Target Markets – International Terrorism Meets Global Capitalism in the Mall

Memory as vulnerability: Reinhabiting sites of violence and the politics of triumphalist amnesia in Kenya’s war on terror

“…In terms of a broader scholarship on the global ‘war on terror’, focus still predominantly lies on a critical approach to memorialization, rather than its absence. Memory debates revolve around critical deconstruction of memorials and commemorative forms, mostly in the global North (Edkins, 2003; Foote, 2016; Lundborg, 2012; Milošević, 2018; Sturken, 2007) though with important exceptions (Heath-Kelly, 2015, 2016a; Mirgani, 2017). The existing scholarship follows to an extent a bias of practice – one focused on ‘sanctification’ (Foote, 2003) of spaces of violence, the rush to commemorate and the ways in which these might reify dominant narratives or security agendas (see, for example, Edkins, 2003 on the commemoration of 9/11).…”

“…insists that with its overhaul, Westgate is the safest mall in Nairobi today. Managing Director Haim Cohen’s team of ex-Israeli commandos has trained the mall’s security personnel assiduously’ (Mirgani, 2017: 116). Indeed, on a quiet day, there seem to be as many security personnel strolling around as shoppers themselves.…”

“…‘In addition are a variety of other mixed-use complexes springing up all over Nairobi, including Garden City and The HUB, a few miles down the road from Westgate mall, the Two Rivers Development is billed as “the largest lifestyle centre within Sub Saharan Africa, outside of South Africa”, and features $10m in security technology. The new incarnations rising from Westgate mall’s ashes are self-enclosed mega developments guarded ever more closely by an all pervasive – and invasive – security apparatus’ (Mirgani, 2017: 117).…”

“…The boost in privatized security at the mall mirrored wider dynamics: ‘Since Al-Shabaab’s 2013 Westgate Mall attack, the number of private security guards in Kenya has swelled “and there are now about 300,000 employed by some 429 private security firms – vastly outnumbering Kenya’s police force of 60,000”’ (Owuor and Mbatia, 2011: 137, cited in Mirgani, 2017: 116). These security features have been extended from the shopping mall into other areas of public life, and the Kenyan government has successfully implemented ‘a [new] national surveillance programme, including the installation of tamper-proof CCTV cameras in most major streets in Nairobi and Mombasa’ (Mirgani, 2017: 116). From the ‘Very Big Brother’ sign spelled in capital letters at the Village Market mall to clicking CCTVs all around major intersections, the new surveillance boost is readily visible on the city.…”

“…The intense efforts at architectural reconstruction are thus simultaneously attempts at ‘death effacement’ (2016a: 6) and erasure of vulnerability. And, as Mirgani (2017: 115) reminds us, ‘venues [of “terrorist” violence] are [often] defiantly reconstructed or injected with renewed fervour and people are encouraged to visit or revisit these spaces as a way to defy “terrorist ideologies”’. The article looks at this politics of effacement and defiance more closely, considering how it translates into material, spatial and social practices around reinhabiting and restructuring actual sites of violence and ‘visceral security failure’ (Heath-Kelly, 2015), and the effects of this in the realm of symbolic politics and commemoration.…”