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Jan 17, 2025 | 
debunk.media | Mohamed Amin Abdishukri |Isaac Otidi Amuke |Lilian Mutinda
In 2017, during my second year studying International Relations at university, my sister gave me a book that would go on to reshape my perspective on my coursework. This book became my companion and reference point during countless evening debates with coursemates in the school cafeteria over masala tea, and a frequent source of citations in my term papers. The book was UNsilenced: Unmasking the United Nations’ Culture of Cover-Ups, Corruption and Impunity. The author was Rasna Warah.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
debunk.media | Bobby Mkangi |Isaac Otidi Amuke |Lilian Mutinda |Soila Kenya
Although I never got to meet Rasna Warah in person, I feel like I knew her very well. This is because of her open, forthright, and provocative style of writing. I met her through her words, sentences, paragraphs, articles, tweets, and books, through which she effectively weaved and curated her thoughts and emotions. Her oeuvre was sincere, engaging and generous, to the extent that interacting with it over the years left me feeling like I personally knew her.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
debunk.media | Chia Kayanda |Isaac Otidi Amuke |Lilian Mutinda
My father loved to retweet Rasna Warah. I think in her, he believed he’d found a kindred political spirit. Someone who saw all the injustice for what it was and had the courage to scream, “For crying out loud!” But my father, being the parastatal man that he was, born during colonialism and adulting through the Jomo Kenyatta to Daniel arap Moi eras, was imbued with The Fear. The fear of arbitrary arrest. The fear of abduction. The fear of torture. The fear of death.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
debunk.media | Frank Njugi |Isaac Otidi Amuke |Soila Kenya |Lilian Mutinda
No account in regards to Kenyan letters and writing can be credibly written in which Rasna Warah won’t feature. As one of the central markers of Kenyan Journalism, here was one whose style of commentary on issues was arresting, and will always remain original to me. When I became a journalist, Rasna Warah was not just a source of inspiration, but someone who helped me find my journalistic voice.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
debunk.media | Angel Lovely |Isaac Otidi Amuke |Soila Kenya |Lilian Mutinda
Rasna Warah was a bold African writer. I purposefully don’t use the term fearless as I doubt most people are. She wrote and she shared her work, and her portfolio is something to be proud of. I hope that as she passed, she was proud and content with her work. It is something to be admired especially because of the conditions under which she wrote. Bold. Admirable. I am happy and relieved that writers like her exist.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
debunk.media | Mwende Ngao |Isaac Otidi Amuke |Lilian Mutinda |Mwende NgaoUpdated
Rasna Warah’s contributions to journalism and social discourse cannot be understated. She was fearless and deeply committed to using her voice to expose corruption, inequality, and governance and social failures. I read her work and respected and admired her for it. However, some of her views were not without controversy, as she faced criticism for being racially insensitive.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
debunk.media | Soila Kenya |Isaac Otidi Amuke |Lilian Mutinda |Eddy Ashioya
I didn’t know Rasna Warah personally, but our sole interaction gave me a glimpse into her kind soul. After writing an article on my struggles with anxiety on Debunk Media’s Public Square, Rasna, as a fellow writer on the platform, expressed her compassion and understanding to me on Twitter. She went ahead to suggest I try Ashwagandha. I never got to tell her I did and that I’ll never forget her empathy. As a journalist, I’ve known of Rasna’s work for years.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
debunk.media | Doddy MaruUpdated |Isaac Otidi Amuke |Lilian Mutinda
Rasna Warah’s voice was always lucid, never quivering, her resolve never wavering as she spoke in the name of justice. The loss of Rasna Warah is immense as she was an amplifier of many important voices speaking up for social justice and anti-imperialism. Rasna Warah’s spirit will live on in the voices she amplified, the words she wove, and the love she sowed. Rasna Warah, we speak your name with honour in the land of the living.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
debunk.media | Abigail Arunga |Isaac Otidi Amuke |Lilian Mutinda |Soila Kenya
All you really want, when you get into the messy, highly guarded, ruthless world of writing, full of mostly unwarranted ego and an editor who hates you, is for someone to read you. Anyone, really. Of course you want to write for yourself, but you want someone else to agree with you. You want one person to read you and change their mind because of your logic, or your wit, or even by chance, you know? Anyway, it happens.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
debunk.media | Asha Mwilu |Isaac Otidi Amuke |Soila Kenya |Lilian Mutinda
In early 2023, I had many moments of are we going to Malindi or not? Rasna Warah, whose column in the Nation I had occasionally stumbled upon, had been brought into the Debunk fold by Isaac Otidi Amuke, Debunk’s editor-in-chief. We had rolled out an op-ed page, and Rasna was top of the list. Rasna was battling cancer, confronting what she later articulated to me as feelings of general isolation.
