Anthrax and plane strike blues in Nairobi 

Schools often advise parents to encourage their children to listen to news bulletins on the radio or on television. This is to enable children to understand and analyse events or situations around the world with a broader and realistic perspective contrary to what they see in animated cartoons or highly pretentious children programmes. 

What normally makes the news is unfortunately often violent and crime-related. However news reporting after the attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on 11 September this year, has almost all been associated with terrorism with news, views and discussions being centred on injuries, death, harming, killing and violence in general.

Many children and for that matter even adults have been affected by what they see on television and almost everywhere an air of mistrust has developed as to who is or is not a possible terrorist. The situation has become more complicated with the many demonstrations around the world against the bombing of innocent civilians while almost all of the targeted group remain unharmed. The demonstrations have brought a realisation that the world is being divided into two or more groups of people who do not eye the situation in the same vein and the longer the crisis prevails more cracks in the joint fight against terrorism are likely to emerge. 

Those who oppose the current bombing of Afghanistan decry the killing of innocent civilians as an unworthy price to pay in a fight that, like many preceding ones, may never be won. They argue that if a thief or a group of thieves are on the run and hide among many civilians working in an office building, this would not justify bombing the entire office building. Television footage of innocent children dying could ironically provide terrorists a justification to propagate further enmity thereby encouraging more suicide bombers to join their ranks.

Children who see young ones being killed or badly injured are asking questions to their seniors as to why adults are harming innocent children in a world that is supposed to be united in peace and united in diplomacy. Just last week my12-year old son woke up with a nervous look and then narrated that he had dreamt of being in Afghanistan with the entire family while houses were being bombed. He recounted that what he feared most in his dream was that there was little that he or anyone could do for safety other than remain as a helpless sitting target.  

Fear and apprehension in one form or another is sparing nobody. Last week I was at the Hilton in Nairobi for an annual company budget session and had taken my family along. Driving through to the basement parking of the hotel involved a security check like I have never previously experienced at the same hotel. Similarly guests walking into the hotel had their parcels checked and almost always there was a security guard to oversee who used the hotel’s elevators. With our company having booked a number of rooms for our various directors, the receiving staff was very welcoming but only after laid out security measures were followed. 

We had a room on the 12^th floor while the company meeting was held on a lower floor. During the course of our meeting we heard planes flying close by and for a minute or two our meeting stopped just to confirm everything was normal. We resumed the meeting but for my family and a few others who saw four jet planes fly past the building at break-neck speed there was anxiety with reminiscence to the plane hits to the World Trade Centre until it became known that the jets had been practicing for the Kenyatta Day celebrations that were marked in Kenya last Saturday. 

Just prior to checking out, when using the elevator to go down to the reception floor, there was a strange smell possibly left by the ones who had used the lift before us. My son asked me if the smell could be linked with anthrax and while reassuring and explaining to him the little I knew about anthrax, there came this realisation on how vulnerable and afraid our children have become by regularly watching news on television. It also convinced me that when children watch the news, parents should explain to them the existent background to sensitive issues so that they do not react irrationally or with trepidation.