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DRESS SENSE TIES UP POLICEMAN IN JAIL

Among all the major problems they have to grapple with, Africa’s leaders still find time to make pronouncements on what people should be wearing. And this generally becomes a contest between those who favour traditional attire and those who favour Western styles. It’s a confused debate, reports Gemini News Service, and one which shows no sign of being resolved one way or the other, by Paul Amina
THE Chief Magistrate at Nakuru in Kenya. Mrs Rose Walekhwa, was not amused that a police constable on duty Inside the courts as a prisoner escort was not wearing a necktie.
So she ordered him to be locked up with other prisoners In order to impress upon hls colleagues the need to maintain smartness.
This unique punishment is but one of a number of odd decisions In recent times involving Kenya's dress sense, some of which have prompted official intervention. Some people are now wondering whether it is time the government formulated a clearcut policy on dress mode, so as to avoid conflicts between the public and officialdom.
In Kenya today, hotels are still likely to close their doors to guests, and the Speaker in Parliament expels MPs, tf they are not wearing ties and jackets. Visitors to the Legislature who wear the national dress of other countries are not spared either, unless they are state guests
An equally bizarre decision to that made by Magistrate Walekhwa, was made by the Kenya government when it ordered the withdrawal from news stands of two publications, Drum and True Love. The cover photographs of young Swazi girls performing a reed dance at the enthronement of King Mswati were described as "pornographic.'
Culture and Social Services Minister, James Njiru, took
exception to the publication of what he described as "half-nude women and the shocking portrayal of the women tn erotic poses and tn the obscene, lewd and sexually provocative language."
This edict was NJlru's maiden guidance in morality to the nation at the time when he had Just been named head of the controversial new Ministry of National Guidance and Political Affairs, a task of which is to censor publications and films.
However, the Minister had apparently forgotten that cultural dance troupes parade around Kenya to entertain leaders and official guests, including heads of state and the Pope: the dancers are normally dressed in remarkably similar if not even less attire, than that of the Swazi entertainers. Skins are all a traditional entertainer needs.
Kenya is not alone in the campaign to restore colonial vestiges like wigs for lawyers and tailcoats for formal- dinners.
The priorities of some African leaders are largely misplaced, to say the least. A casual glance at the East and Central African countries campaigning for authenticity in their mode of dress, would find their economies in a shambles, unemployment acute, roads in disrepair, looming famine, a low literacy rate, telephones that don't work, and the countries are debt-crippled after spending their meagre foreign exchange earnings on weapons.
In Zaire, for example. President Mobutu Sese Seko first ordered all Christian names dropped — his was Joseph — and replaced with family names; he renamed the former Belgian colony with what is actually a nonsense word — Zaire — and introduced hls version of national dress in a campaign of "authenticity’ aimed at reducing Western influence.
Gradually, however, the Zaireans defied the authorities and abandoned the prescribed garb in favour of Western-style dress.
Recently the Zairean leadership cracked down on women who wore trousers, wigs, Hpstlck and other such symbols of Western "decadence," but they spared men from their campaign. Bars were ordered to admit only women dressed In wraparound dresses and tops and to turn away those wearing Western dress.
Uganda's former dictator, Idf Amin, ordered women to cover their knees or face prosecution as part of a campaign for "moral standards". The move was Intended partly to please Amin's Muslim supporters — he himself came to embrace Islam — even though most Ugandans are Christian.