LESSON FROM WANGARI MAATHAI:

I have recently been enthralled in the pages of the book “Unbowed” by Wangari Maathi. Her memoir is powerful and moving. Like Shirin Ebadi’s “Iran Awaking” and Somaly Mam’s “The Return to Lost Innocence”, Maathi’s memoir reflects pure power in the face of oppressive forces.

When reading through the pages, I can only think that I had wished I had this book when I was in Malawi as a Peace Corps volunteer. She enlightens people who are set to make projects in trying conditions bringing culture, history, environment, and personal life experience together. Not only would the book empower prospective Peace Corps volunteers, but also and more importantly her story would empower Kenyan and Malawian women as well as women from almost any developing nation.

As with Winona LaDuke and Vandana Shiva, Wangari brings with her lifework an inclusion of ecological awareness in bringing together social problems and environmental concerns. With her Green Belt Movement in Kenya, her project “grew from a tree-planting program into one that planted ideas as well,” encouraging women and men to identify problems and find the source of where these problems root.

“I knew that we could not live with a political system that killed creativity, nurtured corruption, and produced people who were afraid of their own leaders,” this strength brought Maathai into continual confrontation between her and her government. The Green Belt Movement not only became a tree planting organization, a women’s rights organization, or a human rights organization, but a voice for democratic growth.

When her government began to target her and disregard her for being an educated woman, she responded with her being a woman was irrelevant, and that the complexity of the problems in society required the use of not anatomy from below the waist, but anatomy of what lies above the neck (Maathai). Critical thinking had little to do with gender, but the ability of the human brain to solve problems of environment, economy, and social inclusion.

“Every experience has a lesson. Every situation has a silver lining. Each person needs to raise their consciousness to a certain level so that they will not give up or succumb. If your consciousness is at such a level, you are willing to do what you believe is the right thing – popular opinion notwithstanding” (Wangari Maathai).

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Another great Kenyan voice, Ngugi wa Thiongo, read his book: "Petals of Blood" or "Devil on the Cross".