We should not let terrorism define boundaries of patriotism

Members of the public look at the list of the victims who died in the Westgate Shopping Mall terrorist attack. AFP 

By Marvin Sissey

In Summary

• Kenyans’ simmering discontent with and suspicion against fellow citizens and members of one community must stop.

It is said that if you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to walk far, walk with others.

Let me, for the umpteenth time; echo the sentiments of many social commentators who have been quick to commend the brotherly and sisterly spirit embodied by the Kenyan citizenry in the aftermath of the Westgate attack. If the terrorists aimed to divide us, then in this they failed miserably.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, we emerged from the storm slightly shaken but not beaten; slightly off tracked but not misdirected, slightly agonised but more united in a single accord.

Ours was a forgotten spirit of patriotism which many times we only pay lip service to but never action. To see our “Kenyanness” in action and personified regardless of religion or creed, tribe or gender, was simply beautiful.

Yet, as if to eat up my words, it is this spirit of sudden unity that partly, I want to reject today. I find it shameful that more often than not, it takes a tragedy of such momentous proportions to unite us as Kenyans. Ours is hypocrisy in patriotism that may not survive the test of time.

Firstly let us define patriotism. The simplest definition of patriotism that comes to mind is, “love of country.” But this raises a further question; what is a country?

A country is not its geographical features — it is the total composition of the people subsisting within a particular nationality. Thus if we were to re-look at our definition of patriotism, it edges slightly from “love of country” to become “love of people.”

Broadening the scope from country to people deepens the expression of patriotism from shallow nationalistic mind-sets to localisation of global communities to form a single subset. This means that the love for people within our boundaries, regardless of where they originally came from becomes the standard of patriotism. Yet it is this very love that I reckon is no more.

Let me face the elephant in the room head on. There is simmering discontent that many Kenyans have with fellow Kenyans who belong to the Somali community. It is not a discontent that has grown overnight with the rise of Al-Shabaab militants – it is a one whose seed was planted a while back during the rise of piracy.

In a typical Kenyan fashion, the meteoric rise in the enterprises run by the Somali community led to all speculation that those very enterprises were being fuelled by piracy money. Many have been blamed for the rising rents and property speculation in areas of Eastleigh and South C.

I was unable to verify any facts to either support or deny the allegations, but what I fear is that the blanket condemnation will end up hurting innocent folk and creating a wider rift in our national fabric.

The proof of this simmering hate and “ethnic profiling” was shown last week when in the normal knee jerk reaction of some our leaders, our Defence Parliamentary Committee’s first recommendation was to call for a closure of all camps for Somali refugees in the country in the wake of the Westgate mall attack.d

They argued, without substantiating, that some of those facilities are being used as a training ground for militants. When you think of the fact that Kenya is host to what is believed to be to the largest refugee camp in the world, Dadaab – which is home to about half a million people – then you can picture the logistical nightmare that it would take to relocate them through a single decree.

But that aside, it should occur to us that a majority of them would actually prefer to be back home in their own country were it any safer. They are not in paradise.

Most of the population in those refugee camps consist of helpless women and children who have been relocated because of war and who harbour as much anti-war and anti-terrorism sentiments like any other typical Kenyan having faced the devastation of both first hand