Sixteen children are dead in yet another Kenyan school fire. A tragedy, undeniably. But while the flames have barely cooled, the British inspectorate has already issued a statement: a global overhaul of dormitory fire safety is required. The reflexive internationalism of our age never misses an opportunity to turn local catastrophe into a universal moral lesson. It is as if the Victorian missionary impulse has been reborn in the form of clipboard-carrying administrators who believe that a new set of rules, stamped in Geneva or London, will save the world.
Let us be clear. Kenya’s school fires are not a design flaw in the global fire safety regime. They are a symptom of a deeper rot: a culture of negligence, corruption, and the systematic devaluation of life that has taken hold in too many corners of the world. Britain’s own fire safety standards are the product of centuries of industrial tragedy and parliamentary bickering. They cannot be air-dropped onto a society where fire extinguishers are often empty, where electrical wiring is installed by unlicensed labour, and where dormitories are built with no regard for the most basic principles of evacuation. To pretend otherwise is the height of intellectual decadence.
Compare this to the fall of Rome, when Diocletian sought to impose uniform price controls across the empire. The edicts were noble in intent but utterly blind to local realities. They failed, just as these global fire safety mandates will fail unless they address the underlying capacity and will of local authorities to enforce them. The British inspectors mean well, but well-meaning is not enough. It can even be dangerous, as it substitutes the illusion of action for the hard work of political and cultural change.
What Kenya needs is not a memo from London. It needs a reckoning with its own governance. It needs school inspectors who are paid a living wage and empowered to shut down death traps. It needs a judiciary that punishes builders who cut corners. It needs a public that demands accountability from its leaders, not just a sympathetic headline. The tragedy of the sixteen lies not only in their deaths but in the predictable response: a flurry of international concern, a few reforms that are ignored or circumvented, and then silence until the next fire.
This is not to absolve Britain of its historical crimes. Colonial rule left deep scars, and the West’s ongoing extraction of Kenyan talent and resources is a fact. But the moral pose of the inspectorate is an insult to the dead. It presumes that the problem is a lack of British expertise rather than a lack of Kenyan political will. It treats the victims as passive recipients of aid rather than as citizens with agency. It is, in short, a form of intellectual colonialism dressed in regulatory clothing.
I am not arguing for isolationism. Of course, advice and resources can help. But let us be honest about the limits of global governance. The fire that killed these children was a local event with local causes. The solution must be local too. Until we stop pretending that a UN commission or a British inspector can substitute for a functioning state, the memorials will keep growing. And the bureaucrats will keep drafting their edicts, as Rome burns around them.
