Winama,
Yericko hana alichoandika.
Huo si uandishi ni vichekesho.
Msome Mohamed Said na tatizo la ugaidi kama alivyoeleza katika mkutano we maudhui hiyo Chuo Kikuu Cha Ibadan mwaka 2006:
The United States is more concerned with international terrorism while Africa is obsessed with domestic terrorism.
The question which the United States should reflect upon is that why is it that the United States is considered a legitimate target for attackby terrorists?
In the answer probably lies the key to solving the problem.
It is a pity that terrorism as a field of inquiry is yet to be taken up by actual victims of terrorism.
The inquiry has been monopolised by scholars from societies which at most have suffered one or two bomb attacks.
This erodes the realities of the subject as would beperceived by the actual victims of terrorism whose lives have seen nothing but sufferings.
Selective sampling will always as a rule provide wrong premise.
Today the world knows what took place in Auschwitz from the victims who went through the extermination camps during the Holocaust.[1]
We are yet to get first hand experience of terrorism from those who had lived andexperienced it in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nicaragua etc. documented with the same intensity as the world had documented the holocaust.
Why do Muslims eyes fill with tears when they watch on TV fighter bombers of the United States Army raining bombs on Iraq and Afghanistan; or Israel American made fighter bombers raining bombs on refugee camps in Gaza.
Why do some Muslims rejoice sometimes with chants of Takbir Allahu Akbar when a suicide bomber strikes?
Why some Muslims do not show remorse when asuicide bomber kills?
Why is it that we now have refuseniks - soldiers in theIsrael Defence Force (IDF) who refuse to kill for unjustified cause?
This belief is also encroaching into the United States forces in Iraq.
Why a suicide bomber is romanticised in certainparts of the world and is rejoiced as a hero while an American soldier is seen as a villain?
The United States should reflect on these sentiments.
Reasons for the reign of terror in Kenya,Uganda and Zanzibar, Rwanda and other places are known.
The United States with its array of social scientists and research centres should be able to come up with conclusive findings on the root cause of terrorism and why America has become a terrorist target.
Post-independence Kenya has experienced bomb attacks when in 1975 a bus stand was bombed in Nairobi followed by another bomb attack on Norfolk Hotel in 1980.[2]
Mtwara a small town in southern Tanzania was bombed several times by Portuguese war planes during the struggle for liberation of Mozambique.
Neither Kenya nor Tanzania internationalised the bombing of its territory because both countries knew why they were under attack.
Tanzania was being attacked by the Portuguese with the cognisance of the United States because it was the spring board forguerrillas fighting White supremacy and foreign domination in Mozambique, Angola Namibia and South Africa.
Is it really difficult for the United States to know why it is now being targeted?
[1] SeeThe Last Days of Auschwitz 50 Years Later: Untold Stories From the Death Camp, Newsweek,January 16, 1995.
[2]Norfolk Hotel was bombed on New Year's Eve 1980. 15 people werekilled, including 2 Americans, 85 were injured, and half the hotel wasdestroyed. The owners are members of a Kenyan Jewish family. It seemed the attack was motivated by revenge against Kenya by Palestinians for aiding the Israeli commando team that rescued hostages hijacked by Palestinians at Entebbe airport in Uganda in July1976.
Sheikh Said, hapo unanikwaza, unajisifia mwenyewe na kumponda mwenzako!
Ngoja tusubiri andiko la Yericko Nyerere, liletwe jamvini na tulijadili kama linakidhi haja.