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Kenyan Legislators: Of Alcohol and Advertising! |
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Written by Ciku Kimani
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Wednesday, 27 May 2009 |
Our MPs are at it again; concentrating on debilitating the country
instead of building it. Concentrating on things that mean *&%$ to
us, expertly distracting us from the main issues (Migingo, the two type
'errors' in the budget, the toxic or otherwise maize, fact that fetuses
are being cut up at Pumwani, constitution debate et al). That they want
to table a bill in parliament that stops beer companies from
advertising is diabolical! Have they forgotten what happened when they
stopped advertisement of cigarettes? The Safari Rally went down, and I
still have not forgiven whoever for that! Safari Rally made April
Holidays even more fun!
If this bill goes through, they will simultaneously flatten a few things. Talk about killing two birds with one stone – but in this case it is more like killing a few birds with one stone! The ciggie companies will not be able to exercise their corporate responsibility, Tusker FC will be no more, our high riding rugby team will suffer, EABL being the biggest corporate sponsor, no more Bambika (there goes the mama mboga turned millionaire), media companies, who do lucrative businesses with the ciggie companies (and I will not be able to watch those Guinness adverts I so love), will lose the revenue! I hear they will even stop doing bar posters and T-shirts! Who the heck thinks of these bills? Idiots?
I say Kenyans must one way or another find a way of stopping the nonsense. Their argument is we are losing the youth to alcohol by glamorizing beer drinking! I say crap! The men (yes, men) I see sprawled on the roadside from too much drinking do not drink Tusker or Pilsner! They drink kumi kumi, ka-satchet and Gasol (sp). Besides, I doubt people will stop drinking just because there are no more bill boards! People will always drink – they are still smoking even after years of the cig advert ban! Goodness sake! What they should be concentrating their energy on is finding ways of bringing hygiene into the illicit drinks, and getting comatose men off the road-sides!
If people want to kill themselves with fags and alcohol, let them! They are grown ups, usually literate and can read; there is no single smoker or drinker, for instance, who cannot tell you in great detail the disadvantages of consuming either or both! They know it is just addiction, although quite honestly I think addiction is an excuse for weakness – but that’s besides the point though. I am still to know what the government hopes to gain from banning the advertising, its not like they pay for our health-care – or did they start doing that while I was writing this?
Could someone please knock some sense into these imbeciles! They are driving the rest of us sane Kenyans up the wall!
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Ciku Kimani |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 27 May 2009 )
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On the other hand, I daresay that many Kenyans do not have access to tv commercials where KBL runs their ads. Don't many kids get drunk on cheap local brews? The kind whose ads you'll never see on telly?
Regulating ads is not something new. When do KWAL or KBL run their ads? During, or after prime time? Does it matter even? Because growing up, it seems my mother was the only one who censored what shows/movies were children-friendly.