On Friday 6th, April 2014. I went to Gikomba, passing through
Eastleigh in those number 28s with their music, and uncanny touts…. Looking out
the window as the driver skirted the many potholes and miniature valleys and
hillocks, I found myself looking at young Somali men, and big bou bou clad
women, shapely girls, boys, youthful sprints. I suspected every backpack of the
hurrying pedestrians; people minding their business, trying to ask myself which
of them could be the terrorist, which planning to carry out a terror activity. I
was gripped by an apprehensive fear on what could be, what could happen out of
the noisy, chaotic bustle of this ever growing, people-burgeoning-place, the
rising sky crappers, the roads under construction, the bust sewer lines. The
blossoming of investment in an environment that also bears the dents of neglect.
Eastleigh has always awed me…the way things work themselves out, the making of
money in chaos, the flowing billions, and how people took an easy stand on
life. The routine way life could form a predictable pattern. Make money in the self
same way from day to day, but with changes taking form every day, all around,
the flexibility with which change could be embraced. From the Ethiopian barbers
on 9th street and their excellent shaving services to the goods from
Dubai. Young men here understand the dynamics of the international trade; they
know which country manufactures the best khaki products, which country delivers
on the suits, the jeans and everything textile and in turn Eastleigh has learnt
how to dress Kenyans. With the legitimacy of most businesses comes the need for
other black market goods, young kikuyu men dealing expensive phones stolen from
the rich Kenya, newly used laptops, silver chains and gold teeth, the easy way
of transferring money from the western world to Africa in hidden offices among
those cloth stores lining the many malls. There is no black and white in Eastleigh; everything
flows into the other seamlessly. Good into Evil, refugees into citizens,
terrorists have used this to plan their covert agendas.
Eastleigh is a center for the rebirth of predominantly Somali
and Ethiopian immigrants in Kenya, they own each of the Kenyan progress, and
they now share in the struggles and problems of their “new home” Kenya. They
protest when the government passes laws that are not realistic, they rejoiced
when KDF went into Somalia. They trusted their lives with Kenya, a new place, a
new reality. But on Saturday 6th April, 2014 the Kenyan government
woke up and decided to server that trust and silent understanding that the Somali
people have managed to learn to live with. The soldiers embarked on erasing the
process of remaking dreams in a whole new world by vulnerable mothers, children
and young people looking for refuge. The sentimentalism of home, of memories
that loomed large like shadows of a distant sun became live again, thawing the
networks of neurons in their memories to rekindle the spark of sunny days in
their own homes and conjuring images of dark days, hunger, lost brothers and
sisters, lost dreams and hopes.
On Saturday 7th April 2014 I was on Juja road
going into town as early as 7am. The jam began just around Moi Air Base, after
a whole hour of waiting in the slow moving jam; we came upon the first roadblock.
Police Check. Identity cards were being checked for each passenger in the Matatu.
Pedestrians as well were arbitrarily being asked to produce their ID cards. I am
sitting and waiting for my turn to show my ID, all the while acting sanely Kenyan
and trying to reach down to my patriotic side. The people of Eastleigh are
having a tough time both from the fear that hung's over their heads and now the police.
The Kenyan government has almost always embarked on
superficial responses to existential threats of terror in a self defeating way.
The government has as repeatedly shown by terrorist activities embarked on symptomatic
treatment, PR gimmick and hogwash promises to stem out terrorists, to stop terrorism
in its tracks.
Eastleigh has been a victim of the terror attacks; it has
suffered greatly from the acts of the marauding terrorists that hide among the
many faces of generosity and trusting Somalis. The government actions are
reactionary. This is purely a short term plan formulated by some myopic goon in
the Ole Lenku circus of security clowns.
Sunday 7th April, 2014, it’s a brightly sunny day,
I am in a cyber shop in Marsabit, checking my mail, no worries of police harass,
no worries of terror because in “far off” places of Kenya like this one, insecurity
is a major problem but not on a level of terrorism. Communal fighting and
inter-tribal wars are part of the growing up in Marsabit but it is not as scary
as terrorism. I am waiting for the page to load. Then in walks these three
kids, boys between 10 and 13 dressed in brown Kanzus and varied jumpers over
them. A curious perversity makes me watch the kids, see if they are here to log
into Facebook or whether it’s some online game they want to play. The slightly
older one hit Google and types in “Ibrahim Rogo” and when the search result
returns he dutifully clicked on the Images under the result tab. The pictures
that came up on the screen were very graphic, blood, police, guns and corpses. More
shocking was the little boy’s mystery of the faces on the search result. He is
pointing to the pictures and says
“this is Samantha’s (white widow’s) husband”
“this is Aboud Rogo’s brother”
“this is Masjid Musa”
“this is how Aboud Rogo was shot…this is his body in the car”
I am in shock! How does he know all that? I lean back and secretly
snap a few pictures of them on my phone. And ask them how I could also access
those pictures. The youngest boy excitedly says
“There are so many
others you can find….type Samir Khan”
I do it and he says “click on images”
Voila!!
Samir Khan is all over my screen. Posing with an AK47 gun.
I look at the boys. One is sucking his thumb. They are glued
to the screen.
Something just ticks in my mind. I finish what I am doing and
watch the kids. One suggests that they Google search “illuminatti” the older
one says
“it’s the same thing as yesterday”
They paid and left. I ask the lady at the counter if those
children frequent her cyber. She says. They were here yesterday and the day
before.
This is not an isolated incidence., this is how children and young people are radicalized and in Marsabit they are so many. About 58 young boys and
girls from Marsabit are purported to have joined the Al-shabab, there are many sympathizers
of Al-shabab in Marsabit.
If the Kenyan police and government want to do something on
fighting Terrorism in Kenya. They should start from the grassroots. Not undertaking
such PR and superficial responses as the Eastleigh case.
While KDF is fighting the al-shabab in Somalia, young people
are being radicalized in their back yard, taught to grow up with a flawed
outlook on life, community, religion and their lives.
Images and pictures have a lasting impression on the mind.
Whoever controls the images controls your self-esteem, self-respect and self-development. Whoever controls the History controls the vision". - Dr. Leonard Jeffries
