News
Maasai in Spokane
Carol Brocker
Webmaster
The Bloomsday Race
About six months ago, two of the members of the “Friends of Sironka Dance Troupe” from Maasai tribes in Kenya, started training for the Bloomsday Race held in Spokane this last week. This was their first such experienced. Koilel ran it in just 0:35:44 minutes and was one of the first twenty to cross the finish line. The second Maasai runner crossed at 0:40:48, both did a mighty fine job. Their main runner had to drop out due to an injury just two days before the race.
There were a total of 50,000 runners in the race this year, up by more than 1,000 from last year. The race was 12 kilometers or 7.46 miles long. Check out the photos of the race on www.bloomsday.org or the photos from the race on www.racephotos.net.
Performances in Spokane Nicholas Sironka, leader of the “Friends of Sironka Dance Troupe” of the Maasai tribe in Kenya, came to Spokane for the Bloomsday Race and to perform at the Metropolitan Performing Arts Center. What a surprising and delightful site the Maasai must have made as they stood in the lobby of the Spokesman Review newspaper and gave a glimpse into Maasai Culture.
In the newspaper’s lobby they sang three songs, and all the while passers-by stopped, transfixed on the melodic chants they were hearing. Their music tells stories of the tribal resistance to modernization even though they are suffering from illiteracy and poverty. The Maasai people are ready to take on the future without giving up the past.
Sironka himself is an accomplished painter and scholar, and he, like the rest of his troupe, uses his talents to help improve the quality of life in his tribe by finding sponsors to send their children to school. In Kenya all children must pay to go to school, and buy uniforms, books and supplies, or they do not get to go.
The Maasai do not just entertain; they are storytellers who value refinement. This group preformed at 7 p.m. at the Metropolitan Performing Arts Center; tickets were priced from $12 to $17. What an awesome opportunity Spokane had, as we did during Multicultural Week here at SCC, to experience a diverse worldview and to be enlightened by a truly ancient and wise culture. Visit Sironka’s web site to view some of his great cultural art at http://exchanges.state.gov/fulbrightgallery/p1010.html or just do a search on Nicholas Sironka.
Maasai projects seek to preserve culture
Chase D. Anderson
Editor-in-Chief
The Maasai dancers of Kenya visited campus during the week of April 20 and gave several performances for SCC’s annual Multicultural Week. Their dance and music performances, as well as crafts and other demonstrations, were enjoyed by students and staff alike. The group was led by Nicholas Sironka, a representative of the Maasai who originally brought together the group of dancers and musicians.
On Saturday, April 25, Sironka’s group left Shoreline and headed for Spokane to compete in the annual Bloomsday Race. Of the 50,000 runners who competed this year, two of the Maasai were in the top 20 finishes. Tumpes, their third runner who was expected to be the Maasai’s top runner, was forced to drop out early due to an injury.
By performing throughout the United States, the group seeks to raise money in order to better the quality of life of the Maasai people in Kenya. In addition to dance and music performances and demonstrations, the group creates beadwork jewelry and art to sell.
There, education past primary school is not publicly funded, and few have the resources to continue education. The Maasai also want to prevent young girls in their area from undergoing painful (and sometimes fatal) female circumcision rituals; local law allows them to escape the rituals by continuing their education. Funds are also needed to build wells and sewage holding tanks for villages.
In their trips and through other projects, the Maasai do a lot to educate the world at large about their culture and traditional way of life. Below is a list of some Maasai projects found online:
The Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition (MERC) seeks to promote traditional land rights and responsible use of natural resources in East Africa. Western diseases, brought by Europeans who sought to colonize the lands, devastated the Maasai and their herds; development, tourism, and large-scale farming continue to ruin them. MERC works to reclaim land rights and traditional culture, and to educate people about related issues. www.maasaierc.org
Language is an integral part of any culture, and the language of the Maasai (Maa) is fading out. Maasai cultural aspects, including language, are threatened by the geo-political boundary between Kenya and Tanzania (which cuts across the Maasai land), and by the sprawl of Nairobi, Kenya’s largest city. www.uoregon.edu/~dlpayne/maasai/madict.htm, or click link from www.uoregon.edu/~dlpayne
Preserving traditional culture is vital to the survival of the Maasai. As their Web site eloquently states, “A Maasai without culture is as a zebra without stripes. If we abandon our way of life, our next step could be extinction.” Learn about the traditions the Maasai are working hard to keep, and how they are striving to do so. www.maasai-infoline.org
SCC student and Maasai affiliate Loretta Fisher recently created a Web site for Sironka’s Maasai group, found at www.friendsofsironka.org.
Freedom Fighters on Campus
Chris JonesManaging Editor
They are few in number but they have access to vast resources. They have networks extending to every country on the globe. They carry an identifying card. They seldom speak but when they do it is generally only in a whisper. They can be ferocious when their ideals are threatened. Their weapons are reputed to be more powerful than conventional ones and they endeavor to spread these weapons far and wide. Several of them, almost unnoticed, have been operating on the SCC campus for years. Now, along with a network of similar cells, they are gearing up for one of their biggest battles ever.
They are, of course, that scourge of dictatorial regimes everywhere, the librarians. The battle they are preparing to fight is against Attorney General John Ashcroft and “The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001” (“USA Patriot Act”).
Section 215 of the act allows the FBI to obtain search warrants for any records (library circulation, medical, educational and others) which they allege might be related to an ongoing investigation of terrorism. No demonstration of probable cause is necessary. A library served with such a warrant may not only be compelled to produce such records but they may also be forced to cooperate in electronic monitoring of library patrons subject to the warrant. Libraries receiving such warrants are precluded by the act from revealing that they have been so served.
In Washington State there is a law protecting the privacy of library records but this law may be superceded by the federal law. The SCC library has its own policy which, as required by law, is incorporated into the Washington Administrative Code. The SCC policy reads in part, “Any records of the Shoreline Community College Library/Media Center, the primary purpose of which is to control library materials or which disclose or could be used to disclose the identity of a library user, are confidential regardless of source of inquiry and shall not be revealed.”
At the SCC library, circulation records are not retained once the borrowed material is returned to the library. So, should the FBI come calling they would have to surmount the triple hurdles of state law, the library’s own policy and the possible non-existence of the records.
Internet access in the library is unrestricted and unfiltered. Only the viewing of child pornography is prohibited and librarians will report any patrons who attempt to access such material.
“Librarians are all very aware of intellectual freedom issues,” said Elena Bianco, Public Service and Instruction Librarian at the SCC library. The American Library Association (ALA) considers access to information a human right, she said. Led by the ALA, Librarians across the country are preparing to fight to protect this freedom. “The key is to be proactive…to protect patrons’ rights.” So far she hasn’t noticed the act having any chilling effect on library use and the library has not yet been approached by the FBI.
Although SCC has escaped notice by the FBI, only four months after the passage of the act a University of Illinois survey found that 4 percent of all U.S. libraries had received FBI inquiries concerning the reading patterns of their users. For his part Attorney General Ashcroft has dismissed librarians’ concerns as “hysterical.”
A full set of links to information concerning libraries and the USA Patriot Act can be accessed through the ALA website http://www.ala.org. Full details of the library’s privacy policy can be found through links on the SCC website. Elena Bianco also teaches a course (LIB 150 or in the Fall INFO 150) which covers this and other information access issues.