Silver lining in terror attack is chance to reflect on unity

The dark cloud of terror must pass. The blasted night of shock, havoc and fear must go. And we must begin to see the silver lining, in the edges of disaster. For, every cloud has a silver lining. In the silvery edges of terror attacks, we must see the hopeful outlines of fresh lessons for national renewal. Though the merchants of death will accost us, yet – to paraphrase George Gordon, the poet – Our sword of hope must outwear the sheath of despair. And we must pause, to learn and learn to pause.

The lessons are not about who dropped the ball of security checks. Nor are they about surveillance systems. They are rather about who we are – about our multiple identities. For, the enemy accosts us because of who we are – or in any event – whom he thinks we are. All mass violent attacks are identity driven. The attacker perceives the victims as members of an identity group. He considers himself justified to harm the group. He gives them a collective bad name to justify himself.

The monstrous act at Nairobi’s Dusit 2 this week gives Kenyans the opportunity to reflect on their multiple identities. They have the chance to appreciate that in the end only one of these numerous identities matters – they are Kenyan. Hence, an individual may belong to a certain faith, an age group, a language or cultural community. Yet what really matters is that you are Kenyan.

The murderous activities of Tuesday were calculated to be a blow to your only one identity – that you are Kenyan. That is your “crime.” You are, therefore, a “legitimate” target. Does this help us to appreciate how some of our other identities have often misled our focus? We perhaps begin to see the futility of the divisiveness that such identities as our ethnicity have driven. In our narrowness of mind, we define each along our ethnic lines. We discriminate against each other along such identities. You gain or miss an opportunity because of your ethnicity. Yet when the merchant of terror comes, he does not recognise that distinction.

You understand that those outside your ethnic circle do not belong to your moral community. Yet, together with them, you all fall outside the terrorist’s moral community. The real enemy, if you must have enemies, is not the person from a different ethnic group. In the face of this latest collective adversity, Kenyans have demonstrated – almost predictably – an amazing ability to muster group solidarity. In the bludgenings of this enemy, they have not whimpered. They have not blamed. They have been terrified but remained unbowed.

They have stoically held together – diffusing their various identities – to help and rescue the immediate victims. The security agents, health workers, rescue teams and ordinary citizens alike, put their best foot forward to help fellow citizens and their visitors. So what scatters our solidarity as Kenyans? Do we need perpetual disasters to remind us that the real enemy is elsewhere? Is it possible that the real enemy could help us to redefine our prioritisation of our multiple identities? If we did so, we would perhaps also recognise our other true enemies in our midst. The man who plunders the national economy and comes to hide behind our tribe is an enemy within. First, he robs us of our livelihood. He then moves on to upset the strings that should hold us together as a nation. And it is not beyond him to unleash us as his dogs of war against fellow citizens.

Everyone who whips up the ethnic sentiment is an enemy within. The distance between him and the merchant of terror is very short. For both isolate you and give you a bad name. Thereafter, they are ready to do anything. Charles Dickens of A Tale of Two Cities has reminded us of giving a dog a bad name and burying him. Those who will harm you will first rob you of your human identity. Together with others in your identity group, you become rats, cockroaches, weeds and the like. For, human beings don’t kill other human beings.

They kill dogs and rats. Both the enemies without and those within must first reduce you to a lower life before messing you up. Accordingly, they will damage your reputation with inadequate evidence and sundry lies. The negativity bias against you rises in geometric progression with the anger against you. People think badly about you on the basis of no evidence, or poor evidence. At the height of the anger, your human outlines and identity disappear altogether.

As you become a four-legged creature with strange ears, fur, a tail and loss of speech, they are ready to deal with you. They cannot even understand the “gibberish” that are your pleas for mercy. For, rats don’t speak. In the wake of the latest attack against the Kenyan nation, the silver lining in this cloud is the opportunity to reflect afresh on our oneness as Kenyans and on the things that should matter most to us. What is more important between protecting our national economy and shielding a thief who belongs to our tribe? Are we able to be Kenyan first and everything else after? For, the sword outwears its sheath, and the soul wears out its breast.

- The writer is a strategic public communications adviser. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke