Making sense of the terror attacks in Kenya

Follow these sources (a mix from the blogosphere, Twitter and Facebook, including from some mainstream media sources that aren't that bad) to process the Nairobi mall terror attack.

Image: EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid via Flickr CC.

If you, like us, are disturbed by US congressman Peter King’s suggestions to monitor Somali-Americans, the decision by the world’s most visited news site, the Daily Mail, to focus only the fate of North Americans and British victims of the terror attack on a mall in Nairobi, CNN quoting fake Al Shabaab Twitter accounts, or waiting for the inevitable Heart of Darkness-themed piece by some Western journalist or other (though they may surprise us yet), it may be better to follow these sources (a mix from the blogosphere, Twitter and Facebook, including from some mainstream media sources that aren’t that bad):

Blogs

 

Twitter

  • Robert Alai, controversial Kenyan blogger and social media strategist.
  • The BBC’s Southern African correspondent Karen Allen.
  • Charles Onyango-Obbo, Nation Media Group’s digital editor. On Twitter.
  • Oliver Mathenge, a political writer of the Star newspaper in Nairobi.
  • The South African journalist Robyn Kriel, the East African Bureau Chief for a South African 24-hour news channel.
  • Kenyan journalist and news anchor, Larry Madowo.
  • Erik Hersman, co-founder of Ushahidi, who goes by White African.
  • Al Jazeera journalist Hamza Mohamed.
  • Photojournalist and columnist Jonathan Kalan.
  • Abdi Ayente, director of Somali’s first ever think and a former Al Jazeera and BBC journalist.
  • Somali-Kenyan journalist  Abdi Latif Dahir.
  • Tom Odula of the AP’s East Africa Bureau; and
  • Ory Okollah, going by KenyanPundit and co-founder of Ushahidi,

Add your suggestions (and comments) in the comments below. Ht @KenyanPundit, @Jepchumba, @Samar42

Further Reading

Slow death by food

Illegal gold mining is poisoning Ghana’s soil and rivers, seeping into its crops and seafood, and turning the national food system into a long-term public health crisis.

A sick health system

The suspension of three doctors following the death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s son has renewed scrutiny of a health-care system plagued by impunity, underfunding, and a mass exodus of medical professionals.

Afrobeats after Fela

Wizkid’s dispute with Seun Kuti and the release of his latest EP with Asake highlight the widening gap between Afrobeats’ commercial triumph and Fela Kuti’s political inheritance

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.

Visiting Ngara

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.