The thrill of home grown theatre performance

It may go against the current trends, but I will dare to say it anyway. Theatre has the potential to take centre stage in entertainment (Yes, pun intended!). In a world where global entertainment empires decide what shows on our TV screens, we have a chance to personalise our entertainment, to set it in the context of our home towns and culture. Stage drama is an excellent way to provide drama, comedy and romance set in familiar places - on the very street corners you pass every day, or at the local bus stop, with words and phrases that bring the story home in a way that international entertainment cannot. The way mass media has lost ground to social media, stage drama can take ground from mass entertainment.

[Images from "My Pursuit" -  a musical drama that was performed at Ster Kinekor on 8th October; produced by "Ili Kenge Events" under the able leadership of Henry Chibutu and Mwase Kumwenda, with support from "Stand and Sing of Zambia"  (SASOZ) proprietor, Logan Nyasulu]

I attended a musical performance, "My pursuit", last October, and I cannot explain how it brought the story home of exile and homecoming for the young girl who rejected her churchgoing roots. It created the feeling that I was watching something happening next door! Something about sitting a few rows from the performers brought the story home with emotive force.

Don't get me wrong, international screen productions will not be replaced any time soon, and they don't have to be. Much like mass news media and social media, the two can co-exist. However, there is a vacuum in terms of presenting local stories to local audiences, and little chance that our Zambian stories will over run the international scene just yet. Rather than hold back the local talent, we can use theatre as a means to use local talent to tell stories in a homespun way. We just need to approach it right.

Drama is also a developmental tool. We hear like sustainable development goals and other UN resolutions. We hear about Wildlife conservation projects and global warming. But all these things seem to be a world away, distance and detached. Theatre can help bring these developmental issues home to us, with local scripts, analogies and music.

Beyond all this, we can use drama to examine our worldview. Its important for us to reflect on our identity. So many things about our norms and our taboos, our values and even our moral contradictions as a society, need to be brought to light. Love, hate, spirituality, success and family life can be seen in a unique light, with dramas set in our community. Truth about the transformation we need, as individuals and society, needs a localised spotlight. If drama can be embraced by schools, youth groups, colleges and adult enthusiasts, we can provide a constructive way for society to reflect on what drives us and where our lives are leading.

Man on a mission

If you catch a music video on TV, more often than not you will find that a high-maintenance lifestyle is in the spotlight. The singer portrays the "good life", and fans aspire to get into the same spotlight and life of luxury. There is nothing wrong with expensive jewelry and customised cars. There is also nothing wrong with life in the spotlight (after all someone has to be in the spotlight!) The challenge i show such videos and films affect our understanding of ambition. More often than not, if you ask a young person how they see themselves in future, they will talk about how many zeroes they want on their paycheck. Fair enough, press further. When you ask what they want to DO that will earn them that paycheck, they will blurt out some foggy idea that will sound something like winning the lottery or being paid for looking good in an executive office chair. In other words, they aspire to a life of high spending but do not aspire to productivity.

Okay, this pearl of wisdom did not hit me all at once. I am coming from a generation that looked at careers like fashions - what is everyone going for, which has the guaranteed paycheck? And I am not saying that these considerations are not important. But we need to start looking at our competences. What am I skilled at doing? What sort of things can I do, which always bring people back asking for more? Before we consider the upper class living, we must consider the productivity aspect. 

I knew a man who spent between 15 and 20 years playing the lottery, waiting for that big bread. He would spend Sunday afternoon listening to the radio, each day believing that "This is the day they call out my winning number!" The years came and went. They never called his number. Perhaps we need to focus more on our purpose, on apprenticeship, on small steps rather than big leaps. If a big break comes along, well and good. But until then, we must sharpen our skills and be the best we can be, at what we are supposed to do.

I wish our music videos could focus more on our mission, our task as citizens, as co-workers, as employees and friends. If we rewarded character and skill, rather than bootlicking and nepotism, maybe, just maybe, we will all be better off. Just some thoughts! We should prefer to be the man on a mission, rather than the man waiting for that lucky break. If nothing else, we will be able to say "What a ride!" And we will have served and helped a lot of people along the way.

5 good reasons to record your life story!

What makes an interesting story? To oversimplify, a good story needs (1) a character we can identify with (someone just like us), (2) a serious challenge to overcome (whether it is external problems or personal weakness) and (3) a goal worth reaching. I am sure you have noticed that this is the pattern of just about everyone's life. Life is a journey, there is the destination we hope to reach, and the challenges (and lessons) we have learnt along the way. 

Geoffrey Botkin describes what film goers want to see. I feel this can be stretched to apply to other story telling. He says audiences want to see "The modern audience ... wants to see vicarious thrills in a dramatic two hour presentation of a morally interesting story introducing a heroic character with whom he can identify." People like to see these elements in written form as well.

So what does this have to do with writing a biography?

1. We all have a story to tell

We can all talk about the three elements mentioned above. We all have a context - personal history, where we grew up, went to school, our temperament and mindset at different stages, etc. We all have faced challenges. Whether it was a rude neighbour or an exam system with 'leakages' or an illness. We all have goals and ambitions. (Even though these sometimes change). We all have lessons learnt, experience which may be invaluable to others who are yet to make big lie choices. In other words, we all have a story to tell.

2. Your story is more interesting than you think

They say "familiarity breeds contempt". You are so familiar with your own story that you may think it is not worth telling. But the things you take for granted may in fact be "stranger than fiction" to someone else! 

3. Real stories are more helpful than some fiction

Real motivation and inspiration comes from ordinary life stories. As long as it is not "hagiography", stories that create exaggerated "saints" that have no weakness and make no mistakes. Even in the Christian Bible, many of the best characters have made the worst mistakes (King David and the Bethsheba episode, Peter and his denial of Christ, Lot and his blunder at choosing to live in Sodom, and so on, except the incarnate Son of God of course). 

We can easily spot the one sided stories that skip the "bad choices" episodes of life. Real stories are helpful, because we can learn from the mistakes too. Maybe we can even benefit more reading about the wrong turns, than from the good days. If one has the courage to share the detours that caused panic or heartache, you will tell a truly precious story.

4. Writing your story will help you see your life more clearly

Sometimes we re too busy in the rat race to sit and reflect on our lives. But writing can be a good way to reflect on life, and even plan for the future. It gives perspective and it can be humbling. Reflection is a lost art in society, and many choices would be different if we took time to reflect. If you feel a biography is a long way of, start with a diary or journal. Reading through your own entries can give perspective, ma be even more perspective than it will give to others who read it!

5. Writing your story will help change the reading culture

Many books present the stories of people so far removed from Zambian life. We sometimes struggle to relate to their situations. But Zambians need to read Zambian stories, to see how life hanging principles apply in our setting. It will help others evaluate their own life's journey. This will help us abandon the culture of avoiding deep thought or reflection. This will help us make better choices, reflecting on the long term consequences of beliefs and behaviour. Your book will be your contribution to shaping the Zambian culture, and family tradition, hopefully for years to come.

So you may say I am biased, after all, I edit and write for a living. But I also have a passion for stopping the run-away train of urban culture. It is time we gave it some direction and soberness. It is time we owned it, but filling the book shelves and stocking the DVD wracks with our own works. Nature abhors a vacuum. Something else will fill the gap, ( just look at some of the films at books people already have!) 

There is hope. The music industry is showing promise. There was a time when buying a Zambian CD was unthinkable. We can do that with the book industry too. Get in touch if you want help writing a biography! 

Zambia @ 50 - Andrew Sardanis reveals the untold history

Why we need this book

A clear view of the past will give us light for future decisions. This book is factual and honest, highlighting the good and the bad in our history. For too long we have lived in denial of certain events, preferring to dream up a glossy “golden age” version of history. This account brings out the humanity of our leaders, showing their courage, prudence, resilience and moments of weakness. I found it most valuable for its information on Zambia’s early years, history which is hard to find in a single volume, until now.

He begins by responding to the assertion that we gained independence too soon. The colonizing authority was not preparing us to rule ourselves. This is clear from the woeful neglect of education. “In 1945, out of a total of 1,112 schools in the country 1,062 were run by missionaries, 28 by government and 23 by native authorities.” If there were no missionaries, think how much worse the education scenario would have been before independence! The colonial authorities had every intention of ruling Zambia forever.

Education was the number one priority with the independent government. The improvements made in those few early years were phenomenal. “By 1968, primary school enrollment was twice as high as that of 1964, while the secondary school enrollment was three times as high. And in 1966 the University of Zambia (UNZA) opened its Ridgeway Campus followed by the opening of the Great East Road Campus in March 1968.” We were making strides in the right direction. Other challenges would prove to be more difficult.

Economic freedom?

Issues of business and economics proved to be more complex, if not more difficult. The economic activity largely remained in the hands of the same companies and individuals as before independence. Because so few Zambians had been educated, many employees in the civil service were also from outside Zambia. Farming was also a challenge, as there were hardly any local commercial farmers, so there was another learning curve, encouraging local farmers to grow on a scale that would help feed the nation. Meanwhile, many of those holding the economic power were skeptical, if not outright malicious, when it came to the efforts of the new government to empower the nation.

The Mulungushi reforms were an attempt to get local Zambians involved in the economic activities of the nation. Government intervention in economic activity is not entirely unknown in other countries, even in the West, and ownership restrictions (such as requiring partnership with local entrepreneurs) is not as unreasonable as some claim. The author boldly refutes the claims in an article by Hugh Macmillan in the book “One Zambia many histories”, that the Mulungushi reforms were entirely negative. He raises serious questions about Macmillan’s perspective and sources.

Regional struggles and the railway line

When Ian Smith’s government unilaterally declared independence from Britain, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) fell under sanctions which had a heavy toll on Zambia’s economy. Zambia desperately needed new supply routes and strategies for basic commodities and fuel. When Kenneth Kaunda wrote to the British prime minister asking for assistance building a pipeline and railway line, the prime minister replied “the pipeline would cost £45 million and take three years to build. The railway would cost many hundreds of millions and the survey alone would take three years.” These projections would be proven wrong. “We built a pipeline in 16 months at a cost of £16 million and the Chinese built for us a first class railway within three years”. It took courage and imagination to tackle those early problems.

The role of Kenneth Kaunda in the independence struggles in the region cannot go without mention. Even though some decisions may be criticized, the overall result is undeniable. “Without his taking such a firm and unequivocal stand, without offering shelter to the independence movements of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa and their guerrilla forces the complete liberation of Africa before the end of the twentieth century would not have been achieved.”

Trouble brewing

Wrangles within UNIP would prove to be first step in the wrong direction. When Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe opted to break away from UNIP and form his own party, UPP, he had, at best, a regional following, much like ANC in southern province. Dr Kaunda over reacted to this challenge, having opponents locked up, when he could have simply allowed the protest to run its course and be vindicated by his policies and efforts. 

In the name of maintaining national unity, a “one party participatory democracy” was introduced. At the signing of the “Choma declaration” in 1973, the opposition party ANC was absorbed into UNIP. Harry Mwangala Nkumbula, the former ANC leader, withdrew from public life. This was the beginning of an era of more autocratic rule, in which technocrats were side-lined for political expedience. Many financial decisions were made that should have been first analysed by the financial experts. One thing led to another, and the economy suffered.

Coups attempts – two wrongs

The author agonizes over some of his friends who decided to take part in an ill-fated coup attempt. The desperate act would lead to much pain for those involved, who viewed themselves as martyrs for a good cause. But as the author notes, “there is nothing heroic about a coup. It is evil and usually leads to greater suffering than the one it is supposed to alleviate, often for decades to come. We have had many examples of coups in Africa and elsewhere and I cannot recollect one that can be described as beneficial; its consequences were never greater democracy and better governance but harsher dictatorship and chaos.” When he tried to discern the motive behind their actions, he could only conclude it was a moment of weakness. 

In the mean time, decisions which required technical skill were increasingly made by political figures within UNIP. The mechanics of an economy were ignored, at great cost to the average Zambian.

Democracy revisited

When people cried out for a return to multi-party democracy and for change, it is to Kaunda’s credit that he graciously made plans for elections. The author doesn't give the late president Chiluba any credit for this feat. “That credit must go to the people of Zambia… and they achieved it is in an amazingly peaceful fashion”. However, he credits Chiluba with opening up the economy, but also with killing small industries and suffocating agricultural sector.

On the other hand, he credits the Mwanawasa government with improving agriculture and attaining the HIPC benchmarks. Beyond that he feels the “sainthood” of Mwanawasa was exaggerated. He provides an insight into the strengths and weakness of each administration.  He has much to say on the mines, the windfall tax and the Barotse agreement that is insightful, and he has in depth criticism of decisions on both fronts. He wraps up with comments on the current head of state.

Full circle to education

Towards the end of the book, he comments on the education, which is still our greatest need. Access has greatly improved over the years (when you consider where we started from), but there is still room for improvement in terms of quantity and quality. He quotes the 2011 Educational Statistical Bulletin: “Enrollment in grades 1-9 totaled 3, 478, 898 while enrollment in grades 10-12 totaled 251,632, in other words only 1 in 14 children make it to secondary schools and of those only 9,031 obtained a certificate, i.e., only 1 in 39 children enrolled in grades 1-9 are likely to get a grade 12 certificate.”

The statistics look frightening, but the author is also optimistic. If we are ready to learn lessons from the past, we can forge a better future. We should learn to take criticism as part  and parcel of our daily journey, so that we can correct wrong turns much sooner. There is nothing to be gained from trying to win every argument. But there is much to be gained if we are ready to use our collective skill and knowledge to make a better Zambia. I highly recommend you add this book to your collection.

How to analyse culture

Geoffrey Botkin wrote about the danger of being blind to the forces that shape culture, and being carreid along with every wind of change. He wrote, "People who are mentally unconscious cannot perceive what’s happening in the world around them. This cultural blindness causes men to stumble into slavery, or perhaps to surrender their collective future. Blind people are easily taken advantage of, and blind nations can become slave cultures or, even worse, comatose cultures. There is never cultural neutrality, and never an inconsequential idea." 

Read the whole article on "How to analyse culture" on the link below:

http://westernconservatory.com/articles/how-analyze-culture

Sorting out the church scandals - 3 important things

Recently we have seen a number of headlines revealing scandalous behaviour of clergy; pastors, bishops and others within church circles. Yesterday, the above headline revealed how police raided two churches and caught an incredibly large number of illegal immigrants. Last week we read a story revealing a pastor that abused young girls in the name of exorcising demons. How can the church fix this miss? How did so many con-men and counterfeit clergy get into the church to begin with?

I would like to suggest three things to fix this mess. They are not all, but they will certainly help.

1) Churches and church bodies must speak out against these atrocities. When the churches remain silent, it makes us seem either indifferent (don't care) or sympathetic to the perpetrators! We should say how, in no uncertain terms, that we do not condone these illegal and immoral activities. The church should distance itself from such, and expel any such members from its rank. Even the Bible says that our patience must have limits. We are to expel this person from our ranks. Anyone who says this is too 'harsh' has not read passages like 1 Corinthians 5: 1-13. Zero tolerance! We must not spare the rod.

2) Every church must have checks and balances. Since "there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins" (Ecclesiastes 7: 20).Church members must hold their leaders accountable for lifestyle and use of funds. I come from circles that believe in "elder rule". The elders all partake in the crucial decisions of the church, and the pastor/reverend is the "ruling/preaching/full time" elder. But they all have a vote in the big decisions of the church. That way there are checks and balances. It is not a perfect system, but it prevents anyone from going too far (1 Timothy 5: 17-21). 

3) Engage the community to regain trust. Go out and meet the needs of the vulnerable in society (James 1: 27), visit the prisoners and educate the youth. Show that those who commit crimes in the name of God are a few crooked characters that are wolves in sheep's skin (Matthew 7: 15). Show that the church doors are open and there is nothing to hide. May be we even suspend any overnight seminars and prayer meetings, to show that we are sensitive to the worries of society. This may seem like too much for some, but I think it is worth going out of our way to show that we stand for something more. If we sacrifice overnights for 'over-day' prayer meetings, we wont lose anything! But if we decide not to, we need something in place to show that we have a higher standard. WE must begin to evangelize again, and distinguish the gospel from all the false gospels going around.

These three things will make a world of a difference, in a world that is so desperate for genuine hope, in (what are for many) desperate times.

Editing culture?

The last few years have seen a lot of public debate on traditional roles. Some examples are the now infamous ‘Alangizi’ (matrons who prepare young women for marriage), traditional ceremonies and dressing (such as the woman who was half nude/ topless at a pageant, in the name of traditional culture), corporal punishment, and local languages as a medium of education. In all these discussion, people talk of ‘tradition’ and ‘culture’, but I suspect they do not all mean the same thing. Perhaps if we could define these terms, we may make some headway in these debates. Then we will also answer the question, do we have the power or the right to change tradition and culture?

We will borrow a definition of culture from Oliver Barclay:

Culture may be defined as the overall beliefs, priorities and values of the community that are expressed in its institutions and its practices. In the sense that I have chosen, the term culture can be Marxist, Muslim, secular, or Christian. There is a Western or Asian culture, or a city or rural culture.*

The first thing that this brings to light is that we have several cultures in Zambia, not one culture. There may be common elements in the tribal cultures, common denominators, but otherwise there is more than one culture in a nation with 72 tribes. But the picture gets more complicated. There are rural and urban cultures. I know we usually say the urban (us!) are Westernised, but since we have an urban, technology based lifestyle, this pattern of behaviour can be called a culture as well. 

To avoid any confusion, we will say that urban and rural have a common heritage (i.e. common roots) but slightly different cultures (patterns of behaviour in work, socialising, etc). So our heritage and our culture are different. But even modern village life is not what it was a hundred years ago – if a villager could time travel they would find a cultural shift of some kind when they go to the year 1914. Add to that other facts such as changes in diet over the years (I am told maize was introduced around the year 1880) and economic models such as use of money and passports. Culture, just like life is dynamic. Even if the change is slow over a century. Even now, within a generation, some of the slang used on Facebook baffles me – language changing in the space of twenty years.

The next point is that culture is not perfect. Like people, who are a mixture of good and bad (our great dignity and high calling, and our inclination to greed and pride) culture is also a mixture. I quote again:

All culture is a mixture of good and evil: good because all God’s gifts of creation are good, and man is still made in the image of God, and not one has reached the same depths of depravity as the devil; but evil because no one is an angel, no one is perfect in this life. The structures of society, and even the best aspects of our culture, are imperfect.*

There are things to be encouraged and things to be discouraged and even replaced. Culture is not perfect, no more than the people who practice it, whether Zambian, Asian, or Western.

The conclusion is we must consciously decide what to encourage and what to discourage. Culture is shifting sand, even if it shifts slowly over the generations. But then, we must ask, what standard are we going to use? We can imitate good things from other cultures, but we must not make them a standard, because they are equally a mixture of good and bad. Cultural snobs are in the wrong, whatever advantages or advances they may have in their society. There must be a standard to assess all cultures, not just comparing one culture to another. For the humanist the standard is probably utility, or pragmatics. For the secular thinker, the standard may be a matter of agreement or convenience. For the Christian, the wisdom of the Creator must set the pace for human life to flourish. The Creator sets the outline and provides the impetus for human life to reach the order and beauty and satisfaction it was originally designed for.

The biggest mistake we can make in this regard is to deify culture. We must not promote new things simply because of their newness or old things just because they are ancient. The value is not intrinsic in its novelty or age, but rather in how constructive or destructive it is for society. The more our social bonds are built on what is right, the better our society will be. That is something worth passing on to the next generation.

*[Quote from ‘Developing a Christian Mind’ by Oliver Barclay. Available at Bookworld shops]

Looking for wisdom in the 21st century

When most people think of wisdom, they will either imagine someone with incredible academic skill (and language that only professors can understand) or street smarts (usually a fast talker with the ability to sell sand to Bushmen, perhaps a Katondo street salesman).  Alternatively they may think of a man with a long grey beard sitting on a hill side gazing at a waterfall in deep thought. But the real picture of wisdom is very different. Most importantly, real wisdom is available to all of us.

Wisdom is about skilful living. More accurately, wisdom would be understanding life and skilful living would be called “prudence” (i.e. timely application of principles), but they fall in the same “family” of words. Wisdom is timeless, that is why it can be passed on from generation to generation. Let us also remember that human nature does not change, even if technology does. That means that, in principle, wisdom has value across the generations, no matter the context it will be applied in. David Atkinson, writing about the book of Proverbs, tells us:

despite the centuries which separate us from the authors of these sayings, the unchanging continuities of human existence remain: making friends, coping with sexuality, handling money, responding to poverty, making  a living, learning through loss, muddling through difficulties, facing death, and so on. These are the constant human themes, and Proverbs addresses them all. Wisdom is about helping people to cope; about seeing things in a fresh way which gives resources for living… it puts a mirror up to our behaviour and says, ‘Are you like this? Is there a better way to live?’ 

This presupposes, as I have already said, that there is a common thread connecting us, a shared human nature. This nature, both physical and moral, can be called an order or law of nature. Atkinson goes on to say:

We know deep inside us, what moral obligation means, and that it confronts us from without. Moral obligation is not simply something we make up for ourselves. We know that recoiling in horror against genocide in Rwanda or ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Bosnia is not a matter of personal taste and preference for those who do not like that sort of thing. There is an objective moral order which confronts us.

This is now more an African and Asian perspective than it is Western. Post modernism has swept through the first world and with it the idea that each person can choose their own right and wrong, their own wisdom. Now the voices protest about anyone insisting on moral standards at all. Hopefully, the tide is turning. Atkinson further explains:

in recent decades there have been moral philosophers who have argued that morality, if it means anything at all, is essentially private and personal. That usually means subjective and relative. More recently, however, there has been a recovery of the fact that moral obligation has an objective dimension (which ordinary common sense tells most of us anyhow).

Once he has made a case for objective morals which apply to all human beings, he focuses on the personal, omniscient source of these standards. “Christian believers identify that source of moral value with God.”

The search for wisdom only makes sense if there is a standard which applies to all people of all times. That standard only makes sense if there is a guarantee that the system will continue to work, to bring a satisfying foundation for our true identity, the road to a fulfilling purpose and that life can have meaning even in the midst of meaningless trouble and apparently senseless times and chance.

For Atkinson, as for those who share his faith, there can only be one conclusion:

The God whom Jesus Christ reveals is the Creator whose ordering wisdom lies behind everything that exists, whose moral character gives meaning to our awareness of right and wrong, and whose Holy Spirit infuses us with life, light, love and creativity.

We cannot begin a search for wisdom without accepting that there is a standard of right and wrong that is bigger than all of us. If we fail to do this, then there is not only no point to the hunger and longing, but there is also no logic is any of us ever again saying “It’s not fair”. But somehow even the most confident agnostic will not say “This is inconvenient” or “this is illogical” but “It’s not fair, it’s not right” when they are wronged (however they may interpret wrong in the post-modernist philosophy). Learning wisdom begins in seeing right and wrong. It’s that simple. But this is only the beginning of the journey, which leads us to the source, and all that is in store for those who hunger and thirst for more.

What is Zambian fashion?

When you look around you see that Zambians like an army of ambassadors, with fashion from every corner of the world. We see the Nigerian Boo-boo, the Congolese Chitenge, the Italian pointed shoes, the Rockers tight jeans, the Rumba baggy trousers, the Cowboy hat, the Indian Sari, the Che Guevara t-shirts, not to mention tattoos, dreads, pierced noses, ankle chains, Alaskan boots...

So what is the Zambian fashion? Some go to traditional ceremonies and say "there it is!", and we all pretend it is modest and acceptable while people who are more covered in mini-skirts are condemned! Somehow watching "Shaka" is a family activity, but not "Baywatch". What do you think, what is Zambian dressing, and why the double standard?

The bottom line is we seem to have parallel systems of dress and modesty. Newspaper front page pictures of a traditional ceremony with bare chested women is modest, but a picture of women in a night club in the Friday Post is unacceptable. You find teens who are ready to wear swimsuits around their friends, but would flee for cover if their guardians showed up. Why be ready to dress like that with strangers but not around family?

 Stemming back to colonial times, parallel systems of dress, education, belief and lifestyle were perfectly acceptable. This has resulted in both good and bad in society.

People effectively marry three times in Zambia even when they marry once; that is, traditionally, by civil law and in church. But any one of the three would be acceptable for it to be considered a real marriage (not one third of a marriage!)

Similarly, people seem to accept having three different types of "morality", freely choosing to live by traditional, Christian or post-modernist thinking. (Post-modernists believe there is no right and wrong, no taboos and moral limits, but 'whatever makes you happy' is acceptable). It is more common for people to switch between the three according to what is "convenient" at any one moment.

There are no easy answers to this situation. In some ways it has made us very tolerant and accommodating people. But at the same time, we need to rethink our worldviews, to actually believe something and stand for something. Otherwise, we are living the life of a shadow, changing shape according to who is around. Sometimes we have to stand for or against something. Our reputation as peace loving is not a bad thing, as long as it does not mean we throw principles out the window in the name of expedience.  We need to find answers for these hard questions. There is a saying, "If you do not stand for something, you will fall for anything."

So the question of fashion is part of a wider questions of values and worldview. Then the fashion can reflect that identity. Values are, after all, a question of what we prize and promote, and what we find offensive. But then again, perhaps but unique blend of everything in the global village might be a true reflection of where we are.