Strength of Being by Clara Silva

Strength Of being

African women who are fighting tradition, taking their place in society and changing their countries

Thoughts on Savanna from the think on paper series by Gmund

Strength Of being Thoughts on Savanna from the think on paper series by Gmund Book designed by Clara Silva

Copyright ÂŠ 2010 BĂźttenpapierfabrik Gmund GmbH & Co. KG All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without permission of copyright holder.

This book is dedicated to the women of Africa

STRENGTH OF BEING

savanna by gmund

INTRODUCTION

savanna by gmund

A savanna is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses. It is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in many savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in forest. Savannas are also characterized by seasonal water availability, with the majority of rainfall confined to one season. Savannas are associated with several types of biomes. They are frequently in a transitional zone between forest and desert or prairie. Savannas cover 20% of the globe not including oceans. The largest area of savanna is in Africa. That’s why Gmund chose to think about Africa when promoting its Savanna paper. Although it has abundant natural resources, Africa remains the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped continent. In villages across Africa, old women suspected of witchcraft are hacked to death, while young girls are mutilated to preserve their virginity. But attitudes are changing – and thousands of lives are being saved. A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier. You can’t fight poverty effectively unless you educate, emancipate and empower women, and bring them into the formal economy. In this book you will find stories of three remarkable women who are changing the face of the savanna.

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Introduction

Table Of

Contents

P8 Agnes Pareyio

This chapter is about the remarkable work that Agnes Pareyio is doing within the Maasai community in Kenya. The Maasai are one of the many tribes that practice female genital mutilation in Africa. A Maasai herself, Pareyio do not deny her origins, she is proud to be a Maasai, but that does not mean that traditions cannot be changed. It started as a small step but education is transforming the Maasai community.

P22 ngozi okonjo-iweala

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was Nigeriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s financial minister. One of the few female financial ministers in African history. Okonjo-Iweala was feared among Nigerian leaders, she fought corruption with passion and managed to return millions of dollars in stolen assets to be invested in her country. Now she works for the World Bank and is invested in helping African women start business and gain a place in the economy. That might be one of the smartest moves to solve poverty in Africa.

P36 Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai may be one of the most famous African woman in the world. She was the first African women to receive the Nobel peace prize in 2004, for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace. Her efforts to save her home country, Kenya, from the destruction that years of colonialism and corruption had brought began nearly 40 years ago. It started as an environmental program but its roots grew much deeper. As Maathai puts it â&#x20AC;&#x153;The planting of trees is the planting of ideas. By starting with the simple act of planting a tree, we give hope to ourselves and to future generations.â&#x20AC;?

STRENGTH OF BEING

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mutilation

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female genital

Female genital cutting (FGC), also known as female genital mutilation (FGM), or female circumcision, is any procedure involving the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs “whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons.” The term is almost exclusively used to describe traditional or religious procedures on a minor, which requires the parents’ consent because of the age of the girl. FGC is practiced throughout the world, with the practice concentrated most heavily in Asia and Africa. Opposition is motivated by concerns regarding the consent (or lack thereof, in most cases) of the patient, and subsequently the safety and long-term consequences of the procedures. In the past several decades, there have been many concentrated efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) to end the practice of FGC. The United Nations has also declared February 6 as “International Day Against Female Genital Mutilation.” Type I The WHO defines Type I FGM as the partial or total removal of the clitoris (clitoridectomy) and/or the prepuce (clitoral hood); see Diagram 1B. When it is important to distinguish between the variations of Type I mutilation, the following subdivisions are proposed: Type Ia, removal of the clitoral hood or prepuce only; Type Ib, removal of the clitoris with the prepuce. In the context of women who seek out labiaplasty, there is disagreement among doctors as to whether to remove the clitoral hood in some cases to enhance sexuality or whether this is too likely to lead to scarring and other problems. Type II The WHO’s definition of Type II FGM is “partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora. When it is important to distinguish between the major variations that have been documented, the following subdivisions are proposed: Type IIa, removal of the labia minora only; Type IIb, partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora; Type IIc, partial or total removal of the clitoris, the labia minora and the labia majora

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Agnes Pareyio

Type III: Infibulation with excision The WHO defines Type III FGM as narIn Africa, rowing of the vaginal orifice with creation of a covering seal by cutting and about three repositioning the labia minora and/or the labia majora, with or without excision of the clitoris (infibulation).” It is the most extensive form of FGM, million and accounts for about 10% of all FGM procedures described from Africa. girls a year Infibulation is also known as “pharaonic circumcision.” In a study of infibuare at risk lation in the Horn of Africa, Pieters observed that the procedure involves tissue removal of the external genitalia, including all of the for female extensive labia minora and the inside of the labia majora. The labia majora are then genital held together using thorns or stitching. In some cases the girl’s legs have tied together for two to six weeks, to prevent her from moving and mutilation been to allow the healing of the two sides of the vulva. Nothing remains — more than but the walls of flesh from the pubis down to the anus, with the exception of an opening at the inferior portion of the vulva to 8,000 a day. allow urine and menstrual blood to pass through. Generally, a practitioner recognized as having the necessary skill carries out this procedure, and a local anesthetic is used. However, when carried out “in the bush,” infibulation is often performed by an elderly matron or midwife of the village, without sterile procedure or anesthesia. A reverse infibulation can be performed to allow for sexual intercourse or when undergoing labor, or by female relatives, whose responsibility it is to inspect the wound every few weeks and open it some more if necessary. During childbirth, the enlargement is too small to allow vaginal delivery, and so the infibulation is opened completely and may be restored after delivery.

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Again, the legs are sometimes tied together to allow the wound to heal. When childbirth takes place in a hospital, the surgeons may preserve the infibulation by enlarging the vagina with deep episiotomies. Afterwards, the patient may insist that her vulva be closed again. Women who have been infibulated face a lot of difficulty in delivering children, especially if the infibulation is not undone beforehand, which often results in severe tearing of the infibulated area, or fetal death if the birth canal is not cleared. The risk of severe physical, and psychological complications is more highly associated with women who have undergone infibulations as opposed to one of the lesser forms of FGM. Although there is little research on the psychological side effects of FGM, many women feel great pressure to conform to the norms set out by their community, and suffer from anxiety and depression as a result . “There is also a higher rate of post-traumatic stress disorder in circumcised females” A five-year study of 300 women and 100 men in Sudan found that “sexual desire, pleasure, and orgasm are experienced by the majority of women who have been subjected to this extreme sexual mutilation, in spite of their being culturally bound to hide these experiences.” Type IV: Other types There are other forms of FGM, collectively referred to as Type IV, that may not involve tissue removal. The WHO defines Type IV FGM as “all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, for example, pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization.”This includes a diverse range of practices, such as pricking the clitoris with needles, burning or scarring the genitals as well as ripping or tearing of the vagina. Type IV is found primarily among isolated ethnic groups as well as in combination with other types.

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Agnes Pareyio

for the girls

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Agnes Pareyio

Fighting

Agnes grew up to be a housewife and the treasurer for the local district. One day, 15 years ago, they discussed at the district council why so many girls were dropping out of school. Agnes pointed out that it happened after the girls were cut – so she began to tour the schools, telling girls they didn’t have to do it. “At first, people said I was a crazy woman. Who is this madwoman explaining what clitorises are to our girls? My member of parliament condemned me, saying I was trying to destroy Masai culture and corrupt our girls. But I kept to my course.” She hit upon the idea of having a wooden model of a vagina carved for her, so she could demonstrate plainly what “circumcision” does to it. “That was when people said I was totally insane!” She says, with a great laugh. They called her “the woman with the wooden vagina”. Over the course of her walking, she saved 1,500 girls from being cut in eight years. When Eve Ensler, the award winner writer of Vagina Monologues and coordinator of V-Day met Agnes she said, “What could V-Day do for you?” and she said, “Well, Eve, if you got me a jeep, I could get around a lot faster.” So we bought her a jeep and that year she saved 4,500 girls from being cut. Then we asked, “Well, what else could you use?” and she said, “Well, with money we could build a house.” Girls who were about to be mutilated began to run away from home to find her – and seek help. “They were terrified. What could I do? I let them stay with me, but soon I realized they couldn’t all stay with me.”For over 15 years, Agnes has worked as a diplomatic activist/educator. She is Maasai first. She respects tradition and her culture. She respects men and women alike, and the girls and boys, and wants them to experience a new way to become adults. Now, through Agnes’s work, many communities, circumcisers, parents, and tribal leaders recognize that girls “need to choose for themselves.”

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As I Was lying there I resolved I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let this happen to more girls

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Agnes Pareyio

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Agnes walked through the Rift Valley in Kenya teaching the Maasai tribes what a healthy vagina should look like. Through the course of her walk she saved 1,500 girls from being cut.

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Agnes set up an organization called the Tasaru Ntomonok (Rescue the Women) Initiative, and built a shelter for the fleeing girls. Now girls have a place to run to when they want to save their clitoris, save their freedom, and save their futures. They stay long enough so their families sometimes actually understand that mutilation is a terrible practice and they may get invited home. The house has become the centerpiece of the community, and Agnes, who was initially exiled and slandered, was designated deputy mayor in Narok, Kenya. The shelter triggered such a mass rebellion of young girls running away from home that the Kenyan government finally made it illegal to subject a girl to genital mutilation in 2001. But the first prosecutions are only beginning now. Almost all the girls who still run away to Agnes are reunited with their families – once they agree to leave them unmaimed. “I go bringing a blanket and sugar, the symbols of forgiveness,” Agnes says. “I explain the health risks. It usually works.” They take the women who work as circumcisors on to training courses, to teach them the consequences of what they do. When Margaret Koilel learnt the truth about what she had been doing, she was shocked. “I realised I have the blood of hundreds of girls on my hands,” she says. “It calls to me in the night.” But Agnes soon realized that mutilation cannot be looked at on its own. After a girl is mutilated, she is almost always forced to drop out of school and sold off for a dowry to an older man. In the Rift Valley, mutilation and forced marriage are Siamese twins. Wangari is a slim, bony 14-year-old who was saved on her wedding day – at the age of nine. She grew up in Taleki village, where she says a normal day involved cooking, cleaning, feeding the animals, and looking after the younger children. “My father goes into the town and drinks. He doesn’t work,” she adds. She was cut when she was eight – she doesn’t want to talk about it – and from then on she had to stay at home. “My brother – who was in his twenties – kept asking my dad: why is she still around? You should marry her off. So one day my father brought home a suitor and told me I was getting married.” How old was he? “Forty-five.” “I didn’t really understand what it meant. I just knew I didn’t want to leave my mum. But the man gave my father two sheep and one goat, and a wedding date was arranged. On the day, I was covered with sheep fat, which is part of the ceremony. My father explained that I was going to have to stop being a child, and do what I’m told to do, and never come back. You must build your own home now. I didn’t know what to say. My father told my husband that he had to beat me to ensure I didn’t come running back home.” But a Tasaru supporter saw what was going on, and called Agnes. She alerted the police – and Wangari was rescued on her way to the wedding and brought to the shelter. Agnes enrolled her in school for the first time. “I love school!”, she exclaims, her fists unclenching. “I didn’t know how to read or write when I came here. Now I speak English and Swahili. I get so much encouragement! They tell me I can do anything I want to.” Unusually, her family refused to have her back. Her father considers her a “whore”, who could kill the family crops if she touched them. “I miss my mum,” Wangari says softly. “But I could never go back there. I value my school and my body too much.”

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Tasaru ntomonok

Eight years ago Agnes opened the first safe house in Narok, Kenya, and now girls have a place to run to when they want to save their clitoris, save their freedom, and save their futures. They stay long enough so their families sometimes actually understand that mutilation is a terrible practice and they may get invited home. The house has become the centerpiece of the community, and Agnes, who was initially exiled and slandered, was designated deputy mayor in Narok. All these other issues have begun to bubble up as well: Women are now talking about being abused in their marriages; they’re talking about the fact that they want to be educated; they’re building a school so that girls can continue their education—all because Agnes made a decision to have imagination, to get a little box that was personal and specific, and to walk through the Rift valley. Rather than judging, or hurting, or violating people, she just showed them what a healthy vagina looked like and what a mutilated vagina looked like. It was very simple. Agnes says part of her success is that within the Maasai community, FGM is tied to culture rather than religion and she finds culture is easier to engage in order to bring transformation. Agnes and her team have developed an “alternative” rite-of-passage that embraces the value of the cultural tradition but rejects the harmful cutting. This “alternative” rite teams girls as young as nine up with village elders or “grannies” who teach the girls everything in their culture about becoming a woman except for the cutting. The rite of passage lasts for six days with the final day involving the entire community in a celebration with feasting and gifts to mark the girl’s transition to adulthood. The girls all pledge that they will not be “cut” and the community pledges that they will abandon FGM. To date, she has had great success in rescuing over 600 girls with only one case where a girl was eventual cut.

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One time an enraged father turned up at the gates of the shelter with a sword to reclaim his daughter and have her cut. The gates were sealed; the girls were gathered, unarmed, behind Agnes. The father was howling revenge–and Agnes stood firm and shouted: “Come on then! Try it! We’re not afraid of you!” After a moment’s silence, he fled. “I am a Maasai woman,” she says, and chuckles.

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Ngozi okonjo-iweala

How to help Africa? DO

business there

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala relishes a good fight. Which is just as well. Since Nigeria’s president persuaded her to sort out the country’s infamously chaotic finances and rein in its notorious corruption she’s been hailed by world leaders and reviled by her fellow countrymen. “When I became finance minister they called me Okonjo-Wahala - or Trouble Woman,” says the 51 year-old, with a throaty chuckle. “It means ‘I give you hell.’ But I don’t care what names they call me. I’m a fighter; I’m very focused on what I’m doing, and relentless in what I want to achieve, almost to a fault. If you get in my way you get kicked.” In 2003 Okonjo-Iweala left her job as World Bank vice-president and her husband and four children in Washington to work 20 hour days in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. Her task: nothing less than a total shake-up of the country ranked the second most corrupt in the world, after Bangladesh. Her goal: to ensure that more of its oil money (US$38 billion last year), rather than being squandered by a tiny elite, goes towards providing clean water, schools and health care for its 137 million population, most of whom survive on 90 cents a day. Transforming the huge oil-rich nation that is home to one in five Africans and the size of Europe has been an arduous and often bloody battle. Two years into her appointment, however, Okonjo-Iweala is winning, albeit making herself unpopular with many powerful Nigerians, and leaving casualties in her wake. She has sacked corrupt officials and ministers; reduced Nigeria’s bloated civil service; and cracked down on letter and internet scams that persuade the unsuspecting to part with their savings on the pretext of releasing “millions”. She has even managed to cut back “bunkering”, the Nigerian practice whereby government officials and the army steal crude oil. For her, Nigeria’s image is as important as its economy. “Nigeria is changing,” she insists. “I take it too personally when people say bad things about this country. But Nigeria is coming into its own, and becoming a leader in the continent.” We meet in a London hotel between meetings with the Treasury. Okonjo-Iweala is diminutive, warm, charismatic, dynamic - and exhausted. “I must be a masochist. Why do I do this when it’s so hard? Why am I going through some document at 3 am trying to work out how to get through some tricky situation? Why am I not with my children in Washington?” Characteristically, she answers her own question. “When I see vested interests still try to undermine me, I know it means I’m successful. When I manage to convince one person to change, I think this is why I’m here. The ability to change things is a powerful incentive.” She says she’s always been a fighter, “because my family are fighters by nature. I’m told I’m like my father, and he was the most wonderful man. But I think he was gentler than me.” She was born in Nigeria, and was 14 at the outbreak of the Biafran war. Her parents, professors of sociology and economics, could have sent her to relations in the United States. Instead her father, by this time a brigadier in the Biafran army, chose to keep her at home. The family lost everything and experienced considerable hardship, with little to eat much of the time. When her three-year-old sister became chronically ill with malaria, her father was at the war front and her mother was ill, so Okonjo-Iweala carried the child on her back for three miles to the doctor’s surgery. Six hundred other people were waiting to see him. Undeterred, she pushed her way through the crowd, climbing through the window to see the doctor. “I knew if she didn’t get help she’d die,” says Okonjo-Iweala. The injection for malaria saved her sister’s life. She has been fighting her way through difficult situations ever since. After the war ended, when she was 18, she went to the US to study economics at Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), began working for the World Bank, and married Ikemba, her childhood sweetheart, now a surgeon. In 2000, when Olusegun Obasanjo came to power in Nigeria’s first democratic election, after the cruel dictator General Sani Abacha, he asked Okonjo-Iweala to write a brief for economic reform. The new president was so delighted with the result that he decided she should be his finance minister.

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Cannily, he got her boss, World Bank president James Wolfensen, to pop the question. “It never crossed my mind to be finance minister,” she says. “Not because I don’t want to serve my country but because of my family. I didn’t want to miss any step of their growing up. And my youngest son was still in school. But I was persuaded this was a once-ina-lifetime opportunity. I felt Nigeria didn’t have to succumb to the image of being a corrupt country; we didn’t have to let the economy stagnate.” She says she’s sometimes asked how she can do her job with her children - one daughter and three sons - in a different country. “But people don’t understand that I don’t do this job in spite of my children. Rather, they are my inspiration. There’s so much love and energy from them, they make it possible for me.” However, from the way she reiterates how much she relies on their love and support, she evidently not only misses her husband and children but feels guilty about their separation. When she was offered the job she discussed whether or not she should take it with her whole family, knowing that it would mean that she could only return to Washington for a few days every few months. “My husband is just the most amazing person. He is a true partner. He is so kind and loving, and he hardly ever complains. Not at all like me.” She roars with laughter. But you sense that Okonjo-Iweala pays a dear price for her high-profile, highly paid job (she’s one of only two Nigerian ministers paid in dollars around $240,000 (£137,000).) When her eldest son Uzo was completing a book last year he went to stay with his mother in Abuja and was appalled at her “insane” schedule: “I had no idea what she was going through until I got there,” he says. “My mum is off to work at 6am, then she’s not back until after 11pm. And when she comes home she’s got nobody to help her unwind or people like me, who will stress her out in a different way, which is what she needs. Even

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on a Sunday the phones start ringing at 7 in the morning. Uzo says that staying with his mother helped her relax a little. “I think my mum being in Abuja has been very tough for my dad and my brother - and for her. “But my mother is incredible. She’s a very strong person. I sometimes ask myself why does she do this job? But I never ask her. It’s apparent why she does it from the way she behaves. She’s dedicated to her country and she feels your existence isn’t just for you, it’s to help other people So I think we, her family, should support her 100%. After all, she gives 300% because she never feels she’s done all she needs to do.” Okonjo-Iweala’s role as a wise parent also imbues her work. She likens the role of the west to that of parent and Nigeria as the child. “If your child has been doing bad things, like drug or alcohol abuse, and they come to you and say, ‘Mother, I want to change, please help me.’ Would you say ‘No. You’re hopeless. You can’t change?’” And change, she feels, must begin at home. “We’ve got to get real; not just talk,” she says. “Africans have to start looking after themselves and working and trading with each other.” One of only tnree women finance ministers in the world - another one is Luisa Diogo, who combines the post with being the prime minister of Mozambique - her fight to reform Nigeria’s economy has been helped, she claims, by her gender. “I think being a woman makes you able to deal with a lot of things - and still keep sane. There’s so much wrong with the economy and so much to do, you can see me any day in my office multi-tasking, dealing with five or six people, ranging from a state governor to a businessman. “I also think women have less ego. If someone’s saying things to make me feel bad, I don’t care as long as I get the job done. When it comes to doing my job I keep my ego in my handbag.” And with that, OkonjoIweala leaves, - carrying a large and impressive handbag.

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In many poor countries, the greatest unexplored resource isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t oil fields or veins of gold; it is the women and girls who arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t educated and never become a major presence in the formal economy.

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With education and with help starting businesses, impoverished women can earn money and support their countries as well as their families.They represent perhaps the best hope for fighting global poverty.

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a growing recognition Invest in There’s among everyone from the World

women

Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution. Why do microfinance organizations usually focus their assistance on women? And why does everyone benefit when women enter the work force and bring home regular pay checks? One reason involves the dirty little secret of global poverty: some of the most wretched suffering is caused not just by low incomes but also by unwise spending by the poor — especially by men. Surprisingly frequently, we’ve come across a mother mourning a child who has just died of malaria for want of a $5 mosquito bed net; the mother says that the family couldn’t afford a bed net and she means it, but then we find the father at a nearby bar. He goes three evenings a week to the bar, spending $5 each week. Our interviews and perusal of the data available suggest that the poorest families in the world spend approximately 10 times as much (20 percent of their incomes on average) on a combination of alcohol, prostitution, candy, sugary drinks and lavish feasts as they do on educating their children (2 percent). If poor families spent only as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries. Girls, since they are the ones kept home from school now, would be the biggest beneficiaries. Moreover, one way to reallocate family expenditures in this way is to put more money in the hands of women. A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier.

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Such research has concrete implications: for example, donor countries should nudge poor countries to adjust their laws so that when a man dies, his property is passed on to his widow rather than to his brothers. Governments should make it easy for women to hold property and bank accounts — 1 percent of the world’s landowners are women — and they should make it much easier for microfinance institutions to start banks so that women can save money. In the early 1990s, the United Nations and the World Bank began to proclaim the potential resource that women and girls represent. “Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world,” Larry Summers wrote when he was chief economist of the World Bank. Private aid groups and foundations shifted gears as well. “Women are the key to ending hunger in Africa,” declared the Hunger Project. The Center for Global Development issued a major report explaining “why and how to put girls at the center of development.” CARE took women and girls as the centerpiece of its anti-poverty efforts. “Gender inequality hurts economic growth,” Goldman Sachs concluded in a 2008 research report that emphasized how much developing countries could improve their economic performance by educating girls. Women’s issues are rising on this new foreign policy agenda partly for reasons of simple justice. If human rights deserve attention, for example, they include not only the dissidents who are imprisoned for their politics but also the incomparably greater number of girls who are kidnapped into brothels or burned to death because their dowries are inadequate. But this isn’t just a justice issue. It’s also a matter of economic development. One of the things we’ve learned over the last 15 years is that you can’t fight poverty effectively unless you educate, emancipate and empower women, and bring them into the formal economy. So, with these new positions, onward!

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PUTTING MORE RESOURCES IN THE HANDS

OF WOMEN RESULTS IN

UCATION AND FOOD

N GREATER SPENDING

IN HUMAN CAPITAL GOODS: HOUSEHOLD

SERVICES, HEALTH, E

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wangari maathai

green belt movement

Wangari Maathai, Kenya’s foremost environmentalist and women’s rights advocate, founded the Green Belt Movement on Earth Day, 1977, encouraging the farmers (70 percent of whom are women) to plant “Green Belts” to stop soil erosion, provide shade, and create a source of lumber and firewood. She distributed seedlings to rural women and set up an incentive system for each seedling that survived. To date, the movement has planted over fifteen million trees, produced income for eighty thousand people in Kenya alone, and has expanded its efforts to over thirty African countries, the United States, and Haiti. Maathai won the Africa Prize for her work in preventing hunger, and was heralded by the Kenyan government and controlled press as an exemplary citizen. A few years later, when Maathai denounced President Daniel arap Moi’s proposal to erect a sixty-two-story skyscraper in the middle of Nairobi’s largest park (graced by a four-story statue of Moi himself), officials warned her to curtail her criticism. When she took her campaign public, she was visited by security forces. When she still refused to be silenced, she was subjected to a harassment campaign and threats. Members of parliament denounced Maathai, dismissing her organization as “a bunch of divorcees.” The government-run newspaper questioned her sexual past, and police detained and interrogated her, without ever pressing charges. Eventually Moi was forced to forego the project, in large measure because of the pressure Maathai successfully generated. Years later, when she returned to the park to lead a rally on behalf of political prisoners, Maathai was hospitalized after pro-government thugs beat her and other women protesters. Following the incident, Moi’s ruling party parliamentarians threatened to mutilate her genitals in order to force Maathai to behave “like women should.” But Wangari Maathai was more determined than ever, and today continues her work for environmental protection, women’s rights, and democratic reform. From one seedling, an organization for empowerment and political participation has grown many strong branches.

the

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strenght of being

wangari maathai

The Green Belt Movement in Kenya started in 1977, when women from rural areas and urban centers, reflecting on their needs at organized forums, spoke about environmental degradation. They did not have firewood. They needed fruits to cure malnutrition in their children. They needed clean drinking water, but the pesticides and herbicides used on farms to grow cash crops polluted the water. The women talked about how, a long time ago, they did not have to spend so much time going out to collect firewood, that they lived near the forest. They spoke of how, once, they ate food that sustained their health. Now, while the food does not require much energy to grow, it does not sustain them. The women feel their families are now very weak and cannot resist diseases, that their bodies are impoverished because of an environment that is degraded. The National Council of Women, a nongovernmental organization, responded by encouraging them to plant trees. In the beginning it was difficult because the women felt that they had neither the knowledge, the technology, nor the capital to do this. But, we quickly showed them that we did not need all of that to plant trees, which made the tree-planting process a wonderful symbol of hope. Treeplanting empowered these women because it was not a complicated thing. It was something that they could do and see the results of. They could, by their own actions, improve the quality of their lives. When we said we wanted to plant fifteen million trees, a forester laughed and said we could have as many seedlings as we wanted because he was convinced that we could not plant that many

trees. Before too long, he had to with- When you plant a tree and you see it draw that offer because we were col- grow, something happens to you. You lecting more trees than he could give want to protect it, and you value it. I away free of charge. But we didn’t have seen people really change and have the money. We decided that we look at trees very differently from could produce the seedlings ourthe way they would in the past. The selves. We would go and collect seeds other thing is that a lot of people do from trees, come back and plant them not see that there are no trees until the way women did other seeds: they open their eyes, and realize that beans, corn, and other grains. And so the land is naked. They begin to see the women actually developed for- that while rain can be a blessing, it estry management techniques, using can also be a curse, because when it “appropriate technology” to fit their comes and you have not protected needs. Here is the basic method: take your soil, it carries the soil away with a pot, put in the soil, and put in the it! And this is rich soil in which you seeds. Put the pot in an elevated posi- should be growing your food. They tion so that the chickens and the see the immediate relationship goats don’t come and eat the seed- between a person and the environlings. Ordaining all the inventive ment. It is wonderful to see that techniques that the women develtransformation, and that is what oped. For example, sometimes trees sustains the movement! We have produce seeds carried by the wind. started programs in about twenty These germinate in the fields with the countries. The main focus is how first rain. It was very interesting to ordinary people can be mobilized to see a woman cultivating a field with do something for the environment. a small container of water. But, she It is mainly an education program, was cultivating weeds! She had and implicit in the action of planting learned that among these weeds were trees is a civic education, a strategy also tree seedlings, and that she could to empower people and to give them pick the seedlings and put them in a a sense of taking their destiny into container. In the evening, she went their own hands, removing their home with several hundred seedling fear, so that they can stand up for trees! These techniques developed by themselves and for their environthe women became extremely helpmental rights. The strategy we use is ful. We planted more than twenty a strategy that we call the “wrong bus million trees in Kenya alone. In other syndrome,” a simple analogy to help African countries, we have not kept people conceive what is going on. records. Trees are alive, so we react to People come to see us with a lot of them in very different ways. Quite problems: they have no food, they often, we get attached to a tree, are hungry, their water is dirty, their because it gives us food and fodder for infrastructure has broken down, our fires. It is such a friendly thing. they do not have water for their animals, they cannot take their children to school. The highest number of problems I have recorded at a sitting of about a hundred people is one hundred and fifty. They really think we are going to solve their problems.

I just write them down, but I am not going to do anything about them. I just write them down in order to give the people a feeling of relief and a forum where they can express their problems. After we list these problems, we ask, “Where do you think these problems come from?” Some people blame the government, fingering the governor or the president or his ministers. Blame is placed on the side that has the power. The people do not think that they, themselves, may be contributing to the problem. So, we use the bus symbol (because it is a very common method of transportation in the country). If you go onto the wrong bus, you end up at the wrong destination. You may be very hungry because you do not have any money. You may, of course, be saved by the person you were going to visit, but you may also be arrested by the police for hanging around and looking like you are lost! You may be mugged—anything can happen to you! We ask the people, “What could possibly make you get on the wrong bus? How can you walk into a bus station and instead of taking the right bus, take the wrong one?” Now, this is a very ordinary experience. The most common reason for people to be on the wrong bus is that they do not know how to read and write. If you are afraid, you can get onto the wrong bus. If you are arrogant, if you think you know it all, you can easily make a mistake and get onto the wrong bus. If you are not mentally alert, not focused. There are many reasons. After we go through this exercise, we ask them to look at all the problems that they have listed.

Why are we hungry? Why are we harassed by the police? We cannot hold meetings without a license. When we look at all of this, we realize that we are in the wrong bus. We have been misinformed for too long. The history of Kenya in the last forty years explains why. During the Cold War period, our government became very dictatorial. There was only one radio station that gave out controlled information and our country was misinformed. Because the government was so oppressive, fear was instilled in us, and we very easily got onto the wrong bus. We made mistakes and created all of these problems for ourselves. We did not look at the environment and decide to plant trees, so our land was washed away by the rain! The beautiful topsoil was lost. Maybe we were not fully focused, suffered from alcoholism, or were not working, but our personal problems had nothing to do with government. We got on the wrong bus and a lot of bad things happened. What we needed to do was to decide to get out, only to make the best of the situation you find yourself in. You need to take action. You have to inform yourself. And you are willing to inquire; you are willing to learn. That is why you came to the seminar. You want to plant, you want to empower yourself. You have every right to read what you want to read. You want to meet—without asking permission. To get off the bus means to control the direction of your own life. We say to go ahead and start to plant trees. Grow and produce enough food for your family. Get in the food security project, making sure that you plant a lot of indigenous food crops so that we do not lose local biodiversity. We are working in the

tropics so the trees grow very fast. In five years, or less, you can have fruit trees, like banana trees. You can go and teach others what you have learned here so that you will have educational outreach in the village. We will support you, so that you can encourage others to get off the bus. You can get a small group of people to protect a park or a forest or an open space near you. Environmental protection is not just about talking. It is also about taking action. People who live near the forest are among the first to see that the forest is being destroyed. People who live near water resources are the ones who notice that these springs are being interfered with. People who are farmers recognize that the soil is being exposed and carried away by the rains. These are the people who should be the ones to draw attention to these problems at the local and national levels. And this is the process I have seen with the Green Belt Movement. Women who start to plant trees on their farms influence their neighbors. The neighbors eventually become involved. At the national level, we have been able to draw the attention of the parliament, and even the president, to the need to protect the environment! And now, we see the government reacting to what the environmentalists are saying: that the remaining forest not be degraded, that open spaces not be privatized, and that the forest not be interfered with or privatized.

STRENGTH OF BEING

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wangari maathai

savanna by gmund

This pressure is coming from ordinary people. We started by empowering women. Then the men joined in because they saw that the women were doing some very positive work. A lot of men participate in the planting, though not in the nurturing of the seedlings at the nursery as the women do (and do very well). The men see trees as an economic investment. They look thirty years into the future and see that they will have huge trees to sell. Well, nevertheless, it means that the Green Belt Movement enjoys the participation of men, women, and children, which is important. You could very easily have the women planting trees and the men cutting the trees down! Everyone needs to work together and to protect the environment together. When you start doing this work, you do it with a very pure heart, out of compassion. Listen to the statement from our pamphlet: “The main objective of this organization is to raise the consciousness of our people to the level which moves them to do the right things for the environment because their hearts have been touched and their minds convinced to do the right things, because it is the only logical thing to do.” The clarity of what you ought to do gives you courage, removes the fear, gives you the courage to ask. There is so much you do not know. And you need to know. And it helps you get your mind focused. Now, you are out of the bus and moving to the right direction. They will see you move with passion, conviction, and persistence. You are very focused. Quite often you threaten people, either people who are on the wrong bus or people who are driving others, because you know they are driving people in the wrong direction and you are asking them not to follow.

It’s impossible to save the environment without empowering people.

strenght of being

wangari maathai

STRENGTH OF BEING

savanna by gmund

Chapter

savanna by gmund

When one plants a tree one feels a connection with the earth and one has a stake on its survival.

strenght of being

Chapter

STRENGTH OF BEING

savanna by gmund

wangari maathai

savanna by gmund

And now you feel free to tell people, “Believe me, you are all moving in the wrong direction, your leader as well.” Now, of course, a leader does not want to be told this. He certainly does not want to hear that the people he is driving, are being told they need to get out of the bus. This is where the conflict comes in. The leader accuses you of misleading his people, misrepresenting his vision, misrepresenting what he’s trying to do, misrepresenting him. This is what happened between me and President Moi. In 1989, the president wanted to take over Uhuru Park, the only park left in Nairobi. He was going to build the highest building in Africa, sixty-two stories. Next to the skyscraper he was going to put a four-story statue of himself (so you could pat his head from the fourth floor). All of downtown Nairobi would have had to be restructured. That building would have been so intimidating, that even if some land in the small park remained, no one would have dared come near it. Very intimidating. So it was completely wrong. It also would have been an economic disaster, as was borrowing money to do it, putting us in greater debt. It was truly a white elephant. But he wanted it because it was a personal aggrandizement. And so we raised objections, and said this was the only park that we had in the city where people who have no money could come. Not even a policeman could ask you to move; it was an open space. A lot of people joined in and agreed, even those people who were going to invest, who then decided that it was probably not a very good idea We staged a protest in the park and were beaten by the police. We were only a small group of women, because, at that time, in 1989, there was a lot of fear. I had taken the matter to court, arguing that this park belonged to the people and that it could not be privatized. The president was only a public trustee, so for him to now go and take what had been entrusted to him, to take it, and privatize it, was criminal. We lost the case, which in the court meant that we had no business raising the issue and complaining about the park. But we won in the end because those who were providing the money withdrew, due to the outcry from the public. And members of parliament actually suspended business to discuss the Green Belt Movement and myself, recommending that the Green Belt Movement should be banned as a subversive organization. They did a lot of dirty campaigning to discredit us, including dismissing us as, “a bunch of divorcées and irresponsible women. Well, I gave them a piece of my mind, that people kept talking about for the rest of the time. “Whatever else you may think about the women who run the Green Belt Movement,” I said, “we are dealing here with privatizing or not privatizing a public park. We are dealing with the rights of the public and the rights of the people. These are the kind of issues that require the anatomy of whatever lies above the neck.” The press loved it. Parliament was just being mean, chauvinistic, and downright dirty. Fortunately, my skin is thick, like an elephant’s. The more they abused and ridiculed me, the more they hardened me. I know I was right, and they were wrong.

strenght of being

wangari maathai

STRENGTH OF BEING

wangari maathai

A few years later, in 1992, with about ten women whose sons had been detained for demanding more democratic rights for the people, I went back to the same park and declared it “freedom corner.” We stayed there for four days. By the fifth day the government brought in policemen; some of us were very badly beaten. But I will always remember the power of those women. After we were disrupted by the police, I ended up in the hospital, so I didn’t even know what was going on. The other women were herded into cars and forced to go back to where they had come. But the following day, those women came back to Nairobi and tried to locate the others. They knew some were in the hospital, and sent a message that they were waiting for us. They would not go home. Instead, they went to the Anglican provost of All Saint’s Cathedral who told them they could go to the crypt and wait for the other women. Though the provost thought this would be a two-night stay, it lasted for one year. They stayed in that crypt, waiting for Moi to release their sons. The authorities tried everything to get the women to leave. They tried to bribe some of them; intimidated them; even sent some of their sons to persuade their mothers to leave. Several times we were surrounded by armed policemen, who threatened to break the doors of the church and to haul us out. Fortunately they never did, because some of these soldiers were Christians, and we could hear them say they just could not break into the church. And we won again! It was a great ceremony to see those young men come out of jail and also to celebrate the powers of their mothers. It was really wonderful. I was amazed that they were so strong. It goes to show that you can have a very oppressive government, but even in very dark times in our nation, there were people who stood up to protect the rights of others. There was another time when the pro-democracy movement pushed the president very far. Rumors started circulating that he was going to turn the government over to the army. And so we issued a statement saying that if he felt there was a need for change in the government (which we were demanding), what we wanted was a general election, but not to turn over power to the army, because this was not democratic. Instead of responding, he arrested us for inciting people to violence. I went into my house and locked myself in because I was so convinced that no one could get me out—it had been so reinforced for security. Unless I became hungry, I had enough to last me for a month. They surrounded the house with guns and it was very, very scary. I was one woman alone. After three days, they broke into the house, literally cutting the windows so that they could reach me, and they hauled me to jail. That was 1993, when we were really breaking loose from a very strong dictatorship. Courage. I guess that the nearest it means is not having fear. Fear is the biggest enemy you have. I think you can overcome your fear when you no longer see the consequences. When I do what I do, when I am writing letters to the president, accusing him of every crime on this earth, of being a violator of every right I know of, especially violating environmental rights and then of violence to women, I must have courage. You know, when they attack me, I say this is violence against women. When they threaten me with female genital mutilation, this is violence against women. When they attack me, I attack them back. A lot of people say, “They could kill you.” And I say, “Yes, they could, but if you focus on the damage they could do, you cannot function. Don’t visualize the danger you can get in. Your mind must be blank as far as danger is concerned.” This helps you to go on. You look very courageous to people—and maybe you are courageous. But it is partly because you cannot see the fear they see. You are not projecting that you could be killed, that you could die. You are not projecting that they could cut your leg. If you do that, you stop. It’s not like I see danger coming, and I feel danger. At this particular moment, I am only seeing one thing—that I am moving in the right direction.

savanna by gmund

strenght of being

wangari maathai

STRENGTH OF BEING

savanna by gmund

wangari maathai

savanna by gmund

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I placed my faith in the rural women of Kenya from the very beginning, and they have been key to the success of the Green Belt Movement. Through this very hands-on method of growing and planting trees, women have seen that they have real choices about whether they are going to sustain and restore the environment or destroy it. Women take on leadership roles, running nurseries, working with foresters, planning and implementing community-based projects for water harvesting and food security. All of these experiences contribute to their developing more confidence in themselves and more power over the direction of their lives.â&#x20AC;?

Wangari Maathai

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