A random story by The Star last week about the son of former TV news anchor Louis Otieno ran into a twist nobody saw coming.
Titled, “Why Louis Otieno’s son has refused to visit ailing mum,” the July 1 story by Elizabeth Ngugi sparked a torrent of comments by readers, a furious debate that revealed a dark side of Kenyans.
That debate became more powerful than the story.
The Star reported how it all started with tweets by Otieno’s son, identified as Silas Miami. Apparently, Mrs Otieno is ill. And, since mother and son do not talk to each other, the son learned it from a friend.
Why are mother and son not talking? And why would this merit a newspaper story?
Well, first, it’s Louis Otieno’s family. And the son, who comes out in the story as an estranged gay man who was kicked out by his parents at 17, is airing the family’s dirty laundry in public.
Second, the son’s tweets alone lit up Twitter, meriting publicity. The Star quoted two outbursts from his twitter handle, @SilasMiami.
“I’m told my abusive mother is very unwell. But this information was relayed to me by a third party because she is too proud to reach out herself,” Miami wrote, adding: “Even at death’s door, she refuses to swallow it and apologise. That is what narcissism looks like. Sending thoughts and prayers.”
All sorts of opinion spewed out through July 2. Forgive your mother; she’s your mother, many tweeted. To which Miami shot back with — and we’re paraphrasing here — all of you just shut up. Oh, and buy my book.
The back and forth on Twitter got ugly, fast.
Predictably, this got mirrored in The Star, where comments ran for three days, totalling 86 opinions at last count.
Most comments insulted Otieno’s son for being a homosexual. The view of this group was that parental abuse was nothing compared to being gay.
You remain your parents’ child, no matter what, one Abuero argued. In support, one Maguciku wrote that he would disown his son for the same. Comments from this group were generally punctuated with the epithets, right there on The Star’s website, leaving no doubt about these readers’ level of hate and intolerance toward gay people.
Their line was this: all gay people and those who support them will burn in hellfire. End of story.
A second group went philosophical. They argued that perhaps Miami’s parents tried to convert their child from being gay through beatings. Unfortunately, “from parents’ perspective they were helpful. From [son’s] perspective, abusive,” Elephant-Memory wrote. “We collectively are ignorant. What we cannot comprehend, we try to straighten with violence,” he concluded.
This group urged parents to accept their children, gay or straight, and just raise them to be good people.
Then there was a third group of indifferent readers. One Jicho summarised this group’s opinion: “I have no respect for homosexuals, but if the mother abused him he should be left alone to deal with it and external pressure will be futile.” In other words, who cares!
Still, there was a fourth group, which took on the messenger, The Star. One Yemken llc summarized their take: “Sometimes, I find Star deliberately publishes such articles. I wonder why?”
Well, here’s a human-interest story that sparked robust public debate. That should be enough reason. Or as one Samburu put it: “[Media’s] duty is to print stories, even if we don’t like them.”
