Mr. Ezekiel Mutua, MBS, is a troubled man. He doesn’t know
it yet, but he needs your prayers. Let me explain. You see, as the CEO of the Kenya Film and Classification Board, he’s been brandishing sabre and sword in
a holy crusade against immoral storytellers. I’m completely
awe-struck by his unparalleled zeal to fight what he calls moral terrorism. Imagine
that. This man should be working for GSU Recce Squad’s Moral Intelligence
Division.
But I can’t just wish him off to the terror-inducing people
at Recce Squad where he really belongs. As a Kenyan storyteller looking to
contribute content on stage and screen, I’d better get to know Mr. Mutua,
because he’s got a big whip and I don't want him lashing the skin off my back for the
content of my stories.
It so happens that in my next play there’s a lady in a red mini
skirt with the hem just below the Bermuda Triangle, mounds of thigh extending
southward into smooth shin-and-ankle stuck in a pair of six-inch heels. There
are two men who make lip contact ever so gently, just for a second. There’s
also a bridal party scene with a Kiganjo policeman stripper who pops out of a
big bible, mundu-khu-mundu muscles rippling as he gyrates out of some massive
pages, all while Alikiba blares through the speakers- “haya chekecha chekecha
haya chekecha cheketua...” And Mr. Mutua MBS, loves the word “debauchery.”
I discovered we have something in common. We both like to air
our thoughts out loud through a keyboard. His Facebook page is an open window
to his vain soul. He’s very present, engaging and unafraid of his own beliefs.
Only he is blind to the bullshitness of his morality crusade.
In his mind, he’s on an apocalyptic mission to save Kenya,
because God forbid Kenya’s storytellers should succeed in putting Kenya in a
big envelope and mailing it off to the big bad devil. He believes this. His
other sworn enemies are atheists and homosexuals. But we’ll get there in a
minute.
Mr. Mutua says he’s on a mission to protect Kenya’s children
against the debauchery of family-time programming. I don’t know what’s been
showing on Kenyan TVs lately, but there’s a gadget called a remote control.
Change the freakin’ channel! And if you have only one debauched channel on your
TV, do some creative parenting. It’s not KFCB’s responsibility to police
parenting between 5 and 10PM when the moral code is supposedly in force. Don’t
spoil other perfectly balanced families’ enjoyment of the sizzling intrigues of
life and love, coming to you con amor,
from Mexico.
It’s perfectly alright for Mr. Mutua if he’s reading his bible
at this time. The problem is that he can’t sleep because images of moral
decadence torture his soul. Seductive females and homosexual hotness and
mournful orgies at bridal parties float through his mind. I’m not kidding. It’s
all there on his Facebook page, in his own words. And he thinks the rest of the
country is haunted by the images in his mind. There's some deep private conflict burning within him, a personal moral battle that he has decided to transform into a national pursuit. Now you see why he
needs your prayers.
He swears on the Constitution so authoritatively you’d think
he’s right. He’s not. Kenya is a democracy, not a theocracy. Mr. Mutua seems to
have these two all mixed up in the same bowl. There’s a whole bill of rights
that guarantees every Kenyan a right to equality and freedom from discrimination;
freedom of conscience, religion, belief and opinion. To believe that one must
believe in God in order to possess a moral compass is a load of bullshit. There
are many atheists with higher moral fortitude than some professed God-fearing
people whose morals make a blue-flied pit latrine smell like Suzzana pomade.
Mr. Mutua bears the responsibility to encourage only quality
of content. Just quality. The bullshit about doing God’s work as moral police is
his personal vendetta against the perverts of his mind.
