Nairobi Governor
Evans Kidero tells this to reporters.
He regards the
opening as a triumph of national resilience.
Westgate opens its
doors today backed by major brands that will include Subway, KFC, Converse and
a Nakumatt supermarket. A lot has
changed from the ashes of the former Westgate. For security, according to
Reuters, a private Israeli firm I.R.G will now be in charge and has brought in
about 25 specialists. There will also be about 55 guards from security firm
G4S. New security features have also
been put in place, which include luggage X-rays, bullet-proof guard towers, new
scanners and bollards to prevent car bombs.
Half of those who used to own stores are returning and the others
will have to await the opening of phase two – a section of the mall that was
destroyed after soldiers fired a shell into the building. The official opening had been pushed back several times, but today
people will be welcome once more inside one of Nairobi's upscale shopping centers.
On 21 September 2013, unidentified gunmen attacked the up market Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. The attack, which lasted until 24 September, resulted in at least 67 deaths, including four attackers. Over 175 people were reportedly wounded in the mass shooting, with all of the gunmen reported killed. The Islamist group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the incident, which it characterized as retribution for the Kenyan military's deployment in the group's home country of Somalia.
There are a lot of mixed reactions to the news that
Westgate reopens today. There have been
rumors and statements flying across the Kenyan social media the last few weeks
and of course everyone has an opinion about what should have been done with the
building, 22 months down the track from that fateful day that Kenya was
attacked by terrorism. I do believe in
the human spirit. I certainly understand
that there will be people who will not step foot back into that building EVER. I get it.
They have their personal reason for that and I respect that. I also understand that people WILL return,
whether it be for business purposes, employment, closure to the event and then
there are the obvious two. The first one
is to show Al Shabab that they will not scare us and the second reason simple
as it may seem is to actually, just shop.
Oh there will be the rubber neckers, people just wanting to go to see
the scene of the crime so to speak, but this can also only be a good thing, as
it is business through the doors, it is courage to every single person that re-walks
back through those doors and as harsh as it sounds, life really does continue
on.
I didn’t lose a friend or a loved one in the attack, and
I am sure people will have a different view to me. And that is okay. We should all live in a world where you can have
your say, what you think about a topic and not get ridiculed, bullied or
threatened for having a conviction on something. That is living in a perfect world of course,
which we don’t. A prime example of this
going haywire was when two Australians, who were part of a group called the
Bali Nine, who were drug smugglers that were executed nearly 10 years after
being caught in Indonesia in April this year.
There was so much coverage on these two individuals, who were not and
will not be the last two to be caught and executed for drug running, but it
literally, no word of a lie, divided a continent, a country, and friend against
friend. I saw an exchange from two
friends on Facebook that ended in one of the last comments typed was ‘that they
could no longer be friends’. What has
this world come to? Anyway I digress.
I was talking about the resilience of the human
spirit. It has been shown time and time
again over the course of history, and I do believe that the re-opening of the Westgate
mall will be no different. Time has a way of healing people. Not just in a situation like this, it can
apply to all aspects of people’s lives.
Death, loss of love, loss of money, a bad experience, the loss of a
child-the list really is endless. You
may never forget, it may take a long time, but if you let it, time will heal
the pain. Being in an expat community as
large as the one that is in Nairobi, there are a lot of people and families
that are transient. They are posted here
for a term, which could consist of a short 6 months up to 4 years or more. This I think will help with the expat
community returning to the mall, as people who were here at the time, whether they
were directly involved in the events on that horrific day or not, will
eventually move back to their home countries and new people will arrive, who
were not here and just don’t have that emotional connection, the feeling, the
vibe of the city at the time. I wasn’t
in Kenya when the attack happened. I was
on an overland trip in West Africa and a few hours after the attack my Facebook
Messenger had 87 messages from friends asking if I was ok. You can talk to anybody who was here in the
September of 2013, they will know of some-one who was there, has spoken to
some-one who knew some-one or even more sad, they knew some-one who died in
those 4 days. No one was immune to the
attack, no one.
But like all major
incidences of recent times there have been similar attacks, terrorism strikes
all over the world and it is really scary that there are people with behaviors
and actions that are unthinkable and unimaginable, that humans can do this to
fellow humans. Below are a few instances
that shook the world, people survived and the courage of people who survived
should be a testament to the rest of us who are lucky enough to live in a world
where we will not allow terrorism to run our lives.
US
Embassies in Africa bombed in 1998
At
least 200 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured following explosions
at United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The
bombings took place within minutes of each other at around 1030 local time. No-one has claimed responsibility but US
officials suspect the attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden, an Islamic
fundamentalist.
September 11 2001
The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks consisted of suicide attacks used to target symbolic U.S. building landmarks. The hijackers crashed
planes into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington County, and a field in Shanksville, after the passengers
revolted. The attacks claimed the lives of 2,996 people (including 19
hijackers) and caused at least $10 billion in property and infrastructure
damage.
The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002)
The
war began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front(RUF), with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. The resulting civil war lasted 11 years, enveloped
the country, and left over 50,000 dead.
The Bali Bombings
in 2002
The
Bali bombings occurred on 12
October 2002 in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. The attack killed 202 people (including 88 Australians, 38
Indonesians, 27 Britons, 7 Americans, 6 Swedes and 3 Danes) and a further 209
people were injured.
Madrid
Train Bombings in 2004
These
bombings were nearly simultaneous, coordinated bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, on the morning of 11
March 2004 – three days before Spain's general elections and two and a half years after the September 11 attacks in the United States. The
explosions killed 191 people and wounded 1,800.
The official investigation by the Spanish judiciary found that the attacks were directed by an al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell, although
no direct al-Qaeda participation has been established.
The London Bombing
in 2005
The London bombings were a series of coordinated suicide
bomb attacks in central
London which targeted
civilians using the public transport system during the morning rush hour. On the morning of
Thursday, 7 July 2005, four Islamist extremists separately detonated three bombs in
quick succession aboard London Underground trains across the city and, later, a
fourth on a double-decker bus in Tavistock
Square. Fifty-two civilians were killed and over 700 more were injured in
the attacks, which was the United Kingdom's worst terrorist incident since the
1988 Lockerbie
bombing as well as the
country's first ever suicide attack.
The Mumbai
Bombings in 2008
In November 2008,
10 Pakistani members of Lashkar-e-Taiba,
an Islamic
militant organization,
carried out a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting
four days across Mumbai. Ajmal
Kasab, the only attacker who was captured alive, later confessed upon
interrogation that the attacks were conducted with the support of the Pakistan
government's intelligence agency, the ISI. The
attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wednesday, 26
November and lasted until Saturday, 29 November 2008, killing 164 people and
wounding at least 308.
The Boston
Marathon Bombings in 2013
The Boston Marathon bombing was a terrorist attack, followed by
subsequent related shootings, that occurred when two pressure cooker bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. The bombs
exploded about 12 seconds and 190 m apart at 2:49 pm EDT,
near the marathon's finish line on Boylston Street. They killed 3 people and
injured an estimated 264 others.
Malaysian Airlines
Malaysia
Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370)
was a scheduled international passenger flight that disappeared on 8 March 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing Capital International Airport. Flight 370 last made voice contact with air traffic control at 01:19 MYT (17:19UTC, 7 March) when it was over the South China Sea, less than an hour after
takeoff. The aircraft disappeared from air traffic controllers' radar screens
at 01:21. The aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was carrying 12 Malaysian
crew members and 227 passengers from 15 nations. Four months
later Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was also a scheduled international
passenger flight which was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, when it crashed on 17 July 2014 after
being shot down, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.
Charlie Hebdo 2015
On
the morning of 7 January 2015 at about 11:30 local time, two brothers, Saïd and
Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in
Paris. Armed with assault rifles and other weapons, they killed 11 people and
injured 11 others in the building. After leaving, they killed a French National Police Officer outside the building. The gunmen identified
themselves as belonging to the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, who took responsibility for the attack. Several related attacks followed in the Île-de-France region, where a further five were killed and 11 wounded.
These are just a few of the heinous acts that have been
committed over the last ten years alone.
There was too many to list from the Middle East and surrounds, and that’s
just the last TEN years. It’s a scary
world we live in, one that should not be ruled on ‘what ifs’ and this is where
the human spirit shines the brightest. We must not live in fear. We must go about
our daily lives, go to restaurants, coffee shops, grocery shops, bars and other
malls albeit with an air of precaution and vigilance. I
was not in the country during this horrific event in Kenya in 2013, but Eric
and I both agreed we will support the shop owners of Westgate and give Al
Shabab the middle finger.
They will not
terrorize us in our own country.
Those people abroad thinking of Kenya as a holiday
destination, a wedding destination or wishing to go on safari in a beautiful
country must come experience it. Please don't cancel or change your plans or
your minds just because of this one incident. Come support us and come see with
your own eyes what a beautiful place Kenya is and how amazing the people and
culture is.
Good luck to the
brave shop owners who are returning back. My hats off to you and also today we
will remember those who lost their lives and also to the survivors, who went
through the horrific event first hand.
Proud to be Kenyan
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