Tabitha Kanogo - Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai

OHIO SHORT HISTORIES OF AFRICA

This series of Ohio Short Histories of Africa is meant for those who are looking for a brief but lively introduction to a wide range of topics in African history, politics, and biography, written by some of the leading experts in their fields.

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A Short History of Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart

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Wangari Maathai

by Tabitha Kanogo

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Wangari Maathai

Tabitha Kanogo

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kanogo, Tabitha M., author.

Title: Wangari Maathai / Tabitha Kanogo.

Description: Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2020. | Series: Ohio short histories of Africa | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019059716 | ISBN 9780821424179 (paperback) | ISBN 9780821440711 (adobe pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Maathai, Wangari. | Green Belt Movement (Society : Kenya) | Women conservationists--Kenya--Biography. | Women politicians--Kenya--Biography. | Nobel Prize winners--Kenya--Biography.

Classification: LCC SB63.M22 K36 2020 | DDC 333.72092--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059716

Contents

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Gillian Berchowitz for her patience during the preparation of this book. I join many in recognizing her outstanding support for African studies. Ricky Huard oversaw the final editing of the manuscript. I am also grateful to the anonymous readers whose candid comments I found useful in the later stages of preparing the book. This work is a tribute to the women of Kenya, especially female Mau Mau veterans, whose valor was altruistic.

May 30, 2019 Berkeley, California

Abbreviations

Introduction

Wangari Maathai, the Global Icon

In presenting the Nobel Peace Prize to Professor Wangari Muta Maathai in 2004, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, alluded to the multidimensional nature of this remarkable womans public career: Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment. Maathai stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic, and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa. She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and womens rights in particular. She thinks globally and acts locally.

For over three decades, Wangari Maathai waged a fierce battle for environmental conservation, human rights, democracy, sustainable development, gender equity, and the eradication of poverty. This activism put her on a collision course with the Kenyan government from 1978 to 2002, as the regime became increasingly authoritarian and corrupt and progressively failed to deliver basic services to the majority of the population. For Maathai, corruption was lethal. She captured her ire toward the vice in these words:

If it is a crime to kill a million people in Rwanda in 1994, it should be a crime to steal millions of dollars from ordinary Africans, thereby causing the death [of] millions of innocent people through sustained hunger and malnutrition, lack of adequate health care, and inflationary prices which make it impossible for millions of Africans to provide their families with basic needs. Why is this type of a crime tolerated by the international community? Why is the victim to blame while the culprit goes free and lives in comfort?

An activist most of her adult life in Kenya, Maathai paid heavily for her outspoken and at times biting criticism of the government. But at the same time, she acquired global recognition and inspired millions to commit to protecting and rejuvenating the environment by planting trees. She birthed and nurtured the Green Belt Movement (GBM), renowned for planting over 50 million trees in Kenya. For Maathai, to plant a tree was to plant hope and peace. At the time of her death in 2011, the movement had mushroomed into a multipronged organization that continued to promote a holistic approach in focusing on environmental protection, the strengthening of rural communities, and the economic empowerment of those involved in the movement; today, GBM has chapters all over the world. Maathai had a heightened sense of urgency regarding the need to conserve the environment. She believed that it was not a matter for tomorrow and that the environment is [an] everyday issue... the air we breathe.