two places

Kangemi and Westgate are roughly equidistant from my house, though Kangemi is a shade closer.

A few weeks ago, as the school term was starting, the Nairobi government arrived in Kangemi at 3 a.m., destroyed the local market, and, in the process, a bulldozer crushed a man to death. I do not know this man’s name. This man’s death was not pronounced a national or even local tragedy.

Around midday last Saturday, a number of people took Westgate Mall hostage. They shot many people, released some, and held the Mall hostage for 4 days, as Kenya’s elite forces, aided by other countries, attempted to regain control of the Mall and, by implication, the country. Thus far, approximately 90 million shillings has been raised to support recovery efforts.
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Following the Kangemi demolitions, many Kangemi residents protested the government’s actions. They blocked roads, set tires on fire, raged and mourned. They mourned that their lives were so disposable; they raged that their livelihoods had no value. With very few exceptions, Kenya remained silent. These were not lives worth valuing. A death in Kangemi is not worth mourning.

Reports indicate that president Uhuru Kenyatta was personally affected by Westgate—a nephew and his fiancée were killed. Photographs from Westgate have traveled across the world. We know names and faces and occupations and relationships.
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Who will grieve with the mourners?
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For the past few months, I have been thinking about disposability, about its reach and grasp and ever-expanding power. And while I continue to learn from Judith Butler about whose lives are grievable, about who is deemed worth grieving, thinking about disposability leads me to ask about killability.

To be disposable is to be ungrievable. Not to merit grief or thought. We have other words for this: acceptable losses, collateral damage. Yet, disposability is not passive, not simply a category into which we place the ungrievable. Instead, it is a hungry logic and practice. It becomes ever-more voracious as it eats.
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For years now, rumors have circulated that, like the Kangemi market, Westgate Mall is an illegitimate structure, that it should be torn down.
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The question of whose lives are grievable is not about withholding grief, saving it for those usually deemed ungrievable. Instead, it is about the possibilities of radical vulnerability.
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Radical vulnerability is debilitating. It saps energy and will. It is exhausting.
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Kangemi is forgotten. Another eyesore destroyed.
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To hold Kangemi and Westgate together.
To imagine Kangemi and Westgate together.