NAIROBI, Kenya — Unlike the much larger Uhuru Park nearby, it
costs a few Kenyan shillings to enter the August 7th
Memorial Park in downtown Nairobi, but locals gather,
regardless. Vine roots a half-fist thick and bright, lush
vegetation tightly woven into the park’s wrought iron fencing block
out some of the deafening hustle bustle of the chaotic streets
outside.
Children race around the fountain, couples canoodle on benches,
and families mingle on soft green grass. At the black stone
memorial to those who were murdered here nearly nine years ago,
however, I stood alone. No Kenyan needs to be reminded that al
Qaeda suicide bombers drove a truck laden with explosives into the
U.S. Embassy that once stood on this spot killing 224 people — all
but 12 of them Kenyans — and injuring approximately 4,000 more,
just as no American needs to be reminded that the New York City
skyline is not as it once was.
This isn’t to say other areas of some Americans’ memories
couldn’t use a solid jog: En route to the memorial I found myself
in the midst of thousands of left-wing activists, including
hundreds of Americans, marching through the city as part of the
opening ceremony of the World Social Forum, a yearly weeklong
gathering of radicals who agree to blame all the world’s ills on
racist, sexist, xenophobic American imperialists before setting
about denouncing one another as insufficiently radical racist,
sexist, xenophobic American patsies.
Considering how much time World Social Forum attendees spend decrying the plight of
the average Kenyan, it would have been a welcome sign of
intellectual honesty, not to mention respect for the city hosting
them, if they had filed through the park to publicly register their
opposition to a local brutal act of political terror — even if it
meant mourning an American life or two.
Instead, the self-anointed, self-heralded members of the
international social justice movement marched by chanting, among
other couplets, “U.S. Imperialist! World’s Number One Terrorist!”
The most popular signs seemed to be “When Bush Comes to Shove —
Resist!” and “Every Plan for Terrorism is Made Here” with an arrow
pointing down at a rendering of the White House. One man holding
this last wore a T-shirt bearing Paul Wolfowitz’s likeness and the
slogan “Send the Wolf Back to Bush.”
I wonder what their reaction would have been to Kenya’s
unflinching visitor center display with the artlessly descriptive
title Foreign Bodies Removed from Some Clients of the Medical
Association Program consisting of an entire case of small
liquid-filled vials containing…well, Foreign Bodies Removed from
Some Clients of the Medical Association Program, each with a small
typed personal account accompanying it. For example, this from a
60-year-old Kenyan:
I was in Kenya Bus Number 126 when the bomb
exploded. I sustained eye injuries and am now totally blind. On the
1st May 2000 a rusty nail was removed from my left arm. It was
first noted after a routine x-ray.
And another from a 36 year-old man:
I was at the Kenya Railway when the bomb exploded.
I was in a coma for six weeks. Pieces of glass were removed from my
left cheek on 3rd December 1999.
Another wall celebrates the “silent survivors,” children born to
pregnant women — known as “bomb victors” — injured in the blast.
A portrait of Samuel Ng’ang’a, the last man pulled from the
wreckage alive, offers his recollection of “more than 48 hours of
agonizing pain and anxiety. I remember how I continuously
communicated with Rose Wanjiku, Kenya’s Candle in the Wind.”
Wanjiku, a bank messenger who worked in the building next to the
embassy, communicated with rescuers for three days but died before
she could be rescued.
Outside a family shared an apple near a triangular steel-framed
sculpture containing detritus from the truck the bombers used.
Crunch, nibble, pass. It’s almost as if the park’s official slogan
— We can light up hope in our lives for we hold the future
that is full of peace and reconciliation. When we can learn to
trust life again even as we hurt, we can work towards it step by
step — has come to pass.
Apples, sadly, keep away doctors, not terrorists. Thus, Kenyans
have had the unfortunate opportunity to add displays commemorating
other terrorist attacks: The November 2002 bombing of the Paradise
Hotel in Mombasa with a simultaneous failed rocket attack on an
Israeli passenger plane; a suicide grenade attack on the Mombasa
Central Police Station in 2003.
Later, walking back down Moi Avenue to the World Social Forum
rally, I passed long lines of Kenyans waiting to get on rumbling
public buses. A uniformed man stood at the head of each line,
randomly sweeping people with a metal detecting wand, just as I was
randomly checked at my hotel. For some reason the scene called to
mind the inscription on the black stone memorial at the bombing
site:
May the innocent victims of this tragic event rest
in the knowledge that it has strengthened our resolve to work for a
world in which man is able to live alongside his brother in
peace.
Yet, while Nairobi is a wonderful city filled with many friendly
people, nine years after the blast there is still fear. There is
still inconvenience. Security culture, oppressive by nature, is as
deeply entrenched here as at American airports. It is a tacit
acknowledgment that life will never be the same.
I’m fairly certain Kenyans are not living in fear of George W.
Bush cooking up some plan in the White House — you know, where
every plan for terrorism is made — to blow up public
buses or massacre tourists staying at local hotels. When my cab is
stopped so police can search its trunk, they are looking for
explosives, not Paul Wolfowitz.
After the rally, Americans and Europeans catch taxicabs out to
the World Social Forum site proper, where statements of solidarity
with indigenous people and plans for future action against evil war
mongering American capitalists fly fast and furious. But few if any
of the hundreds of seminars or panels deal with the fundamentalist
ideology that turned a corner of this city to rubble. I’m sure they
would argue globalization is the root cause, so why bother talking
about reactionary Islamic militancy or the mangled innocent bodies
left in its path? We wouldn’t want to cut into the fortieth “Sink
the IMF” workshop.
Meanwhile in downtown Nairobi the buses idle so long the dust in
your mouth begins to taste like the diesel in the air.
