Environmentalist? Is That a Politician with Food for Our People?
I tried crossing through the Uhuru Park this morning from Nairobi central business district on my way to Community Hill but paramilitary police, better known as GSU or the General Service Unit, barred my way. One officer, armed to the teeth and sporting a bulldog frown, cocked his AK gun, looked at me with scorn and asked who I thought I was. I mumbled a quick “sorry” and went back to walk along Valley Road. I was just testing the waters with my act and I realized they meant business.
But in 1989, one brave woman who we now know as Wangari Maathai, dared the then Daniel arap Moi government at the same park and took a heavy beating, spending time in hospital. Then and now, Uhuru Park, has been the darling of environmentalists and politicians in Nairobi alike. For politicians, it is where declarations on Grand Marches to Freedom have been made to the people; for environmentalists, Nairobi’s only serene recreational public park with an artificial pond, is too valuable for just being a talkshop. It is where Freedom for the Planet, ala Wangari Maathai, began. She almost single handedly stopped the Moi regime from putting up a 60 story business complex as a gift to the ruling KANU party and the world noticed her work that started in 1977 with the formation of the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots environmental non profit.
The Face of Environmentalism in Africa
Maathai is the face of environmentalism in Africa. No other African environmental activist has won as many accolades, including the Goldman Environmental Prize, as she has and when she in 2004 bagged the Nobel Peace Prize for her lifetime struggles and achievements for a greener Africa and the world her countrymen and women thought one of their own had finally been recognized by the global community. Shalini Ramanathan, a clean energy advocate, writing in Grist calls her “outspoken, accomplished and passionate” about the environment and what she stands for. The British Broadcasting Corporation has called her a leading campaigner on social matters.
The environment aside, Maathai is the chair of Mazingira Green Party, Kenya’s version of a green political movement, which is largely dormant and has only now sponsored a member to the Kenyan parliament. During the December 2007 polls, she who the Nobel Committee hailed in 2004 as “thinks globally but acts locally”, failed to win election to parliament despite her global credentials and influence. On the political front, Maathai has failed to make substantial impact but she remains my personal hero and role model, and I think Africa should view her in a better perspective.
Environmentalism is a Glimpse in to the Future
In Africa, being in politics means you must bring food for your people, even table crumbs, from the plate of corruption, but being an environmental activist, it can be an uphill task just to be heard from the din of everyday struggles with poverty, disease and ignorance. For environmentalism is much more that bringing food to the people; it is a natural means that opens our eyes to the opportunities of the future that our environment holds for us. In her Nobel Prize acceptance speech, she said: “the Norwegian Nobel Committee has placed the critical issue of environment and its linkage to democracy and peace before the world. For their visionary action, I am profoundly grateful. Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come. Our work over the past 30 years has always appreciated and engaged these linkages.” Her Green Belt Movement, founded in 1977, has started over 3,000 tree nurseries, produced 20 million trees and involved 50,000 women.
Wangari Maathai’s life theme has been: “The environment is very important in the aspects of peace because when we destroy our resources and our resources become scarce, we fight over that.” You asked why Uhuru Park is currently out of bounds? Well, following the violent aftermath of the disputed presidential election in December 2007, the government of president Kibaki closed it from public access because, in its opinion, the opposition wanted to use it to launch their Grand March to the House on the Hill and do a civilian coup. It has been out of bounds even since under 24 hour armed guard! What a waste!
Environmentalists and their Politics
Writing in his book, Environmental Politics and Liberation in Contemporary Africa (published 1999 by Springer, ISBN 0792356527), Mohamed Abdel Rahim Mohamed Salih argues that liberation struggles in Africa embody two basic concerns of impoverished and opressed humanity; defense of freedom and the defense of the environment. The struggles are political because their goal is to wrest power and a measure of group self-government. They are also environmental because the ultimate goal is to regain the power to define people’s relationship with their environment according to their own cultural values and material needs. He also thinks that environmentalism in Africa, arising out of poverty, and environmentalism in the West, arising out of affluence, are necessarily different in nature. Does this explain the emergence, over different periods of time, of groups like the Mau Mau in Kenya and Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP)?
What is ordinary Kenyans’ view of environmentalists?
Wangari Maathai has been quoted elsewhere about environmentalism: “Activities that devastate the environment and societies continue unabated. Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own – indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder.”
I went around the streets of Nairobi and asked people what they viewed of environmental activism or environmentalists for that matter and the answers I got were as varied as they were shocking. Surprisingly, no one wanted their picture taken because they suspected I’d sell it on the internet and make money for myself.
Virginia Wanjiku, a 58 year old vegetable seller in a Nairobi suburb, thinks environmentalists just use the environment as a launch pad for politics. “I think if they allowed us to till the government forests for a while it will help us better. We cannot feed our children because the government wouldn’t allow us to till the forest land; who cares for some environment that doesn’t help us?” She went on with her rant: “If the environmentalists were serious about their cause, they would at least be more mindful about the poverty around us than fight political battles that are taking us nowhere.”
But for Kamjesh, a 17 year old street urchin with a 4 month old son sired with his 16 year girlfriend, life on the streets would be harder if Nairobi was made cleaner. “We depend on this garbage for our livelihood. We collect the waste paper and scrap metal and sell to dealers for money (always peanuts) that keeps us going. I know the environmentalists will come and say the big companies must control the recycling process and we shall lose”, he told me from his cardboard house in Mathare, a dirt-poor slum in the eastern suburbs of Nairobi.
As for Martin Mulwa, a 26 year old carpenter, he really doesn’t care for any environmentalist for that matter so long as they don’t put food on his table for his family of four children. Do you know about Wangari Maathai, I ask. “Yes, the politician from Tetu (her constituency in the last parliament) who was rejected by her people for being too pro-opposition.” Have you heard of the Green Belt Movement?”, I ask again. “Is that a new political party? I don’t want to discuss any politics now, excuse me”, the retort comes back at me.
Photo credit: Copyright GBM
Wow. This is an extremely well written and eye-opening article. Thank you.
Sam, your on-the-ground perspective is priceless. Keep it up!