5 - Triumphalist Amnesia
Memory and the War on Terror in Kenya
from Part II - Case Studies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 March 2026
Summary
This chapter explores the implications of a post-transition context and an ongoing violent confrontation for the memory regime, looking at Kenya as our case study. Despite a power-sharing agreement and a concluded transitional justice process following election-related violence in the country (2008–2012), today Kenya is again characterised by public amnesia with regard to the most recent violence committed in the context of a ‘War on Terror’. The chapter shows how memory is securitised, with amnesia presented as resilience and memory as vulnerability in the context of the confrontation. Spaces of violence are reconstructed and fortified, and people invited to reinhabit them as a way to fight terror. The chapter takes a close look at the rectification of the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, showing the different ways in which labours of memory erasure have paradoxical effects, acting as triggers of memory, archives of memory discourse, and even markers of insecurity.
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- Paths to ForgettingMemory and Power after Violence in East Africa, pp. 106 - 132Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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