Planting the Seeds of Hope in Kenya
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
November 3, 2006
Unbowed: A Memoir (UK & USA versions)
"Unbowed," Wangari Maathai's honest, compelling, and heartfelt memoir, is the story of a brave woman's struggle in the face of daunting odds. But it is also a well-told history lesson that describes the defective premise and negative aftereffects of colonialism, lessons worth learning because of their implications to this very day.
Maathai is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, responsible for planting more than 30 millino trees in her native Kenya during the last 29 years. Because her activism conflicted with government policy (of giving away rights to national forests to friends of the president), she was beaten and jailed but not defeated. She was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
Maathai, born in 1940, grew up in the highlands of Kenya at a time of natural abundance. Ancient tribal traditions still held sway and people understood Mother Nature's delicate balancing act.
As she grew older, the modern world intruded into her corner of paradise. By modern world, I mean, in large measure, greed. Europeans (the British in this case), of course, knew what was best for the indigenous people. They denuded forests, sending topsoil tumbling into once-pristine streams. They gave the most fertile land to settlers. And they pushed native farmers out of subsistence crops with which they'd fed their families for generations into cash crops that somehow never generated sufficient income to meet their needs.
Maathai's family scraped together the pennies needed to get her into school. She showed a natural inclination for learning and received scholarships to attend college in the United States, earning a bachelor's degree from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kan., and a master's from the University of Pittsburgh. It was unusual for anyone from her area to go to school; that a woman was sent was virtually unheard of.
When she returned to Kenya in 1966, after independence, Maathai was "buoyed by the enthusiasm and optimism I sensed around me." Everyone "felt that Kenya's destiny was in our hands."
But she was wrong. "What I did not know then was that tribalism and other forms of corruption were going to become some of the most divisive factors in our society, and they would fracture the dreams of the Kenyan people."
But of course they did. What struck Maathai the most was the physical degradation of the environment and its impact on rural people. So she set about trying to rectify the situation and founded the Green Belt Movement, which paid rural women pennies to plant seedlings. By default, the Green Belt Movement became part of the larger struggle for democracy. These were acts of defiance and courage.
Maathai was publicly ridiculed because she was divorced. She was jailed. Amnesty International had to come to her aid at one point. She was beaten. But she stood up to it all.
Maathai's prose is spare and simple. But her passion comes through clearly. Freedom is precious. It is easy to have one's rights taken away and we must all be vigilant.
Maathai is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, responsible for planting more than 30 millino trees in her native Kenya during the last 29 years. Because her activism conflicted with government policy (of giving away rights to national forests to friends of the president), she was beaten and jailed but not defeated. She was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
Maathai, born in 1940, grew up in the highlands of Kenya at a time of natural abundance. Ancient tribal traditions still held sway and people understood Mother Nature's delicate balancing act.
As she grew older, the modern world intruded into her corner of paradise. By modern world, I mean, in large measure, greed. Europeans (the British in this case), of course, knew what was best for the indigenous people. They denuded forests, sending topsoil tumbling into once-pristine streams. They gave the most fertile land to settlers. And they pushed native farmers out of subsistence crops with which they'd fed their families for generations into cash crops that somehow never generated sufficient income to meet their needs.
Maathai's family scraped together the pennies needed to get her into school. She showed a natural inclination for learning and received scholarships to attend college in the United States, earning a bachelor's degree from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kan., and a master's from the University of Pittsburgh. It was unusual for anyone from her area to go to school; that a woman was sent was virtually unheard of.
When she returned to Kenya in 1966, after independence, Maathai was "buoyed by the enthusiasm and optimism I sensed around me." Everyone "felt that Kenya's destiny was in our hands."
But she was wrong. "What I did not know then was that tribalism and other forms of corruption were going to become some of the most divisive factors in our society, and they would fracture the dreams of the Kenyan people."
But of course they did. What struck Maathai the most was the physical degradation of the environment and its impact on rural people. So she set about trying to rectify the situation and founded the Green Belt Movement, which paid rural women pennies to plant seedlings. By default, the Green Belt Movement became part of the larger struggle for democracy. These were acts of defiance and courage.
Maathai was publicly ridiculed because she was divorced. She was jailed. Amnesty International had to come to her aid at one point. She was beaten. But she stood up to it all.
Maathai's prose is spare and simple. But her passion comes through clearly. Freedom is precious. It is easy to have one's rights taken away and we must all be vigilant.