Monday, July 14, 2014

Kenya: Aftermath of the Westgate Mall Attack

The Foreign Service Journal published by the American Foreign Service Association carried an article in its July/August 2014 edition titled "Westgate: The Other Nairobi and the Future of Kenya" by Joash Omondi, a journalism student at the United States International University in Nairobi.

The author argues that nothing seems to have changed in Kenya since the terrorist attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi last year.  One is left with the sense that there is nothing to stop the next attack. Kenya continues to endure all the old problems that plagued it before the terrorist attack.  Terrorism is not the biggest problem facing Kenya.  The bigger problem is the complacency of a system that is now failing to combat terrorism. What is needed is a mobilization of the "Kenyan Spirit."