Thank you for all the comments and emails you have left concerning my previous post in which I highlighted the fact that a group of us were refused entry into a club in Kenya over African clothes. Many of you have asked me in the comments and via email to reveal the name of the club, to name and shame the club as it were. I admit that when I wrote the post I was tempted to do exactly that but in the end decided not to. I feel I should explain why.

The issues raised by this incident are, in my opinion, extremely serious. Words like “racist” should not be thrown around lightly by those who want to make an impact, by those who want to make changes. Thus, if I want this issue to be dealt with properly and thoroughly (and believe me I do) I feel it is important that I apply a basic code of ethics. Specifically, it is important that I allow the owners and management of the club to respond to my complaint before I go around banishing the name of their club on the internet. Otherwise I fall into the trap of sensationalist, tabloid-like reporting which any regular reader of this blog will know I loathe. I will write to them, let us wait for their response. Let us wait to see how they deal with this, what they are going to do about it. Once we have their response I will act accordingly. If they choose not to respond then at least I can proceed knowing that I acted properly.

In the meantime let me suggest that we change the focus on this debate slightly. That this issue is a problem in Kenya is NOT surprising. This problem is much wider than a single club. In the pervious post I posted this link which highlights that you are not allowed to wear African clothes in PARLIAMENT in Kenya. If the highest institution in our democracy rejects African clothing, something is fundamentally wrong with our system. [It has been pointed out to me that the speaker of parliament now allows African clothes in the chamber, but the rules of parliament have not been changed as far as I am aware although I put this out to be corrected if anyone has information.] A debate on identity in Kenya or Kenyan identity I feel is the wider issue here.

In the New Year my cousin and I were refused entry into a Kenya bar/club because our clothes were inappropriate.
“You can not come in here dressed like that, it does not meet our high standards”, the proprietor said. This would have been a non issue apart from the fact that we had just come from a dinner and the clothes were wearing were reasonably formal. But the clothes were African and African clothes in Kenya are a big no no. You can not even wear African clothes to parliament in Kenya.
I can not imagine a Nigerian being refused entry into a club in Lagos only because he was wearing an Agbada. What made it even worse for me was that the owner of this club is not African and came out in a khaki shirt and shorts to tell us our attire was inappropriate.