Ian's Blog

  On one hand, an MP is offering KSh 10 million to quell a rumor. On the other, our biggest tennis star is forced to run a fundraiser to raise the same amount. This is Kenya in 2026: a nation of stark, uncomfortable contrasts. Take the latest example: Kasarani MP Ronald Karauri donated KSh 2 million to Oga Obinna to support the Majembe vs. Mbavu Destroyer boxing match. The president, not to be outdone in public spectacle, also offered KSh 4 million for the same event. Suddenly, a private fight between two personalities commands millions from the public purse or at least from public figures eager for visibility. And while we can celebrate support for sport, it becomes hard to ignore the skewed logic in these allocations. These same individuals are unlikely to blink when it comes to supporting boxing at the grassroots level. There, young fighters scrape for gear, pay for gym access out of pocket, and dream of opportunities that never materialize. The money is only made available when...

  I will die on this hill: the KSh 40 billion earmarked for Talanta Stadium would have been far better spent at Kenyatta National Hospital specifically in oncology, nephrology, and cardiology research, infrastructure, and patient care. Not because sports don’t matter. Not because national pride is meaningless. But because priorities matter, and people are dying while we build monuments. This is not an argument against football, athletics, or national celebration. It is an argument for proportionality. It is a question of moral arithmetic. When a country is hemorrhaging lives from preventable and manageable diseases, pouring tens of billions into concrete and seats should at least provoke discomfort. At KNH, cancer patients line corridors waiting for radiotherapy slots that come too late. Kidney patients crowd dialysis units where machines run nonstop and still aren’t enough. Heart disease patients delay treatment because the cost of specialized care is catastrophic for ordinary fam...

  Two hundred years from now, a completely different set of human beings will walk this earth. They will fall in love, argue, build homes, ruin things, fix some of them, and believe just like we do that their moment is the center of history. And we will be gone. Every single one of us. Strangers will live on your land. Someone you will never meet will sleep in your house or perhaps be selling or demolishing it. They will never know your name. They will not wonder who you were. They will not sense your presence in the walls. You will simply be part of the past, invisible and unimportant to them. Your grave if it still exists will be unvisited. The flowers will stop coming. The headstone may erode or be moved or forgotten entirely. No one will sit beside it telling stories about you. No one will say, “They mattered so much.” Not because you were insignificant, but because time is ruthless. Time deletes everyone.That sounds depressing until you sit with it long enough for it to become...

  If there is one biblical moment that I believe should define Christianity, it is not a miracle, a parable, or even a sermon. It is a conversation, short, raw, and happening at the very edge of death. The exchange between Jesus and the thief on the cross strips Christianity down to its bare essentials and confronts us with an uncomfortable truth: salvation is far simpler, and grace far more generous, than we often make it. The Gospel of Luke tells us that Jesus was crucified between two criminals. Roman crucifixion was not a punishment for petty wrongdoing. It was reserved for the worst offenders—rebels, murderers, insurrectionists, and those Rome wanted to make an example of. One of those men, hanging beside Jesus, openly acknowledged his guilt. “We are punished justly,” he said. By every moral, social, and religious standard, this man was a failure. He had lived wrongly, harmed others, and was now paying the ultimate price. There is no indication that this thief had ever followe...

  Helen Andrews’ discussion on the great feminization is unsettling not because it is provocative, but because it is precise. It forces listeners to confront a demographic and cultural shift so vast that we have normalized it before understanding it. Her argument is not that women are incapable, malicious, or unworthy of leadership. Rather, it is that no civilization can radically alter the demographic makeup of its institutions without also altering their values, incentives, and operating logic. Feminization, as she frames it, is not a conspiracy, it is a process. And like all processes, it produces predictable outcomes. At the heart of Andrews’ thesis is a simple but powerful observation: feminization is unprecedented in scale. Human history contains powerful women, female rulers, and even matriarchal tendencies, but never before have women occupied such a large share of political, legal, academic, and managerial authority simultaneously. One-third female legislatures, majority-f...

There is an idea called standing too close to the elephant. When you stand right next to an elephant, all you see is a trunk, a leg, maybe a patch of skin. You cannot grasp its size, its shape, or its meaning. Only when you step back, when time passes, when distance grows can you see the whole animal. Some stories demand that kind of distance. The story of Emmett Till is one of them. Let me give you a history lesson. Early 1950s. United States of America. A fourteen-year-old Black boy named Emmett Till travels from Chicago to Mississippi to visit family. Before he leaves, his mother gives him a warning that says everything about the country at the time: if a white man looks at you, look away. Don’t answer back. Don’t linger. Don’t be bold. Survival depended on submission. But Emmett is from Chicago. He’s not used to Mississippi’s rules. He’s not scared in the way Southern racism required Black children to be scared. One day, he walks into a store. There’s a white woman behind the count...