Kenyans are uniquely connected to September 11

Ten years to the day today, al Qaeda attacked the US in what has since been described as an event that forever changed the world.

There is enough reason today for Kenyans to remember 9/11 as the event that took away our post-Independence national innocence.

September 11 introduced us intimately to Afghanistan, the Taliban, al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and lately al Shabaab. It also gave the world a new obsession: war on terror.

The effects of pre and post-9/11 have been visiting with us ever since. Lest anyone forgets, Kenya was hit by the first wave of the pre-9/11 in August of 1998.

In a sickening twist of international events, geographical location, security lapses and God knows what other factors, over 200 Kenyans died in one moment of madness in the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi.

This was directly connected to what was to happen on 9/11. Apparently, ever since, al Qaeda operatives have been living among us, using us to get to the US. The bombings in Nairobi now seem like a mere dry run compared to the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001.

Then came the November 2002 Kikambala bombings of Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel. Blame it on 9/11 and since then, al Qaeda has been going at everyone remotely related to the US. Israel is almost a blood relative. And Kenya is the soft underbelly. And Kenyans the collateral damage.

But perhaps the lasting legacy of the US-led war on terror has been the radicalisation of pockets of populations across the world in what others have described as the Clash of Civilisations, and Kenya is no exception. Our proximity to Somalia, the eventual hiding and training grounds of the African wing of al Qaeda does not help matters either.

Did 9/11 change the world? More than we’ll ever know. Our proximity to Somalia, and the embassy bombings meant Kenya was now in the US’s radar on the war on terror. Our government in its wisdom to pacify Big Brother—read the US—has been using all means legal, illegal and outright immoral and outrageous to “help” in this war on terror.

There are Kenyan families that have gone through hell in the name of War on Terror. Worse still Kenyans have been arrested in the dead of night by their own government, handed over to foreign agents or renditioned to far away countries. That is our personal living connection to 9/11.

Sara Bakata is deputy chief sub-editor, The EastAfrican