Wednesday, February 24, 2010

In her place; the unmuffling of Esther Arunga

Our tabloids were happy for spectacular sales last week. Good for them, but not so good for individual freedoms or for the liberated 21st Century Kenyan woman. Sometime last week it came to the media’s delirious attention and consequently to that of the country, that former KTN newscaster Esther Arunga was in some sort of trouble. Her family was desperate for her, and for her career. She had left her job at the Standard Group’s television station, moved out of home and into the palatial residence, also church, that belongs to a distant relative - and her present spiritual leader- one Joseph, also named Hellon.

Stephen Wanyama makes the case that Arunga is a thirty-year old woman, old enough to make decisions on where she can stay and how she worships. With the little we know about her church, why do we, Kenya and its-all-knowing-media, infantilize her?