PROFESSOR WANGARI MUTA MAATHAI: AN EARTH ANGEL

 

AN EARTH ANGEL

This here person was one of Africa’s great souls, a rare breed, a divine being, a precious gem, and a great blessing for nation of Kenya with. It is because of the late Professor Wangari Muta Maathai that we are recognised the world over, as having produced one of the most brilliant minds the world has ever known. The Professor was the first among many a woman to earn a doctorate degree, the first chair woman to sit at the department of Veterinary Anatomy, an associate professor of same field, at the University of Nairobi, and the very first woman in East and Central Africa to receive the Nobel Piece Prize award.

The late Professor Wangari embodied the goddess Gaia, the mother earth, known as a guardian, with the ability to project growth and fertility on the environment. The numerous trees she planted on this earth are a testament to just how attune she was to the needs of our planet. She was also a warrior and a protector of the world’s elements, with the capacity to fight for and defend God’s green earth at all cost. The gifts she embodied were her birth right, which she manifested throughout her whole entire career, teaching the populace on the need to conserve nature, showing the world just how important it was to care and protect the earth’ resources, always pushing us into forward movement, and propelling us into action with her resounding echo that, “If you destroy the earth, then the earth will destroy you.”

In the beginning, not many understood her calling. Myriad of her countrymen thought that her green life crusade was both reckless and misplaced, and that she had no business championing for the rights of creation as it were. Majority of people wanted to force her to remain within the confines of the classroom, teaching the young ones on how to plant trees, and not being a public critic of trivial environmental matters that nobody cared about. Yet, there was no stopping the dream that Professor Wangari Maathai envisioned. She was determined to conserve nature’s resources by all means necessary, and came against anything or anyone that tried to deplete or destroy our natural habitat.

For years, she was full-on warrior mode, combatting different forces that stood against her mission and life’s work of protecting the ecosystems and would have sacrificed her own life to ensure that the biosphere was safe for generations to come. For decades, she was in and out of jail cells, arrested and charged mostly of voicing out her displeasure at the KANU government, for seeking to destroy natural habitats, in order to build sky scrappers and luxury hotels that would be of benefit to the elites.

Many young Kenyans may not know this but were it not for the late Professor Wangari Maathai, we would not be enjoying the ambience of the central parks within the Nairobi business district. What you may also not know about the late Professor is how brave she was to dare come against the government of the day, enduring constant public humiliation, always having her braided hair pulled by the police, oozing blood from her scalp, locked up together with her fellow activists on criminal charges of public misconduct and disturbing the peace. Professor Maathai was known to hold campaigns against land grabbing and rapacious allocation of forests land that were largely televised.

The KANU government was intolerant of her crusades and considered her to be a nuisance. But she fought them fiercely, battling tear gas and arrests by the police in every campaign corner, facing strong opposition from the female folk, issued with endless death threats, always putting her life on the line, and not caring of the consequences that came with her decisions to challenge the government. Moreover, many were intimidated by her alpha female personality, and labelled her as man, mocking her femininity by insinuating that she embodied male traits within her but the humble Professor laughed off her naysayers as cynics, for was mainly operating on her masculine side, struggling persistently for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation, and would not have succeeded had she engaged her femininity, knowing very well that it would not have played well in her favour, had she portrayed herself as a damsel in distress.

When she received the Nobel Piece Prize award, for the amazing contributions in the area of earth conservation, even we Kenyans were mesmerized as to how the entire world praised and loved on her. The individual we had criticized for years, and dismissed her life’s work as sheer nonsense and a waste of time, became an overnight sensation, a force to reckon with, and an integral part of our history. However, the late Professor Maathai was not one to be bothered by fame and fortune. She actually lived a virtuous life, and never cared much for the high life or flaunting her celebrity status. Infact, one would mistake the honourable Professor Wangari as a commoner on the streets, because of the way she lived a simple life and adorned humility as a badge of honour.

Perhaps many a people do not know this about the reputable Professor but she donated most of her fortunes to the Green Belt Movement, which was an organization she founded that sought to conserve the environment, by planting millions of trees worldwide. Indeed, the Professor was remarkable human being, who lived out her purpose and God ensured that was recognised for it, before she was joined in with her ancestors.

Here is a tribute to you Professor Wangari Maathai; may all your descendants continue to reap gold from the hard work and dedication you put in your life’s mission. Rest in Power!