Security officers disperse fans at Nyayo Stadium during the 2026/27 Football Kenya Federation Super Cup match between Gor Mahia and Tusker FC on Sunday afternoon. Tusker won 3-1. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]
For many sports enthusiasts, Martin Niemoller is a name that would hardly ring a bell, if at all.
For context's sake, Niemoller was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany who sympathised with many Nazi ideas, but after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, the pastor became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church.
He pontificated to whoever cared to listen that individual Germans failed to accept responsibility for Nazism at the time. To him, no one wanted to take responsibility for the atrocities committed against those with dissenting views.
Like many others, initially, he chose to keep quiet. Looked the other way and pretended that nothing was happening. He heard no evil. He saw no evil. He spoke no evil.
Later Niemoller, unlike many of us, overtly admitted his moral letdowns committed during the Nazi era. That the church failed the masses was never in doubt. For that too, he owned up and coined the famous poem; “...First they came...”
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”