the above arguments in the last section of the previous Chapter, an individual
in Africa can invest a wide variety of meanings in a traditional culture. The traditional heritage in Africa is very rich due to the experience of life, life actually lived. We have come to embrace the past through the myth stories, with deep religious significance, proverbs and tales, which gives us an Africa world-view, rituals and customs which link us to the divine, etc. However, with the slow penetration of the Western world, with its theories of modernization, the African world-view is slowly being distorted. And my respondents are the sons and daughters of this contemporary world, where scientific progress, different technologies, etc., are giving meaning to life.
When I conducted my research among the young people of Kibera, the results of the questionnaire show the different outlooks and most of them are against the African traditional values:"
* 1 do not cherish female circumcision, because they make us (girls) inhuman.'
* am not for bride wealth, because it makes a girl property of the boy.'
* 'We are encouraged to have respect for the elders.' I think here he meant the traditional
Africa encourages respect for elders, and this is a value.
* 'The naming of children after their grandparents is just so cool.' The application is that it connects the individual named to the world of the ancestors. In this way an ancestor named becomes alive again in the individual.
* 'A woman is taken as someone who is not supposed to be educated, but stay at home and do the domestic chores.'
* 'A lady is not only for childbearing.'
68 am quoting the actual words of my respondents. The impact of consumerism on youth 32
•••••
* 'The manner of dressing is very respectful.'
* 'Our parents cannot talk to us about sex, because it is against the traditions.'
These are some of the answers the young people in Laini Saba gave me. One can just see that
they are really confused with the traditional society. Others seem to embrace the traditional
values, because these values envelope their identities and individualities, while still others
totally reject them because they are so much absorbed in the culture of modernity. Ela has
identified a problem with the current generation in that they do not look to African cultural
traditions for answers to all their questions." This author has seen how the young people are
slowly being alienated from their culture/s and traditions because of the wave of
consumerism, which is often in contradiction with the African values. The traditions are to be
the yardstick for the African culture/s, since any culture is a composite of many traditions.
The young people try to isolate and criticise some traditions, which do not support their
behaviours, such as flirting with no intention of marriage and even indulging in sex outside
marriage. One may even say they are being deceived, yet Pope Paul VI, in his encyclical;
•Populorum progressed , talking about young people says:
Their critical attitude prepares them to face modern challenges and ideologies knowing how to discriminate, i.e. to assess critically and eliminate those deceptive goods, which would bring about the lowering of the human ideal; and to accept those values that are sound and beneficial, in order to develop them alongside their own, in accordance with their own genius?'
This does not imply, at all, that the Pope has supported the young people in his encyclical. In
fact, he is encouraging them to imbibe those values which do not lower the dignity of human
69 Ela, xv. lu Paul VI, Populorum Progress/u, tit 41, A.A.S,. 59, 1967, 272 if. The impact of consumerism on youth 33
beings. Some of my respondents support the traditions (Cf. questionnaire), because they say, the traditions make them identifiable easily. I am sure that by this they imply the particular ethnic groups to which they belong. I remember asking one boy if he would like to go and
replace the big gap he has with a gold tooth. He simply said that he was proud because that gap was part of his identity. This is part of initiation rites, which are typical elements of the traditional Africa. So, not all the traditional elements are rejected by the youth of Kibera. One
Catholic priest, talking about traditions, said that there is lack of insistence on, and failure in transmitting, the traditional values on the part of parents to their children. This may be due to the fact that even the parents are lost or rather confused about the state of affairs in the modem society, which end up putting the young people of Kibera in total disarray.
Da, talking about this confusion on the part of young people, says that the totality of the African universe is not open to them, and they cannot draw on the knowledge transmitted by the great masters of oral tradition. As a result, the meaning of the traditional ceremonies escapes them and use of the oral style is barely discernible in their manner of speaking and living.' Ela has hinted at initiation rites talking about the totality of the universe. John S.
Mbiti says that initiation binds the individual who is being initiated to the community and people.' A good number of my respondents, especially the girls who belong to the ethnic groups practising initiation, are very much against clitoridectomy, which they regard as inhuman. One of them narrated the ordeal of how she was forced from primary school to undergo this practice, and how she has vowed never to force it on her own daughters in the future. This shows how bitter they can be against traditional practices. I think with time we are seeing new paradigms in the African setting.
In the African traditional setting, no one dared question the traditional practices, for
Ela, xv. 72 John S. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion (Nairobi: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1975), 93. The impact of consumerism on youth 34
fear of being ostracized. The young people are easily affected by any social change and
therefore they react against the traditions in order to form a society where progress is seen in
terms of electronics, fashions, language, music etc. This worldview is gotten from a culture
that can not appreciate the value of some of African traditions. The society which young people form has very little room, or none at all, for their own indigenous traditions. Shorter has commented that young people, find themselves automatically becoming the 'Opposition
Party' to the establishment and to their parents' generation." As Shorter has noted and from the questionnaire, the young people of Kibera sometimes oppose the old mentalities.
Consequently, their behaviour may become deviant, because they lack traditional norms to guide them. Again it is Shorter who says that the urban youth are often confused and disoriented morally. They lack stability and, indeed, any other purpose than the immediate one of making a living and enjoying life." One great danger for the youth in Laini Saba is that they may try to avoid some traditional values in order to show that they do not live in the slum. As one of my respondents has said: 'Strict observance of traditions will make me look old-fashioned to my friends and I will be laughed at as mshamba" boy.' So this brings in confusion and undecidedness regarding the value of certain traditions.
However, not every young person is against African traditions. Some would say that it is the only way they express their cultural identity, like the boy I quoted earlier who refused the gold tooth, because that would have tarnished his identity. So traditional values are not completely lost by the young people of Kibera.J. Vanrenterghem, a Missionary of Africa, has tried to specify the values in the African setting which can be considered as traditional: "The sense of community, of family, of welcome and hospitality, the sense of human relations, the sense of authority, respect for the Father and the chief, the sense of the sacred, the sense of
"Shorter, The Church in the African City, 117. 74 Shorter, 117. 15 This is a singular word for washamba (Cf foomote no.45.). In this case a boy from the bush. The impact of consumerism on youth 35
speech as active and creative community, the sense of life, of fecundity, and the sense of
time."" So the African traditions have intrinsic value even without the influence of the West.
For those young people in Kibera who have embraced these traditions have become the pride
of the older generation. Vanrenterghem has noted that it would be altogether too easy to
blame the West, colonization, the missions or the blindness of new generations denying their
past. Irreversible and inevitable processes are always calling into question values to which we
are attached." These processes that Vanrenterghem is talking about primarily include the
culture of modernity or so-called 'Westernization', which has radically hit big African cities,
and Nairobi is no exception. So, such young people try to cope with fast moving city life,
which sometimes collides with traditional society. It is now one of the biggest challenges on
the part of the Church in Africa to be able to reconcile the traditional values and this culture
of modernity, and this is the meaning of inculturation which will be expounded in the
following chapter.
75 J. Vanrenterghem, "Traditional Values and Evangelization." AFFR. 14(1), 1972,3. Vanrenterghem, 7. The impact of consumerism on youth 36
CHAPTER THREE: CONSUMERISM AS A PASTORAL
CHALLENGE.
3.1. YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH IN A CONSUMERISTIC SOCIETY.
In this climate of consumerism, how relevant will the Church be for our young people? Can we say the success of the Church's mission in Africa is largely dependent on how young people are going to respond to this mission? What is this mission then? The mission given by Jesus to the eleven after his resurrection: "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold,! am with you always, until the end of the age" (Mt. 28:18-20).
This is to be understood as the same mission given to the Church. But is the Church fulfilling its mission? So far I have been focusing on consumerism as a trend which falls outside the arena of the Church. However. now I want to try to show the Church's relationship with the youth, who form more than 50% of the faithful followers of the new-found faith, consumerism.
I had a chance to talk to my respondents on matters concerning Church and the culture in which they find themselves. Many of them felt that the Church is not able to come to the level of their culture. The culture in this case should be understood as the whole way of life, material and non-material, of a human society." The young people have their own culture, a culture that has very much absorbed consumerism with all its traits. I can give an example
- - - - - Aylward Shorter, African Culture: An Overview Social -Cultural Anthropology (Limuru: Kolbe Press, 1998), 22. The impact of consumerism on youth 37
from the young people's mode of dressing. For them, new fashions offer a special exposure in
the interaction between the local and the West."
Indeed, the power of the dressed body reminds us of the very nature of clothing as a
commodity. The Church should find ways of implementing youthful dynamism; their creativity, their initiative, their spontaneity etc., in its liturgical celebrations. I think this is the inculturation that the Catholic Church is advocating. Lamin Sanneh defines inculturation as a process which involves the destigmatization of alien cultures, and the self-emptying of both the evangelizer and the evangelized culture." I like this definition because it stresses the intertwining of the evangelizer and the evangelized culture without showing that one has to swallow the other in order to survive. I have seen several times when young people in Kibera are animating the celebration on a Sunday, that they always try to do something unique. For instance, instead of a priest preaching after the Gospel reading, they prefer to act a play through which they communicate the gospel message to the gathered congregation. This can be one of the ways in which the Church can help the young people realise their potentialities.
After being in Kibera for some time now, many of the young people I have known from the Catholic Church, have attended Sunday services of four or five different Churches.
What do they search for? Can the Church be commodified? Pope John Paul II gives the understanding of consumerism along these lines in his encyclical, 'Sollicitudo Re Sociales':
'Consumerism involves so much 'throwing-away' and 'waste'. An object already superseded by something better is discarded, with no thought of its possible lasting value in itself, nor of some other human being who is poorer' I am tempted to think that some of the young people of Kibera have reduced the Church to a mere commodity, which can be used and
— 1c Hansen, 346. Lamin Sanneh, Translating the message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990), In Aylward Shorter, Evangelization and Culture (London: Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn, 1994), 32. gi John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis,# 28. The impact of consumerism on youth 38
thrown away when a new one is found. The consumer mentality on commodities is that which
I can call 'authenticity rule', the best always offers justification and satisfaction. This
mentality has made them just 'tourists' in any Church they attend. What are they looking for?
Does it mean that any Church they go to has no lasting value, if I may use the language of
Pope John Paul II? Aloys Otieno has answered partly this crisis: "Young people prefer
Pentecostals with blaring guitar music usually going along with the latest youth fashion in the
music world."" What the young people look for in their search for identity is only to satisfy
their needs, which may always be misleading. If in the Catholic Church, their needs are not
met, they would go 'touring', looking for greener pastures, and the pentecostals seem to be
answering this need with their youthful approach in celebrating their Sunday services. Their
modem musical instruments with a sentimental touch to the singing has won favour among
the young. Possibly their method of evangelizing is very appealing for young people who
easily get bored with the kind of preaching they get from the Catholic Church, with too many
doctrines. More than 60% of the faithful in many pentecostal Churches in Nairobi are young
people. Why is it so? It seems they have embraced the flexibility of the pentecostals in
celebrating their services, unlike what they, young people, have called the rigidity of the
Catholic Church's liturgy
One of my respondents told me that the Church should try to understand the stage of
young people with all its dynamics. Has the Church responded enough to their problems?
Would it not be a truly prophetic response and a sign of hope if the young people could be
involved in running the Church activities? Ela has written concerning the present Church.
Talking about charitable activities, he says that in the end it comes down to no more than a policy of assistance and 'modernisation', which really means some expansion of the capitalist
82 Aloys Otieno Ojore, Problems of the Youth in Africa: Implications for Religious Vocation (Nairobi: Foto Form LW, 2000), 75. The impact of consumerism on youth 39
sector with more distortion, disequilibrium, dependence, and further marginalization and
impoverishment of the masses.'
The duty of the Church, therefore, is not just to give without knowing the needs of its flock.
This will make her [Church] an agent of consumerism, since the worthiness of the people will not be on spiritual values but on material ones. In my own view, the answer to the deep aspirations of the youth in Kibera will not be to give them material things through charity drives, but to absorb them and know how to combat their negative consumeristic mentalities.
Consumerism as a way of life has many negative influences on the young people of
Kibera. The duty of the Church is to incarnate itself in the lives of the young people in order to be able to address the negative influences that consumerism is having on them. Ela has written that the Church is called to be vigilant. It is invited to show courage. It must abandon the beaten paths of a praxis that shuts it up in a kind of 'dogmatic slumber'." In this atmosphere of change, there should be no dogmatic slumber on the part of the Church. One of my respondents told me that the Church should be able to provide many activities for them in order to cure boredom. It is boredom which causes the youth to become involved in drugs, sex scandals and many other evil deeds since their minds, at this time, are weak and empty and can be filled by anything negative. The Church has the responsibility of curing not only boredom but all the ills brought by the culture of modernity. So on its part, it has a role of sensitising the young people towards the building of a new and just society. The sensitisation can be done by organising workshops or seminars befitting problems the young people are encountering in this modem society. In this way, the Church has also a social role to play in alleviating the plight of the young people who find themselves victims of consumerism.
Ela. 152, 84 Ela, 153. The impact of consumerism on youth 40
In an encyclical, Evangelii Nunt andi, Pope Paul VI wrote:
The Church has a duty to proclaim the liberation of millions of human beings, many of whom are her own children the duty of assisting the birth of this liberation, of giving witness to it, of ensuring that it is complete.'
The liberation Pope Paul VI is talking about here not only includes the social, political and economic structures, but also the more personal one, one's intellectual capacity. I am sure the young people of Kibera do not realise what harm consumerism is causing them. They seem to be comfortable, forgetting that consumerism creates forced needs. Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical, `Centesimus Annus' writes:
The consumer attitudes and life-styles can be created which are objectively improper and often damaging to physical and spiritual health of a person. Drugs, as well as pornography and other forms of consumerism, which exploit the frailty of the weak, tend to fill the resulting spiritual void."
The Pope, in my view, is trying to remind the Church of its role in liberating the spiritual being of a person. The young people of Kibera may fall into the trap of adopting an attitude of
'having' in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself as the theory of consumerism advocates. The Church should therefore stress the aspect of 'being' which is the actualisation of the person who God wants us to be. By this I imply the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth. By making the youth of Kibera aware of these implications, the Church has already contributed to renewing the face of the earth and has fulfilled the mission Christ gave, so that finally God will be all in all.
g5 Paul VI, Evangeln Nunfiandi, # 30. " John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, # 36. The impact of consumerism on youth 41
3.2. CONSUMERISM AND NEW EVANGELIZATION.
It seems to me that the 'first' or primary evangelization of the missionaries in Africa in
the late 19111 century, was only successful to the extent that there were no social ills in the
society like materialism, secularism etc., to challenge them. Since these problems are now
prevalent, there is the need for another approach. What is evangelization? In an encyclical,
Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI gives the definition as follows: "The bringing of good
news into the strata of humanity, and through its influence transforming humanity from within
and making it new.' The encyclical, therefore, stretches the notion to a holistic
understanding that attends as well to the liberation of all people, on personal, interpersonal,
and social levels. As much as a human being is the beneficiary of evangelization by finding
himself/herself in this culture of modernity, he/she needs a new approach to cope with the
situation. What is this new evangelization then? Pope John Paul II first coined the expression
in an address given to Latin American Bishops at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1983. The Pope
spoke of a commitment not to re-evangelization, but of a new evangelization, new in its
favour, in its methods, and in its expression." Shorter and Onyancha note that re-
evangelization is a restorationist notion, since it suggests a return to the status quo ante, rather
than a leap forward to a new life transformed by the Gospel." So new evangelization is not to
be taken as the continuation of what has been termed 'primary evangelization', which refers
to the early stages of evangelization, but should rather take a 'new form' knowing that we are
living in a different culture. Shorter acknowledges this by saying that this new evangelization
87 Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi,# IS. " Leonardo Boff, New Evangelization (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991), In Aylward Shorter, Evangelization and Culture. 1994, 22. " Shorter and Onyancha, 130. The impact of consumerism on youth 42
or second evangelization is needed either because the original evangelization has lost its
momentum or because it was in some sense flawed.'
However, this approach poses a big challenge to the evangelizers in Africa. This
century thirsts for authenticity. Do they believe what they proclaim? Do they live what they
believe? Do they preach what they live? Every evangelizer is expected to reverence the truth in order to be authentic to his/her audience. Therefore, an evangelizer, in modern Africa, is expected to address the new paradigms, the new social changes, such as consumerism, in the society with new energy.
So, the concept of new evangelization is appropriate in the case of a secular society or of a society exposed to secularization.' Materialism or consumerism is a form of secularism where a human being relates more to products than to God. Herve Carrier has written that the
Gospel of Jesus cannot be announced to persons of modern sensibilities and mentalities without a methodical, reflective, and concerted effort, for today the pace of cultural change defies the traditional way of Christianising common behaviour and customs." Carrier is suggesting an approach in tune with the present day culture/s. In this way the primary evangelization is also important because it acts as the basic foundation for Christ's teaching.
Presently, this is not so in contemporary Africa. In a society where the Church is within the socio-cultural context of modernization, a new approach in the evangelizing process is required. The cultural anxieties of modern society challenge us to deepen the present significance of our faith and hope in Jesus Christ. This is one of the priorities of new evangelization.
9{1 Shorter and Onyancha, 22 gi Shorter and Onyancha, 22. 92 Herve Carrier, Evangelizing the Culture of Modernity (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, 1993), 1. The impact of consumerism on youth 43
In order to succeed in coping with the culture of modernity, Carrier has proposed the triad of evangelization, inculturation. and liberation as the only way to succeed in coping with the culture of modernity." I think evangelization should aim at transforming society. If it should be called new evangelization, the strategies should also be new and dynamic in order to be able to counteract the fast moving society. It remains unfinished if it does not achieve the task of changing people's sensibilities and mentalities for the betterment of the society.
The Church has to realise that inculturation is the main goal of new evangelization.
Carrier has written that inculturation constitutes the heart, the means and the scope of the new evangelization." Since consumerism becomes a culture in itself, a culture that is part and parcel of modernity in this Christian era, inculturation, therefore, should be the basis, insofar as we have to look for the values in the African culture/s which can purify, inspire and enrich emerging cultures. The approach to be taken should be a careful cultural analysis, since modernity poses many challenges to the Church in this century in Africa.
The aspect of liberation, which Carrier proposes, should also be the goal of new evangelization in a culture of modernity. In order to succeed in evangelization, the mind of an individual has to be liberated. It has to be free from prejudices, from anxieties and even from the attachment to the self This involves risking of one's life since a person is required to make radical steps in life toward liberating of oneself Shorter and Onyancha have noted that new evangelization implies social transformation through the application of gospel values, the promotion of solidarity, and the exercise of social responsibility." In this way the Church should make clear the renewing power of the gospel values in the present context in order to promote healthy liberty for the suffering and the abandoned ones.
41 Carrier, 3. 44 Carrier, 5. " Shorter and Onyancha, 132. The impact of consumerism on youth 44
It is worthwhile to mention that the Church has realised that the culture of modernity has come as a big challenge to her and has succinctly addressed this issue in the pastoral constitution on the Church in the Modern World:
The joy and hope, the grief and the anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor and afflicted in any way are the joy and hope, grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well 96
This simply shows that the Church is in solidarity with the rest of humanity. However, in contemporary Africa, new evangelization should aim at uplifting an individual who is a victim of consumerism. The approach should be understood in the parable of the lost sheep:
What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy. (Lk. 15:4 — 5).
The parable of Jesus should be understood as being addressed to the Church in modem
Africa. In this parable a deep concern for evangelization is expressed. The Church should be able to lift its own on the shoulders with great joy after fulfilling its process of evangelization.
This will help curb the rise of individualisation, which has become an accompanying phenomenon of modernization. Carrier has written that the increased mobility of people and the proximity of urban collectives cut individuals off from the communities to which they traditionally belonged: village, parish, the family.' The Church should be able to leave the ninety-nine as in the parable of Jesus, and bring back the stray to the village, the parish and
" Vatican [1, Gaudium et Spes, # I. 97 Carrier, 35. The impact of consumerism on youth 45
the family. It is implicitly known that consumerism promotes individualism, because the
person is so much absorbed in thinking of the 'self and the objects he/she has acquired in life.
But the duty of the Church, through evangelization, is to break this haven of privacy, which
serves, as a shelter for the individual in the midst of an impersonal society." Only by so doing
will the Church be noted for its full commitment to the evangelization of modem Africa, with
human beings as the subject of this commitment.
Finally, new evangelization should also enter the realm of mass media. It is from here
that many people get their distorted world-view. The Church should be equipped with the
latest media tools in order to be authentic proclaimers of Good News. Shorter and Onyancha
have written that Christians must regain use of mass media and reinstate the Gospel in the
arena of public truth." This can be done through publications of necessary materials for a
modern person. The use of radio and television stations should be a priority in evangelization.
In a culture of modernity, the media have unlimited and almost uncontrollable power. They
affect both negatively and positively. Carrier has written that violence, brutality, criminality,
hedonism, irreligiosity, and professed immorality are vast phenomena to which the whole of
society and each individual, children as well as adults, are exposed.' The negative traits
Carrier has noted above are brought by the world of mass media. So the Church in Africa has
to use the same tools of mass media in its method of evangelization, but in an effective way,
to control the commercialisation of immorality and paganization of consciences, i.e., the
influence on the human mind by secular ideas. This should be understood as a primary task
for the effectiveness of any evangelizer in this culture of modernity. Jesus, who is the model
of evangelization, used different symbols and images in his proclamation of the Good News
to the people of his own times, thereby making his message relevant and appealing:
48 Carrier, 37. -r- 99 Shorter and Onyancha, 133. The impact of consumerism on youth 46
"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, that a person took and sowed in the field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when All-grown, it is the largest of plants.
It becomes a large bush, and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches." (Mt. 13:31 32)
Africa with a rich past of traditional religions, needs a new approach in evangelization which will neither condemn nor ignore the ancient trunk with good traditional values. Inculturation does not mean a merely external adaptation of Christianity to a culture. Each and every culture has to enrich the Gospel message. It is from here that the authenticity of evengelization can be seen. So the biggest challenge for an African today is to try to reconcile the values of the past heritage and the modem progress, and yet maintain alive their proper identity. So the task of evangelization is to bridge the gap which exists between the two opposing cultures, the culture of modernity and the African culture's. This is only possible if the Church can take radical steps in renewing the face of the earth with its witnessing value. The impact of consumerism on youth 47
CONCLUSION.
When all is said and done, one has to sit back and ask the question; "Where are we
going from here with consumerism as a way of life?" What I have written in my paper is what
is already perceived in our present society. I have not provided the clues of how to cope with
this phenomenon, which is regarded as a religion of the late twentieth century. Miles has
written that consumerism pervades our everyday lives and structures, our everyday experience
and yet it is perpetually altering its form and reasserting its influence in new guises.w° During
the course of my research work, at least at the common sense level, the everyday life of many
people appears to be dominated by their relationship with this consumer culture. The question
I am posing again is; "How far are we in control of this relationship?" Mbiti has written
concerning the value of community life in Africa: "I am, because we are; and since we are,
therefore I am."10I Along the same lines we can coin what has become of our societies due to
the wave of consumerism; "I am what I have." This appeals to consumer lifestyles, which
have profound impact upon who we are as individuals insofar as our personal choices in life,
through the things we consume, have shaped us.
What can happen if this theory of modernization is accompanied by what I can call
Kenyanization? By this term, Kenyanization, I am implying the idea of utilizing the local
Kenyan products. Modernization has created a situation where a person is always in desperate
want. By looking at the state of affairs, Nairobi, being the modern city, is more affected by
consumerism than any other town in Kenya. This is due to the competition created in many public places in terms of consumer products. If you talk of fashions, the more names you have on your clothes, Nike, Calvin Klein, Reebok, etc, the more money you will spend, which gives a status to someone in the society. Consumerism breeds false freedom. The paradox
lu° Miles, 191 John S Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Nairobi: Afropress Ltd, 1969), 108-109. The impact of consumerism on youth 48
here is that the desire to be oneself encourages these people to have an attitude of 'my way'
and promotes individualism.
Our present society. therefore, is heading towards decadence if certain precautions are
not taken seriously, like fighting individualism and thereby promoting communities where
everyone is a member. This will make the people share what they have. So it will no longer be
'I am what I have', but 'I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am', to use the
expression of Mbiti. This is the task of each individual and not only of the Church, though the
Church can be in the forefront to spearhead sensitisation. What we have to know is that the
world of the young people is a noisy one, which in turn creates emptiness in them. It is noisy
because they like to be in an environment where their minds can be preoccupied, e.g., in
Discos, pubs, in the case of a Matatui" they will prefer to go in the one with very loud music.
While the older generation will complain, they will be enjoying it. So a consumerist society
expresses at one level a horror at the destructive excess, especially in the minds of the young,
yet in aestheticising this honor, they somehow convert it into a pleasurable object to satisfy
their ego. Miles has written that consumerism is ideologically powerful because, despite being
at least partially aware of its influence and power, consumers are prepared at least to explore
the extent to which they can use consumerism as a framework for the construction of their
identities.'" Consequently, from this observation of Miles, a person might not construct and
identity directly through what he/she consumes, but may well construct who he/she is as a
result of why he/she consumes that particular item. Young people, in this way sometimes do not construct their identities through what they consume, but rather through peer group relationships, since this identifies them to the group. An example can be given of young people wanting to dress in the same style, to have the same haircut style, to have the same
"The local name of the mini-buses in Kenya. 103 M i les, I 53. The impact of consumerism on youth 49
style of talking, etc. Furthermore, it seems consumerism is a good school for this trend. What
should not be forgotten is that any social change, like the monopoly of new fashions, media
etc., in our society does not occur in isolation but generates the system as a whole to the fabric
of everyone's life.
I feel challenged and humbled in a society where consumerism is already a religion for
many. Especially I feel sorry for the young people who have become victims of consumerism
because of ignorance. It is to be understood now that consumerism is very much part of our
social life, so it should not be taken in isolation and thus as an abstract concept. The African consciousness should therefore, be enlightened with shaping a lifestyle that is acceptable objectively. This will create an Africa were everyone will not be lost but will feel at home.
What is required on the side of the young people is just education. There should be programmes with the aim of reshaping their values with an objective outlook, not their own values, but the universal values accepted by all. The media programmes should also be censored for public viewing or listening, because sometimes, young people get their world- view from the media. So, a stress should be there in promoting some of local programmes which may be of help to the society at large. The idea of encouraging local products at
International Trade Fairs, should be welcomed. This will enable people to appreciate what is their own, and not something from outside which may not carry any meaning only that it is an imported product. The journey has just begun, it has not ended. It will be interesting to have further research works on different peoples from different walks of life, to make it more universal and comprehensive. In my research I singled out one group, but there is a need for different age groups from different backgrounds which can serve to how consumerism can be tackled at the international level. The impact of consumerism on youth 50
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APPENDIX
,
• Appendix 55
QUESTIONNAIRE TO THE YOUTH ON CONSUMERISM
Please answer the following as clear as possible. I. YOUR NAME (OPTIONAL) 2. IN WHICH AREA DO YOU LIVE? 3. HOW OLD ARE YOU9
Please tick only one choice for each question:
4. SEX: MALE FEMALE 5. MARITAL STATUS: MARRIED SINGLE 6. OCCUPATION: STUDENT UNEMPLOYED EMPLOYED 7. IF EMPLOYED, PLEASE WRITE THE SECTOR IN WHICH YOU ARE WORKING 8. IF YOU ARE A STUDENT, IN WHICH CLASS ARE YOU CURRENTLY 9. WHAT IS IT THAT YOU LIKE FROM THE WEST (EUROPE, AMERICA, OTHER COUNTRIES) (MUSIC, FASHIONS, ROLE MODELS ETC. YOU ARE FREE TO MENTION ANYTHING)
•
10. WHAT IS YOUR VIEW ABOUT FASHIONS?
11. GIVEN 5000 SHILLINGS BY YOUR PARENTS, HOW CAN YOU BUDGET FOR IT/HOW CAN YOU SPEND IT? (PLEASE SPECIFY) Appendix 56
12. MEDIA INFLUENCE: DO YOU WATCH TV? HOW HAS TV INFLUENCED YOUR LIFE?
DO YOU GO TO MOVIE THEATRES? AND WHAT KIND OF MOVIES DO YOU LIKE WATCHING? (VIOLENCE, SEX. SCIENCE FICTION, RELIGIOUS. ETC. BE SPECIFIC)
DO YOU READ MAGAZINES/NEWSPAPERS? AND OF WHAT KIND?
DO YOU LISTEN TO THE RADIO? AND WHAT PROGRAMMES DO YOU LIKE?
13. IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU FEEL THE INFLUENCE OR DEMANDS OF THE TRADITIONS?
14. ARE THERE AFRICAN TRADITIONS OR CUSTOMS THAT YOU AND YOUR PEERS REJECT? WHICH ONES AND WHY?
15. WHICH ASPECT(S) OF AFRICAN TRADITION DO YOU LIKE?
it% Appendix 57
16. WHICH PROBLEMS ARE YOU FACING IN LINE WITH THE TRADITIONS?
17. HAS YOUR CHURCH RESPONDED TO THESE PROBLEMS? IF YES HOW?
18. ANY FURTHER SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO CATER FOR YOUTH?
19. WHAT GENERAL COMMENTS DO YOU HAVE ON MATTERS CONCERNING THE CHURCH AND THE YOUTH? Mot tatettemittgabita4 Appendix 58 Kisumu man gets a steam,' Valentine presenl Tel aet- n spe el
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