Lessons that linger two years after attack

The entrance to the Nakumatt Kids & Co. store at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi on August 26, 2015. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • With heavy lumps in their throats, they must have been pained by how we can pull ourselves by the bootstraps from what they thought was an abyss of despair and national humiliation.
  • For every cup of tea taken at ArtCaffe; for every purchase made at Nakumatt; for every step taken by the window-shopper at Westgate, a blow is struck against the currency of terrorism — fear.

When Al-Shabaab terrorists opened fire on innocent shoppers at the Westgate Mall, they thought they had brought Kenya to its knees.

They had no regard for the defencelessness of shopping mothers, the innocence of schoolchildren participating in a cookery show and no thought about the breadwinners who would be no more.

But there is something they were clueless about — the resilience of a people and their ability to bounce back, even in the face of trigger-happy and grenade-throwing zealots.

Nobody captured this spirit better than President Uhuru Kenyatta when he told a grieving Kenya that we had been “bloodied but unbowed”.

And so, on July 18, with their heads high, Kenyans lined up for the reopening of the mall. Pictures of Kenyans queuing patiently imbue one with a sense of efficacy in the face of adversity. They are smiling, cheerfully dressed, confident and warm-hearted.

In a forest where associates of the killers hide, it must have been gloom on the day the Westgate Mall reopened its gates triumphantly.

With heavy lumps in their throats, they must have been pained by how we can pull ourselves by the bootstraps from what they thought was an abyss of despair and national humiliation. Such an attitude is necessary to defeat the murderous spirit of terrorism.

Such is the message sounded out by Nakumatt’s decision to increase its presence in the mall from one store to eight. Same for Airtel, Subway, ArtCaffe, Fed Ex, Barclays, Ashleys and other previous tenants who chose not to run away from the mall, and are back.

It is the never-say-die mindset Governor Evans Kidero wanted Kenyans to cherish when, during the reopening of the mall, he said: “This is a sure sign of triumph of national resilience in the face of adversity.

The attackers may have killed our friends and family members but they did not kill or break our spirit to rebuild.”

Espousing the same sentiments, Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet said: “We will fight back. We will lead normal lives.”

For every cup of tea taken at ArtCaffe; for every purchase made at Nakumatt; for every step taken by the window-shopper at Westgate, a blow is struck against the currency of terrorism — fear.

In New York, terrorism was shamed when the World Trade Centre, destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, was reopened last year.

On the 16-acre site where the Twin Towers once jutted into the sky proudly before Al-Qaeda rammed jetliners into them, killing 2,700 people, now stands a new $3.9 billion, 1,776-foot-high testament to tenacity and the unwillingness to surrender to evil. And, as they say in the Big Apple, the skyline of New York is complete again.