IN THE SPOTLIGHT 1/2020 Spotlight 9
WHO EXACTLY IS...Ezekiel Mutua?
EASYIf you want to give the 50 million
people who live in Kenya a chance
to see your film or hear your song,
you will have to get past Ezekiel
Mutua. Since Mutua became the
head of the Kenya Film Classifica-
tion Board in 2015, he has banned
films, songs, TV adverts and even
parties, mostly because of their sex-
ual content.
One of Mutua’s most controver-
sial bans was on last year’s Kenyan
film Rafiki, about two women who
fall in love, something they could
not do openly in Kenya, where ho-
mosexuality is illegal. Mutua said on
Twitter: “It would be a tragedy and
a shame to have homosexual films
defining the Kenyan culture. That’snot who we are and homosexuality
is not our way of life.”
Born in Machakos, Kenya, Mu-
tua studied communication and
worked in the media for about 25
years. He has also worked with the
Kenya Union of Journalists, with
several state corporations and for
the Ministry of Information, Com-
munications and Technology.
Now 52, he has told the BBC that
he sees his new position as a moral
responsibility. “At first, I was really
offended when [critics] referred to
me as a moral policeman,” he said,
“but with time, I realized that not
only does this country need me, but
it needs more people to act as moral
champions.”ban [bÄn]
, verbieten, Verbot
offend [E(fend]
, verletzen, beleidigen
refer to sb. as sth. [ri(f§: tE Äz]
, jmdn. etw. nennencleric [(klerIk]
, Geistlicher
depiction [di(pIkS&n]
, Darstellung
Dutch [dVtS]
, niederländischEgypt [(i:dZIpt]
, Ägypten
feature [(fi:tSE]
, zeigen, darstellenfestive season
[)festIv (si:z&n]
, Weihnachtszeit
pilgrimage
[(pIlgrImIdZ]
, Pilgerfahrt, WallfahrtBRITAINA holiday travel treat
EASYIf you love to travel and are visiting London over the fes-
tive season, then you’re in luck. There is just over a month
left to see a show at the British Museum that features the
world’s first travel guide.
The exhibition Inspired by the East includes a very rare first
edition of Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam (A Pilgrimage to the
Holy Land) by the German cleric Bernhard von Breyden-
bach. The book describes the pilgrimage he made in 1483
from Venice to Jerusalem, and then on to Egypt. Printed
in Mainz in 1486, it includes large illustrations by Dutch
artist and fellow pilgrim Erhard Reuwich. One of these is
the first-ever printed map of Jerusalem, a highlight of the
London exhibition.
“The large panoramas of famous cities are what make
this book so remarkable, and are what made it a 15th-
century ‘bestseller’,” Giulia Bartrum, curator of German
prints at the British Museum, told The Guardian. “Before
it, most of the depictions of places such as Jerusalem or
Venice were totally made up. Very few people in Europe
had ever visited these places, so they had no realistic idea
of what they looked like until this wonderfully detailed
guidebook came along.” The exhibition ends on 26 January.Texts by Talitha Linehan and Claudine Weber-Hof