Wangari won the prize in 2004, becoming the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize through “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace”, but looking at her life, it is clear that she knew early in life that she was bound to make waves and lead people on crusades for freedom, social justice, and peaceful protection of Mother Earth.
In the documentary film, Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, she recalls growing up in the lush green forests that blanketed Mt Kenya, where her people, the Agikuyu, traditionally believed their god, Ngai, stayed.
Here, the mugumo — or fig tree — was sacred and was never meant to be cut, and it was that sacred tree, the thick forest, and pure streams of water coming down from the mountain that Wangari said shaped her childhood vision as well as her lifelong desire to restore the forests that had been carelessly chopped down in the name of progress while she was away studying in the United States.
RESPONSIBILITY TO LEAD
I met Wangari shortly before she started the Greenbelt Movement. At the time, she was still the chairperson of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK), and in an interview for the local media, she told me how she had been raised with a sense of responsibility to lead.
Among the first girls in the country to go to school, her first teachers, the Catholic sisters, had instilled in her a sense of duty to use her gifts wisely and selflessly. That seed of thought, implanted in her heart from a very early age, helps me understand how she went on to become such a courageous trailblazer and fearless freedom fighter, not just for women, but also for the rights of Mother Earth and the people of Africa.
Wangari never forgot that sense of purpose and courage to lead or to speak her mind. She would become “the first” in so many fields, leading both women and men to realise that they too could break glass ceilings and debunk stereotypes that would limit human beings’ achievements.
She would become one of the first Kenyan women to go on the Tom Mboya-John F. Kennedy airlift to the United States for university studies, the first woman PhD in East Africa, the first woman to head a [veterinary] science department at the University of Nairobi, the first woman to spearhead an environmental movement in Africa, and also the first African woman to win the Nobel prize for peace.
The latter was not just contingent on her commitment to conservation and her guidance of the Greenbelt Movement — which had started humbly as a grassroots women’s initiative while she was still the NCWK chairperson before growing to become a global environmental movement responsible for the planting of millions of trees all over the planet — but a celebration of a person who had linked the concepts of reforestation, conflict resolution, peace and development so persuasively that the Swedish philanthropists could hardly reject her candidacy for the prize.
After a messy divorce earlier, she had thrown herself into working for NWCK, largely made up of rural women groups that later became the base from which she built the Greenbelt Movement. Yet it was not only her credentials and work with women that made her a rising star. Wangari had that ineffable quality called charisma, which together with her warmth, wit, and consistent commitment to the environment and to women’s active contribution to it, made her a clear-cut candidate for leadership awards, ranging from the Right Livelihood Prize to the Nobel.
After a lot of run-ins with the Moi regime, the height of which was her successful and often bloody campaign to stop the construction of a multi-storey office block at Uhuru Park, she ventured into national politics and was elected MP for Tetu constituency. But when she was appointed assistant minister for Environment, her supporters were not pleased since she had already won the Nobel and they felt she deserved a senior Cabinet position.
BEST SELLING AUTOBIOGRAPHY
But, for better or for worse, Wangari’s greatest acclaim and appreciation came from outside of Kenya, not from within. She would be invited to speak about Greenbelt and the human rights situation in Kenya everywhere from San Francisco and Stockholm to Tokyo, Toronto, and even Beijing.
Her autobiography, Unbowed, would become a bestseller and she the subject of everything — from children’s books to documentary films.
Tragically, at some point along the way, Wangari acquired ovarian cancer and went for treatment overseas. When she returned she was still strong in spirit and fully committed to continuing her work with the Greenbelt Movement, but she had lost a lot of weight and her body was weak.
Still beaming her beautiful smile, Wangari graced the front cover of one of Kenya’s leading magazines just days before she died. The irony of her passing was that the Kenyan government, under Mwai Kibaki, gave her a grandiose state funeral, something that was traditionally reserved for heads of state. In death, therefore, she was given the respect and recognition that she had deserved while she lived.
Fortunately, her work continues, with her daughter remaining behind the scenes but still serving to help steer her mother’s global movement that nobody wants to see die.
This wonderful woman whose integrity and principled stand for social justice, for her people, and for the planet is still very much alive in the hearts and minds of Kenyans. She passed on in 2011, but her tree-planting initiatives continue to spread all over the globe and her memory is likely to grow, not diminish, since there are buildings, books, theatre productions, and even public art exhibitions being dedicated to her life work all the time.
Here is to a woman people felt privileged to know and love. May she rest in peace.
