As I write this piece, I am in need of filling in an inexplicable bereft-ness in my soul, urging it to forget the events of the last Saturday at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, while letting my tears flow.  I have so many questions, wondering how humanity has come to this. I think about all of the dreams shattered and expectations of life curtailed. I think about a family with a father missing from his usual armchair, a family without a mother humming as she prepares a family delicacy, about muted cackles of laughter from a dear child. I think about a peace shattered, a people shocked and a nation in mourning. I look at my daughter with her cheeky pleas for me to lift her up, her radiant eyes, her life and future ahead of her, I look at my fiancé, her hopes for life, I look at myself and my aspirations, my desire to change the  world and how if I had been there, that would have been shattered. It could have been a family in Karachi, Ankara, Cairo or Boston, for the fear and death that terrorism brings has no boundaries.

The terrorist  at the Westgate mall in Westlands Nairobi shredded my heart and the hearts of many other Kenyans. We have been brought together in tragedy and  we wail together as we have a sense of unity during tragedy, a sense of love for our neighbors. In the midst of all this mayhem I am still racking my mind of why. Why us? I can’t help but note how violent death and terror is the greatest impediment of the ‘pursuit of happiness.’

I think about libertarianism, about respecting other people’s rights, about the pacifism that is a core tenet in libertarianism. I think about toleration, toleration of religion, of tribe and community, and toleration of being.

I feel for all the  mourning families who were victims of the mall shooting. Imagine if we had a society that allowed all individuals regardless of tribe, race, gender, or being to pursue their happiness however they wished. Imagine if we had society that had toleration as one of its key principles. Wouldn’t it be peace on earth if everybody and authority respected the rights to worship and religion? Wouldn’t we be spared all of these mindless wars?

Peace can reign on earth if reason is allowed to reign, and reason will reign on earth if we go back to the roots of human development. We need to have a society founded on freedom and respect for human rights. Societies founded on freedom have peace and bliss in abundance. Only then will there be peace on earth.