Maathai: Unbowed, even in death

Many have described her as a patriot and a hero, and Prof Wangari Maathai deserves it all, and then some more. She literally fought for the conservation of the environment with her blood, sweat and tears, and lived her life not for herself, but for future generations, writes NJOKI CHEGE

Professor Wangari Muta Maathai will go down the chronicles of history as the woman of many firsts who rose to the echelons of power, ruffled many feathers, demystified myths and took many leaps of faith, thanks to her boldness, courage and unfaltering passion for Mother Nature.

The history of the world will not be complete without the mention of her name, and a critical look at how she lived her life; selfless, humble and noble to the core.

When news broke that she had succumbed to ovarian cancer, Kenya and the whole world mourned because she was God’s gift to mankind. Her conservation efforts shaped our environment and subsequently our world. Hopefully, the mark she left will be felt many years from now and future generations will honour her work and borrow a leaf from her.

Besides being the vocal conservationist and activist, Wangari was a daughter, a sister, a mother and a grandmother. She was a true African woman juggling family, a lustrous career and a fight for a good cause — our environment.

Born in Ihithe in Nyeri on April 1, 1940, at a time when school was a preserve for boys, Wangari managed to attend school on her elder brother’s (Nderitu) intervention. Nderitu was concerned that little Wangari was always left at home as the boys went to school.

Wangari was, therefore, enrolled in school in spite of negative comments from neighbours, teachers and friends who saw no need for her schooling. But undeterred and unfazed, she pressed on and earned a Master’s degree in 1966, at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. The same year she joined the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Nairobi.

Excelling early

Wangari became the woman with the Midas touch, turning whatever she touched into gold, excelling in everything she set her mind to even if it meant putting her life on the line.

In 1971, she became the first woman in East Africa to receive a PhD, the first woman to chair a department at the University of Nairobi and the first to be appointed a professor.

In a way, the many trials and tribulations she faced as a little school girl struggling to prove that girls really had brains was an acid test for greater tribulations to come in the hands of a ruthless regime that only a few could stand up against.

Wangari met and loved Mwangi Mathai in 1966 and they got married in 1969. The young couple was eager to start a family and to live happily.

Wangari supported her husband’s political aspirations, juggling a demanding job as university lecturer, her role as a mother and a politician’s wife. It wasn’t easy.

"I was expected to be a superwoman, which I wasn’t, and consequently the campaign was both trying and tiring. I hoped my partner appreciated what I was sacrificing for him," Wangari states in her autobiography, Unbowed — One Woman’s Story.

In those days, it was unheard of that a woman was more educated and more respected than her husband, so Wangari tried to be as modest as possible, hoping her conduct did not jeopardise her husband’s chances of clinching the parliamentary seat.

"I was very conscious of the fact that a highly educated woman like me ran the risk of making her husband lose votes and support if I was accused of not being enough of an African woman, of being ‘a white woman in black skin’," she wrote in her book.

As fate would have it, the couple would divorce in 1977. Wangari then only 37, was devastated and distraught and hoped for reconciliation but none was coming. But it was not the failed reconciliation that devastated her. It was the sensationalism that the messy divorce case was treated with. Her private affairs were turned into a melodramatic public ‘soap opera’ and fodder for the press.

She took the blame for the divorce — she was not surprised as society always blamed the woman for the divorce. But Wangari Maathai felt short-changed, as she she states candidly in her autobiography: "I knew that he would blame me for the failure, even as the public, too, would blame me; It is always the woman’s fault. I thought I had done everything; humbled myself, helped with his public role, served him, and loved him."

The divorce was granted on grounds of adultery and cruelty (that she caused her husband’s high blood pressure).

The family went through a three-week public trial, the most traumatising period of Wangari’s life. She endured lies and accusations waged against her and felt as if she were being stripped naked before her children, family and friends.

Eventually, it was over. But Wangari was left stranded and penniless, with little to call her own. Steadily and surely, she dusted herself and rose again, like a phoenix from the ashes, and not even the sky was her limit, this time.

Like most young women, Wangari loved her short dresses, trousers and heels. She was, after all, educated in the US, where new fashion trends emerged almost every day.

But when she became a politician’s wife, everything changed. She was now under the public microscope, where every move she made and every word she uttered was carefully examined and scrutinised. The way she dressed mattered a great deal.

Trend setter

Wangari did not want to wear clothes that would put her in a compromising situation because they were too tight, fitting or short.

She, therefore, developed a more modest sense of style that she never departed from until her last breath —the long flowing kitenge dresses and skirts, coupled with a matching headscarf devotedly knotted at the left.

What began as an adjustment to a new way of life became the trademark that many, both locally and internationally, admired her for.

In the 1970s Wangari was actively involved in environmental and humanitarian organisations. She spent her time speaking to women in rural Kenya, who shared how the deteriorating environmental and social conditions were affecting them; how they lacked firewood, clean water and nutritious food.

Wangari suggested planting trees as a solution. The trees would provide wood for cooking, fodder for livestock and material for fencing; they would protect watersheds and stabilise the soil, improving agriculture.

Hence the Green Belt Movement (GBM) was conceived. The movement was formally established in 1977 and has since mobilised hundreds of thousands of women and men to plant more than 47 million trees in Kenya, restoring diminishing environments and consequently improving the quality of life for people. In the 1980s and 1990s, Wangari found herself in the middle of what could probably be termed as the ruling regime’s biggest scandal.

She hogged the headlines and gathered acres of newspaper coverage for fighting former president Moi’s efforts to construct a skyscraper in Uhuru Park in Nairobi. She also opposed grabbing of public land in Karura forest in Nairobi, a battle that saw her beaten mercilessly by police officers.

Servant Leadership

Wangari also helped lead a year-long vigil with the mothers of political prisoners, which resulted in freedom of 51 men held by the Government.

Because of these and more, Wangari and her colleagues were repeatedly beaten, jailed, harassed and publicly belittled by the Moi regime. But even after she was maligned, called names and threatened to be circumcised to ‘teach her a lesson’, Wangari neither budged nor broke. Instead, she steeled herself and continued fighting for human rights and the environment.

The now matured feminist movement in the country can attribute its roots to Wangari as she was one of the founder members and chairperson of the National Council of Women of Kenya from 1981-1987.

Wangari said that she resorted to pro-democracy activism after she realised that her conservationist efforts could not work on such a hostile political environment.

Her baptism of fire into politics came when she first attempted to vie for Tetu parliamentary seat in 1982. She failed after the courts locked her out in a ruling she claimed was politically motivated.

By then, Wangari had resigned from her position at the University of Nairobi to campaign for the Tetu seat. The ruling was delivered on the last day of submission of nomination papers. To add salt to the injury, the university rejected her application to get her job back. She lost her claim as an employee and was consequently thrown out of the staff house.

Unbowed, Wangari in 1997 ran for president but lost. She also failed to clinch the Tetu parliamentary seat. In her autobiography, she attributed her poor performance to the politics of ethnicity and personality cult.

Fate would later smile at her during the December 2002 election when she won the Tetu seat overwhelmingly and was appointed an Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife.

She served in the position from January 2003 and November 2005 when she resigned to concentrate on global engagements, following the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Albeit her international recognition, she did not manage to defend her Tetu seat in the 2007 general election. When she lost in the PNU nominations, she decamped to the Green Party of Kenya.

Unsung heroine at home, feted icon to the world

While her country didn’t seem to recognise her work, internationally, Wangari had many admirers. In 2004, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work for sustainable development, democracy, and peace.

She thus became the first African woman and the first environmentalist to receive this award.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that Wangari "stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa."

The committee applauded the holistic approach of her work and called her "a strong voice speaking for the best forces in Africa to promote peace and good living conditions on that continent."

Recently, Wangari has played important roles in global efforts to address climate change, specifically by advocating for the protection of indigenous forests and the inclusion of civil society in policy decisions.

In 2005, ten Central African governments appointed her the goodwill ambassador for the Congo Basin rainforest. That same year, she accepted the position of presiding officer of the African Union’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council (Ecosocc).

In 2006, Wangari joined the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) to launch a campaign to plant a billion trees around the world. That goal was met in less than a year; the target now stands at 14 billion.

In 2009, she was appointed a United Nations Messenger of Peace by Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

Last year, she became a trustee of the Karura Forest Environmental Education Trust. At the same time, in partnership with the University of Nairobi, she established the Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies (WMI). The WMI will bring together academic research — in land use, forestry, agriculture, resource-based conflicts and peace studies — with the Green Belt Movement’s approach and members of the organisation. Through sharing experiences, academics and those working at the grassroots will learn from and educate each other about the linkages between livelihoods and ecosystems.

Humility to the end

In spite of her high profile ranking and status quo, Wangari did not live in opulence as expected. Whenever she was at her rural home in Ihithe, Nyeri, Wangari would live in a simple, three bedroomed mud house with a dilapidated iron sheet roof that she inherited from her mother.

The house is nestled in a clean environment, with two granaries and indigenous trees estimated to be over a hundred years old. The last time she was there, she instructed the designated caretaker to plant some seedlings she had earmarked. Even in her last moments, she was every bit the environmentalist.