Development requires virtue, says Nobel Peace Prize winner

MercatorNet interviews 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement.

Last December Wangari Maathai of Kenya became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace. Hers has been a trail-blazing life: she was the first woman from East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral degree – in science – and the first to head a university department in the region and become a professor.

As a biologist, Dr Maathai saw the problems that deforestation and soil erosion were causing in rural areas, especially for the women who have to till the land and feed their families. In 1977, when she had begun to serve on the National Council of Women of Kenya, she took an important decision. She resigned from the Chair of Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Nairobi and launched the Green Belt Movement, which has mobilized women to plant more than 30 million trees and so helped them become part of the solution to their material needs. At the same time the movement has been part of the democratic struggle in Kenya and also played a role in reconciling disputing communities.

Often opposed and harassed during the long and authoritarian rule of Daniel Arap Moi, but widely admired both within and outside her country, Dr Maathai was elected to Parliament in 2002 and the following year became Deputy Minister of Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife in the new coalition government.

Recently, MercatorNet caught up with the Nobel laureate and mother of three at a conference – Politics and the Common Good – held at Strathmore University in Nairobi, which she launched with an address on “The Duty of a Political Leader towards Future Generations”. We congratulated Dr Maathai on being awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and asked her what difference it had made to her life so far.

Wangari Maathai: It has made me extremely busy. There has been an overwhelming interest in my work from all angles. The greatest and perhaps most challenging task has been showing people, all over the world, the relationship between the environment and peace, since this is not clear to many.

MercatorNet: Born in 1940 in the provincial capital Nyeri, Wangari Maathai received, most unusually for African girls from the provinces, higher education in Kenya. She then went to the United States where she earned a Bachelor of Biological Sciences degree from Mount St Scholastica College in Kansas, and a Master of Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She pursued doctoral studies in Germany and the University of Nairobi, earning a PhD from the latter in 1971. It is no wonder, then, that when we asked what, in her background, had enabled her to attempt and achieve so much, often against strong opposition, she replied:

Wangari Maathai: My education. Education was the key for me. Also, traveling to the United States for further education changed me a lot. Without my education, my battle would have been infinitely more difficult. I owe much of my success to my teachers at every level.

MercatorNet: Kenya is a young nation, full of possibilities, dreams and expectations. But it also struggles with poverty, corruption and mismanagement of resources. We asked Dr Maathai what, in her opinion, are the three most important tasks facing Kenya – and Africa – at this moment.

Wangari Maathai: That's a very broad question. A whole book could be written on that question alone, but I'll try giving a short answer.

We need a good understanding of sustainable resource management, because the Earth's resources are being misused.

We need to invest more in education, which, as I have mentioned, in the key to many doors.

Above all, we need to promote human development – formation in virtue. Education alone is not enough. There is need for people who are well-rounded, properly formed. People who understand their place in society and their human condition, not merely scholars. We need people who understand that their human condition makes them trustees of creation and not owners. We have been given a beautiful earth by the Creator and we have to take care of it for him and for future generations. We must not destroy.

I would add that people who are not educated, or scholars without an all-round formation, can easily become what I call "brooms". Brooms cannot do anything on their own. They just wait for someone else to come and pick them up. People cannot be like brooms, to be used by others or remain passive in a corner. Everyone must act.

MercatorNet: Political corruption, or the use for private gain of goods held in trust for the public, is a problem undermining many countries, especially the poorest. We asked Dr Maathai what are the cultural and moral values that will ensure success in the struggle to overcome corruption in her country.

Wangari Maathai: Today, practically all our cultural values have been lost and replaced by Western anti-values. Regretfully, most Christian values that people are proclaiming have only been embraced superficially. People need to rediscover the old, good values that are known to us as Africans and Kenyans.

MercatorNet: Wangari Maathai's example shows Africa that women can contribute at every level of society. But it also suggests that women have a special contribution to make to true democracy in Africa – one that involves the grassroots of society, is practical and, above all, peaceful. Does she agree?

Wangari Maathai: Yes, but women also need education. They need to understand their roots so that they don't give in to modern ideas that are disconnected from our reality and our past.

MercatorNet: In presenting Dr Maathai with the Peace Prize, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Professor Ole Danbolt Mjos, spoke of the official opposition and harassment she had experienced. "She was repeatedly sent to prison; she was attacked with tear gas and clubbed," he said. Since the struggle for positive change in society has a personal cost, we asked Dr Maathai her advice for staying optimistic.

Wangari Maathai: We will overcome. God is on our side. We must give good example, respect nature, protect nature.

Alistair Gould is a student at Strathmore University, Nairobi. Additional reporting by MercatorNet Deputy Editor Carolyn Moynihan


Further reading
Wangari Maathai’s Nobel Lecture, Oslo, December 10, 2004