The New Times, Kitoko Bibarwa and Deaf Discrimination

Kitoko from New Times Interview

Two months ago, at the end of one of our Disability Partnership Meetings at VSO, we were presented with a slightly uneasy looking young bloke who came into the meeting and introduced himself as Kitoko Bibarwa.

This guy is a popular recording artist whose latest song went straight to the top of the charts and earned him an award nomination.

Only, it was banned by Rwandan television because its title: Ikiragi is a derogatory term for a Deaf person and the lyrics are also offensive:

"Umukobwa ni bubu, yakundanye n'ikigari."

 His counter-argument is:

"When I wrote this song, I did not mean to offend the deaf... It's just a song about how I fell in love with a girl, but lots of people were apparently opposed to the relationship and they tried to convince her to break up, yet she decided to give them a deaf ear and we continued seeing each other. That was the essence of the lyrics, not what people have come up with."

Which is fair enough. It'd be a bit like singing: "stick with me girl, don't be a spastic," and got about the same response as you'd expect from the Rwandan disability movement.

The argument around Deaf terminology is a long-standing one and recently involved campaigns to stop people using the term igitumbva, meaning 'a thing that cannot hear' in favour of abatumbva: 'a person who cannot hear.'

A recent Decade survey of local districts said that there was marked improvement in disability awareness, however use of inappropriate language was still a major problem.

This is demonstrated in the national media where one of Rwanda's dodgiest tabloids, The New Times ran a story on the issue of Kitoko's song and insisted on referring to Deaf people as 'the dumb and the deaf' and 'deaf and dumb' - which further added insult to injury.

I would like to ask blog-followers to contact the editor of the New Times (editorial@newtimes.co.rw) and explain that they have read the article and would urge them to change their wording on the matter.

In a way, The New Times is worse than Kitoko's lyrics. At least with Kitoko it seems to have been a genuine oversight in pursuit of art - The New Times is just plain ignorant and ought to know better. It's not like it doesn't have a National Deaf Association or disability committee (FENAPH) to consult. But then, The New Times is the last word in severely shonky reporting anyway.

Our suggestion to Kitoko was to change the lyrics to something less offensive, to which he allegedly replied something to the effect of: 'Sure, if you pay for the recording time.'

From the spiel on jealousy that he degenerated into in the NT article (if indeed he did ever say anything that was reported), I think he has a few more years of personal and intellectual development to undergo before he ends up as a figurehead for compassionate and world-changing artists.

I'm waiting for a response from my lot to see whether they're going to join the campaign and start writing some letters. Could be interesting.