The arrivals terminal at the Jomo Kenyatta International
Airport (JKIA) still stands all charred, but the authorities at the
airport have made a gallant effort to return the rest of the facility to
a relative level of normalcy after the fire that wreaked havoc two
months ago.
For all that, there is something missing at JKIA.
That old chaotic energy about the airport is gone.
There is a sombre air about the place, and the passengers are strangely subdued.
At the Westgate Mall, which Al-Shabaab terrorists
attacked on September 21, leaving 75 people dead and nearly 180 injured
when the bloody siege ended four days later, things are different.
The metal sheets are up, and bulldozers are busy in the mall’s front park, raising dust.
Presumably work has started on rebuilding the area, and possibly soon, the mall itself.
These acts of defiant resilience are necessary, otherwise tragedy and terrorism can easily break a society’s back.
Yet, whatever happens, Westgate — especially
because it suffered a human catastrophe on a far larger scale than the
JKIA fire that had no deaths — could take decades to get its swag back.
It is no secret why JKIA and Westgate will remain tentative for a long time.
For those who witnessed the JKIA fire, a sense of
peril will always be in the back of their minds when they pass through
the airport.
And Westgate could remain a monument to one of the most painful moments in Kenya’s recent history.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
A clever attempt
There is something subtle going on here. I can
hazard that despite the outward appearances, something has happened to
the spirit of the people.
As we saw after the very tense March election, there has been a demand for Kenyans to “move on”.
Critics say the “let’s move on” demand is a clever attempt to sweep election and political failures under the carpet.
However, I sense something deeper — a desperate wish for closure.
Kenya is a country that rarely gets closure over national tragedies or historical injustices.
The Mau Mau revolution ended nearly 55 years ago,
but its surviving veterans — old, bent and toothless — are still
fighting for reparation in court.
Even before we get to the divisive issue of the
ICC trials arising from the 2008 post-election violence, victims of
election violence in 1992 and 1997, in the age before the Internet and
social media, have largely been forgotten.
Just last week, in broad daylight in Libya, US
Special Forces seized one of the suspected masterminds of the 1998 US
embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi that killed hundreds and wounded thousands.
There has been no trial on Kenyan soil of any of the key suspects, so there has been no local airing of what happened.
Now the rubble will soon be cleared away at
Westgate without a comprehensive revelation about who really planned and
staged the terrorist attack, and how. And, again, probably no terrorist
top-dog will be tried in a Kenyan court.
Natural order
This can be demoralising.
That is because, primitive as it was, there was a good reason why in the past societies staged public hangings and floggings.
Some still do. (The irony is that if Al-Shabaab controlled Kenya, it would have publicly stoned to death the Westgate suspects).
It was one way of getting rid of a social menace
in the view of the people, a collective cathartic experience that gave
citizens the illusion that danger had been gotten rid of.
That an outrage had been punished severely, and a message that no evil would be tolerated had been sent out.
These medieval forms of punishment and revenge,
revolting as they are to us today, assured the people that the natural
order had been restored.
I sense Kenyans need to see the JKIA arsonist, if there was indeed one, punished.
In times past, he would have been impaled on a stake and his family chased from the village.
You would be disgusted, but feel safer nevertheless.
The Westgate terrorists need to be caught and given a civilised equivalent of an Al-Shabaab stoning.
That would do a lot to assure people that evil, even if it is lurking in the shadows, is too afraid to come out.
cobbo@ke.nationmedia.com & twitter: cobbo3
SOURCE: AFRICA REVIEW
SOURCE: AFRICA REVIEW
