{"id":1169,"date":"2004-10-10T06:25:42","date_gmt":"2004-10-10T14:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/10\/10\/kenyan-eco-feminist-wins-nobel-peace-prize\/"},"modified":"2004-10-10T06:25:42","modified_gmt":"2004-10-10T14:25:42","slug":"kenyan-eco-feminist-wins-nobel-peace-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1169","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan Eco-Feminist Wins Nobel Peace Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is cool. From the Washington Post<\/i>:<\/a><\/p>\n

Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan firebrand who mobilized the women of Africa in a powerful crusade against deforestation called the “Green Belt Movement,” will receive the Nobel Peace Prize for 2004.<\/p>\n

Friday’s announcement, by the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee, makes her the first African woman to receive the $1.3 million prize, which is generally regarded as the world’s highest tribute. It was the second straight year that a woman had won the peace prize. Last year, Shirin Ebadi, a lawyer in Iran, was recognized for her work promoting the rights of women and children. […]<\/p>\n

While Maathai has not been widely known to the general public, she is a legend among global environmental activists and feminist leaders alike, and a presence at international environmental conferences. She has been described variously as an “ecofeminist,” “ecowomanist” and “Kenya’s Green Militant.”<\/p>\n

The impetus for Maathai’s movement was deforestation in Kenya, a process that has taken 90 percent of the country’s forest over the past 50 years. One of the consequences Maathai saw was that women and girls had to spend hours every day searching for wood for cooking fuel.<\/p>\n

In 1978, Maathai, then a U.S.-educated college professor at the University of Nairobi, suggested the planting of trees as a way to help rural women survive the decrease of firewood. The movement spread across Africa, and was responsible for planting over 30 million trees. She expanded it to embrace human rights, women’s rights and the politics of democracy.<\/p>\n

In 1989, the deep-voiced and statuesque Maathai led a one-woman charge against the autocratic government of Daniel arap Moi, the former president, when he wanted to build a skyscraper and six-story statue of himself in gritty Nairobi’s only public green space.<\/p>\n

She lost her case in court. But because of her protest no financiers were willing to work on the project. Today, that area of the park is called “Freedom Corner.”<\/p>\n

From time to time she has been intimidated and even beaten by police in the course of her protests. She was hospitalized in Kenya in 1999 after being clubbed by guards hired by developers while she and her followers tried to plant trees in Karura forest.<\/p><\/div>\n

From a PeopleAndPlanet.net profile<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Her efforts to save the park unleashed a barrage of personal insults, focusing on the failure of her marriage. One MP said he would circumcise her if she set foot in his district. Government ministers dismissed her as “bogus” and “a tribalist”. Maathai says she is unfazed by such abuse, although she admits: “Of course, they don’t do your psyche any good. If you attack a woman by attacking her womanhood, she’ll feel embarrassed and violated. You’re human, you don’t want to be humiliated. They hope you will be so hurt you will not raise your voice again. The real objective is to stop you talking. ‘Are you going to give in or what?’ And for me, never.”<\/p>\n

Instead, she plays them at their own game: “Last time, I told another MP: ‘I’m sick and tired of men who are so incompetent that every time they feel the heat because women are challenging them, they have to check their genitalia to reassure themselves. I’m not interested in that part of the anatomy. The issues I’m dealing with require the utilisation of what’s above the neck. If you don’t have anything there, leave me alone.’ He didn’t say another word.”<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s a link to a speech by Ms. Maathai<\/a>, which outlines her views on the problems Africa faces today. Among many other things, she makes an interesting criticism of Western aid:<\/p>\n

But as if to justify relief and financial aid, people from the rich countries are more willing to go to Africa to implement relief services like feeding emaciated infants, discover Africans dying of horrible diseases like AIDs and Ebola, be peacekeepers in war-torn countries and send horrifying images of tragedies for television. Hardly any of the friends of Africa are willing to tackle the political and economic decisions being made in their own countries and which are partly responsible for the same horrible images brought to their living rooms by television. Relevant questions are deliberately avoided and those who ask them fall out of favour and become political targets. And therefore, those who are responsible for tragedies in Africa escape blame which is laid at the feet of the victims. And Africa continuous to be portrayed in a very degrading and dehumanizing way. As if when others elsewhere look worse off than selves, it feels better and luckier. Perhaps it is playing on human nature: when Africa is projected as negatively as possible, it makes others else where feel better and overlook the economic and political policies of their own countries, many of which are responsible for the situations they see on television.<\/p>\n

For example, most foreign aid to Africa comes in form of curative social welfare programmes such as famine relief, food aid, population control programmes, refugee camps, peace-keeping forces and humanitarian missions. At the same time, hardly available are resources for preventive and sustainable human development programmes such as functional education and training, development of infrastructure, institutional and capacity building, food production and processing, the promotion of creative innovations and entrepreneurship. There are no funds for development of their own cultural, spiritual and social programmes which would empower people and release their creative energy. Such programmes find few sympathizers.<\/p>\n

In the current scenario therefore, development programmes which receive enthusiastic support are those which generate much wealth for the international communities even as they put Africans into more debt.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"maathai.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Read the whole thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Curiously, Ms. Maathai recieved the Right Livelihood Award<\/a>, aka “the alternative Nobel Prize,” 20 years ago. So perhaps the Nobel people are beginning to catch up.<\/p>\n

She’s also a bit of a conspiracy theorist about AIDS<\/a>. Oh, well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is cool. From the Washington Post: Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan firebrand who mobilized the women of Africa in a powerful crusade against deforestation called the “Green Belt Movement,” will receive the Nobel Peace Prize for 2004. Friday’s announcement, by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}