In this episode, Dr. Samar Al-Bulushi and Rene Odanga join us as we explore the ways that Kenya's participation in the global "War on Terror" created mechanisms that are used to this day to suppress dissent, including the widely reported surveillance, arbitrary arrest, abduction, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killing during the Gen Z protests of 2024 and 2025.

Following the August 7th 1998 attack in Nairobi, Kenya ramped up its policing against its citizens in Northern Kenya and the Coastal region who had always been racialized as "other" since the pre-independence era.

Supported heavily by the United States, Israel and other imperial powers, Kenya militarized its policing, introducing units such as the Anti Terror Police Unit and the Rapid Response Unit, which used the Anti-Terrorism Act to act with almost absolute impunity against Kenyan citizens.

These are the same forces that continue to be used against dissenting Kenyans today to prop up the government in the aftermath of the #RejectFinanceBill protests and waning popularity of Ruto’s administration amidst unemployment, rising poverty, and other crises in the country.In the conversation, we also touch on the ways in which Kenya has become a sub-imperial power, building its own international image by intervening in other global South states such as Somalia and Haiti.

For those watching from Nairobi/Kenya, Dr. Al-Bulushi’s book, War-making as World Making: Kenya, the United States and the War on Terror, which forms the basis of this discussion, can be found for sale at Cheche Bookshop in Lavington and online here https://www.amazon.com/War-Making-Worldmaking-United-States-Terror/dp/1503640914

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