“Terrorism is a global problem” is defeatist rhetoric

Abdul Hajj reaches out for Portia Walton, 4, in the besieged Westgate Shopping Mall. Photo Credit: REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

When terrorists stormed Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Mall on September 21, 2013, it took the agility and bravity of civilians to evacuate would be hostages. The courage and dedication of Abdul Hajj and company, selfless civilians who braved grenades and gun shots and facilitated the evacuation of women, men and children from the besieged mall, will remain etched in the minds of many. This was commendable. Instead, the government chose to credit the performance of its security machinery, and ice it up with a defeatist “terrorism is a global problem” narrative. How unfortunate.


For fairness sake, it is important to understand the role of the Kenyan government in the Westgate rescue mission. Joining the operation hours later, Kenya Police Service, Police and the Kenya Defense Forces, KDF were unable to secure the lives of hostages. I am sure the Kenyans and foreigners who lost eyes, nails and nostrils at the hands of the terrorists must have doubted the existence of security apparatus in Kenya.


KDF, often oversold to the masses as competent,  trained its rocket propelled grenades on the jinxed up market shopping mall, triumphantly collapsing it and burying close to 70 people, an insignificant constituency, according to Joseph Ole Lenku, Kenya’s Interior Cabinet Secretary, in the resulting debris. I developed goose bumps on hearing the technocrat term the victims of KDF’s incompetence as insignificant.


Does this shed light on the government’s resolve in hailing praises at its security machinery for its stellar performance?


“Terrorism is a global problem” is defeatist.  On the surface, it plays into the egos of the Mujahedeen, that they are unstoppable. This is exactly what the Al Shabaab, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, and Ku Kux Klan want to hear. Besides exciting terror gangs, this narrative trivializes any localized initiatives to contain terrorism.

 
In the Kenyan context, it is an “accept and move on” of sorts. It lulls Kenyans into overlooking the gaping complacency of the security apparatus in particular and the government by extension. “Global” here is euphemism for gargantuan, insurmountable.


It reminds me of a folklore popular where I come from in which a squirrel, unable to order its senses in the wake of exposed grain, is crashed under a boulder trap. Before it breathes its last from injuries inflicted on its spinal cord and head, the folklore goes, the squirrel ignorantly reassures itself that what had befallen it is OK, for it also befell the rest of the squirrel squad. Purposed to promote individual responsibility, this folklore lauds the reassurances by individuals when they suffer the consequences of their folly. Just like the folklore, the “terrorism is a global problem” narrative speaks volumes.

 
What the Presidency and Interior Cabinet Secretary are telling Kenyans is that Kenya cannot deal with terrorism. It would follow therefore that it is natural for the average Kenyan to realize that the government had stunned itself in its response to the terror attack. By the Police hurling teargas canisters in the direction of the clutch gun wielding Mujahedeen, repelling them into the rows of bread and hardware in Nakumatt, they deserved complements.


Importantly, the establishment is telling the populace to understand when the Police, for instance, are complacent. That a distraught citizen can call the Police and, if lucky, learn that he should fuel their Land Rover, should be understandable. Increasing road carnage in Kenyan roads, in this connection, should be understandable.


With this statement, the government is telling Kenyans to understand when it is unable to tame corruption, insecurity, high cost of living, and food insecurity. Together with environmental pollution, these too are global problems.  This way, Kenyans should not question when the government unabatedly levies VAT on essential commodities such as sanitary pads, maize flour and milk. Instead, they should accept and move on.


Begging from this is the question on what “local” problems the Kenyan security apparatus deserves praises for solving. Taming cattle rustling and banditry? Protecting politicians from their electorates? Shooting poor Kenyans in post election circumstances? Congratulating them on job well done in any other undertaking is suspicious.  It zombifies Kenyans.


Zombified Kenyans cannot think hard when it emerges that the Police were privy to information of the impending terror attack on that Saturday. That the security guards frisking the hundreds of patrons at Westgate Shopping Mall had frantically phoned in vain Parklands Police Station to report on suspicious persons roaming the premises hours before the attack, too, should be easy to understand. This will certainly soil the nation’s public image.


By peddling the “terrorism is a global problem” narrative, the Kenyan government is telling its people that they should understand when terrorists strike again and again killing, torturing, injuring and abducting Kenyans and foreigners in their wake. While Police and the National Intelligence Service trade accusations. While the KDF deploys inexperienced soldiers on the frontline and toys with careless strategies. While the government spews propaganda, supervises all these malfunctions, and pours undue praises, Kenyans should understand.


After all terrorism is a global problem.

Animation: Bringing stories to life

Daniel Muli (R), an animator shares a light moment with Jeremiah Nzuki on the sidelines of a StoryMoja Hay Festival event. Animation has enormous applications in communication. Photo credit: Pius Maundu

Watch what media content you grow up accessing. According to Daniel Muli an animator, illustrator and musician at Just a Band, it can influence your career! 

Addressing attendants at this year’s Storymoja Hay Festival, Muli confirmed that the films and comic books whose content he grew up imbibing inspired his career. Lucky for him, animation is cool!

Today, animation is the new normal. With technology and the growing artistic community in Kenya, Muli visualizes animation going places. His presentation majored on explaining the basics and prospects of animation to an enthusiastic audience of teenagers numbering about 120. 

Animation is all about tricking the eye of the existence of motion, offered Muli to the audience, which judging from the ambivalence, begged for more convincing.  “Persistence of vision is the guiding principle in animation,” he explained, before he turned to the projection screen for an elaboration graphic.

To animate, one needs to have a compelling story to tell, advised Muli, and added that it is the onus of the artist to decide whether choose writing, filming or animation. Mentioning Shriek, he offered that some stories are better presented in certain media and not others. 

Armed with this wisdom, Muli has been instrumental in developing amazing projects. Judging from the cheers that filled the National Museum’s Ford Hall Auditorium, on enlisting  Know Zone and Tinga Tinga Tales, the excitation of the attendants was clear. But it was the involvement of students in developing miniature animation projects enthused attendants to animation. Guided by Muli and their creativity, and working on Monkey Jam 3.0, two pairs of students developed cool boxing bouts, to the applause of the remaining audience. 

When I sought to establish how teenagers could use animation, Muli offered that in animation, students have a great medium to send their messages home. Echoing this response, Chris Karani, 12, a budding Brook House School poet and comics writer owned that he is convinced that animation is a great way to help him convey his ideas better.

Similar sentiments were common amongst the session attendants. Jeremiah Nzuki, a music teacher at Lavington’s Gifted Hands School, for instance, agreed that schools stand to benefit from animation. “Animation is here to address the poor reading culture in Kenya,” he offered, grinning. 

Nzuki opined that by animating teaching materials, teachers would greatly enhance delivery.  The point of convergence is that animation is a great way of bringing stories to life.

Peter Godwin Talks about The Fear

Journalists often find themselves on the front lines of unfolding calamities. Some report the events and leave it at that. But others decide to go further. They write books – or produce documentaries. One such is Peter Godwin, author of The Fear.

Godwin, the current PEN President of the Americas, made a presentation at the 5th edition of Storymoja Hay Festival in Nairobi and explained the circumstances that led to the penning of The Fear.

“These narratives are the outcome of the accounts of survivors of atrocities committed in 2008 by Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe after a disputed election,” Godwin told his audience. He explained how he interacted with scores of Zimbabweans and how their accounts moved him to write their stories.

Reading selected passages from the text, Godwin powerfully conveyed the sense of anguish endured by his subjects as he described the terror on opposition supporters. He spoke of its being on "an industrial scale.”

“When those who survive, terribly injured, limp home, or are carried or pushed in wheelbarrows, or on the backs of pickup trucks, they act like human billboards, advertising the appalling consequences of opposition to the tyranny, bearing their gruesome political stigmata. And in their home communities, their return causes ripples of anxiety to spread,” he said.


Gory tales of water boarding, beatings and castrations made for gut-wrenching listening. "Recording these accounts in book form – specifically a novel - makes it more difficult to ignore them in the long run," Godwin said as he explained that the title of his book was inspired by the Zimbabwean native word “Chidudu”, which translates into English as “Fear.”

Peter Godwin is amongst the growing number of authors who are relying on their witnessing of scenes to inform their works. This emerging genre of literature, according to University of Nairobi's Professor Chris Lukorito Wanjala befits authors who take the high moral road. 

Edited by Roy Gachuhi

Science is fabulous!

Imagine performing science experiments at home. And having fun while at it. According to the Secret Science Society, a team of young University of Nairobi scientists, this is possible.

During this year’s Storymoja Hay Festival, the Secret Science Society worked on mainstreaming science amongst pupils by introducing them to educating and entertaining experiments. 

Armed with household items such as milk, soda, eggs, strings, plastic cups, and food color the Secret Science Society set up various experiments meant to inspire awe. 

In utter contrast to the notion that science is unpopular amongst children, scores of youngsters drawn mainly from the Aga Khan Junior Academy and the Braeburn School were already at the tent minutes before the scheduled 10 o’clock the morning of September 19, 2013.

Enthusiastically received was the traditional cup and thread telephone but it didn’t come any closer in terms of popularity to the Color Symphony an experiment in which different colors were meticulously pipetted on to milk after which a drop of detergent is introduced into the mixture. 

Occasionally interrupted by shooting hands of enthusiastic attendants begging to perform it themselves, the Color Symphony culminated in the detergent displacing the food color drops, forming an awesome spectrum.

“Science does not have to be as boring as it appears to be in school,” offered Dennis Ngigi, the Secret Science Society head. The essence of these experiments, according to Ngigi, was to promote an accepting attitude towards science by youngsters. 

“Like in the Color Symphony experiment, children get to appreciate how detergents work in washing utensils at home.”



Edited fashion: http://hayfestivalwire.hayfestival.org/post/61663188428/science-is-fabulous