By Atle Hetland,The Nation.
Wangari Mary Josephine Maathai (1940-2011) passed away on September 25. She was a Kenyan and Africa’s first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize Winner (2004). More importantly, she was one of the world’s greatest human beings we have seen. True, there have been many great women and men walking on this earth, of course, and many are not given the recognition that Professor Maathai was in their lifetime. However, her achievements, bravery and selfless actions were outstanding. The risks and the beatings Maathai took, literally, too, when she stood up for detainees in Kenya in 1993, staging a yearlong vigil in All Saints’ Cathedral downtown Nairobi, together with mothers and other relatives, made her one of the most respected and loved women in Kenya. She got results; the authoritarian and sometimes dictatorial regime of President Moi released more than 100 young men kept as political prisoners, often mistreated and tortured.
She also mobilised popular support against the government when it wanted to build a 60-story media centre at the corner of the main Uhuru Park in Nairobi; it would have been like taking a part of the Hyde Park in London for a government office. It was good that the project was eventually shelved because the main financier, the shady Robert Maxwell’s empire crumbled soon after. The regime should have thanked Maathai, but the leaders that time were not amused and President Moi called her a “mad woman”, not that it matters because she had support from people and sections of the establishment and could withstand such a characteristics.
Maathai was for many years the Chair of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK), but the government created a separate women’s organisation, affiliated to the then ruling party KANU. It was called “Maendeleo ya Wanawake” in kishwahili, the national language of Kenya, and it became the de facto main women’s organisation in place of NCWK.
Interestingly, many of Maathai’s broader achievements came early in her life, in the 1970s and 80s, when she founded and led the Green Belt Movement, which organised the planting of the fantastic number of 50 million trees in Kenya. Initially, her environmental work was carried out in partnership with her husband. But then they parted ways work-wise and privately. He said in court at the divorce trial that he could not control that woman anymore! Good, maybe he shouldn’t even have tried to? Why is it that we human beings try to control each other, rather than help and support each other? And it seems the couple didn’t really disagree that much, because after a while, she gave custody of the three children to her former husband, with her frequent visits to the home.
It was almost by accident that Maathai, or Mary Josephine that time, was enrolled in school. Her two elder brothers were already going to school and she was allowed to join them in the village school in Nyeri, which was part of the ‘white highlands’ in those days, remembering that independence came to Kenya only in 1963. She went on to a Catholic boarding school and graduated as a top student, and was then part of the ‘airlift’ of 300 students, who got university education in America. When she returned, she joined the university as a lecturer and, later, when she had done her PhD in biology, and also had a German DAAD scholarship, she became a full professor at the Veterinary College of the University of Nairobi. In 1972 onwards, she was an adviser in connection with the establishment of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN Habitat in Nairobi, the two only UN headquartered to be in a developing country.
But life was not always easy for Maathai, neither her public nor her private life. Once when she was asked to comment on how she could live with so many difficulties, she said: “Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them pick themselves up again and keep going, and that is what I have always tried to do.” Such a simple comment and such a true fact of life, giving all of us comfort and hope.
I worked in Kenya in the 1980s and 90s where I met Maathai. I remember her as a unique woman, highly committed, and indeed, extremely warm, lively and human person. She represented the best and most typical in African women and men, anywhere on the globe. That is part of what we should celebrate and learn from Maathai, as she has now passed. The dust will settle, but the work will continue - and so many African brothers and sisters will miss her. African men, too, always loved Maathai - a woman they could trust, who would always stand up for what she believed was right, taking many risks, which the brave men could not even take. I believe she reminded men of the woman they loved and feared.
When the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 - the year after the first Muslim woman received the prize, notably Shirin Ebadi, Iran - it did not emphasise the ordinariness of Professor Maathai. The Committee drew attention to the uniqueness of her achievements: “Maathai stood up courageously against the former regime in Kenya. Her unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression - nationally and internationally. She has served as an inspiration for many in the fight for democratic rights and has especially encouraged women to better their lives.”
Yes, I believe Pakistani women and men, and Norwegian and people anywhere, can learn from the distinguished African Woman Nobel Laureate. Thank you for having walked on this earth. You will be remembered with deep respect. You were a true African woman, a human being we can all admire. Now the mantle is with us, to carry on what you started so the women and men in African and elsewhere can live better lives, in peace, democracy and prosperity.
The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist based in Islamabad. He has served as United Nations Specialist in the United States, as well as various countries in Africa and Asia. He has also spent a decade dealing with the Afghan refugee crisis and university education in Pakistan.
Email: atlehetland@yahoo.com