nobel peace prize to Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement

[bobbieinok]

http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/article.php?id=988

....

Today in Olso, I hear many tributes to Wangari – three alone this evening from members of the Nobel Committee. Each touches me deeply. I try to imagine the depth of satisfaction she must feel, after decades of ridicule, harassment, jailings and even beatings by her opponents.

Yet, for me there is something more. Those lauding her unwavering resolve, stunning accomplishments, and her infectious warmth fail to mention a key piece of her genius. Wangari, the environmentalist, they call her; Wangari, the human rights and womens’ rights and pro-democracy activist. All are accurate. But the reason she is effective, I believe, is that she understands the battle is not about rights, as such, or the environment, as such. She understands the real battle is inside: “ordinary people” making that internal shift – terrifying as it is—to realize the power that is ours.

Tens of thousands of village women who’ve been taught to defer to chiefs, husbands, colonial authorities, multinational corporate marketers and to disparage their own traditions and common sense are gaining, through the Green Belt Movement, the courage to step into the light, saying we have solutions. We can carry responsibility. We can transform our villages and our nation.

Millions cheer that, in selecting Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Committee recognizes that environmental restoration, poverty eradication, and world peace are inseparable. I cheer, too. I also hope that as we wrap our heads around these huge concepts, we let sink in as well that their fruition ultimately depends on something else—something basic, universal, and deeply personal. It is that internal shift; the shedding of our own feelings of powerlessness. Then, like the courageous women of the Green Belt Movement, we can assume responsibility for solutions. This is the best conceivable tribute to the new Nobel Peace Laureate.

Frances Moore Lappé is the co-author of Hope’s Edge (Tarcher), which chronicles Maathai’s story, and the founder of the Small Planet Fund, which supports Maathai’s Green Belt Movement.

[bloom]

1. She sounds very inspirational - this was in the NYTimes last week

By WANGARI MAATHAI

Published: December 10, 2004

Nairobi, Kenya

WHEN I was growing up in Nyeri in central Kenya, there was no word for desert in my mother tongue, Kikuyu. Our land was fertile and forested. But today in Nyeri, as in much of Africa and the developing world, water sources have dried up, the soil is parched and unsuitable for growing food, and conflicts over land are common. So it should come as no surprise that I was inspired to plant trees to help meet the basic needs of rural women. As a member of the National Council of Women of Kenya in the early 1970's, I listened as women related what they wanted but did not have enough of: energy, clean drinking water and nutritious food.

My response was to begin planting trees with them, to help heal the land and break the cycle of poverty. Trees stop soil erosion, leading to water conservation and increased rainfall. Trees provide fuel, material for building and fencing, fruits, fodder, shade and beauty. As household managers in rural and urban areas of the developing world, women are the first to encounter the effects of ecological stress. It forces them to walk farther to get wood for cooking and heating, to search for clean water and to find new sources of food as old ones disappear.
<more>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/10/opinion/10maathai.html?incamp=article_popular_3