Jessica Horn – WNN Opinion
Women from The Greenbelt Movment in
Kenya work to save the ecosytem 2007. Image: Kasuga Sho
(WNN/OD) OPINION Africa: In the company of souls departed and souls
vibrantly alive, Jessica Horn reflects on the significance of the lives of
Nobel laureates Leymah Gbowee and the late Wangari Maathai, and the
transgressive power of African women on a mission.
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Since I started to write for Our Africa
I have been sitting with the souls of African women who have changed the world.
For a week the spirits of Wambui Otieno and Funmilayo Ransome Kuti inhabited my
life and provided a reflection point on the meaning of “activism” and the
direction and strategies of women’s and feminist movements in Africa today.
These two women told stories of personal sacrifice and willingness to defy
convention, always for a purpose and regardless of ridicule. They kept
reminding me of commitment, how deep and how life-long your contributions to
transformation have to be if you want to see anything shift. They spoke about
being honest with yourself- learning to drive if you know you might need a
getaway car someday, organising your life on the basis of ethics rather than
the limiting social norms you are expected to follow, be it the choice of who
you love or your allies in political activism.
In September I was to interview Kenyan
Nobel Peace laureate, environmentalist and political activist Wangari Maathai
for Our Africa. I had begun to chart out a dialogue with her, a conversation
which kept coming back to the same fundamental questions: after all you have
seen and done, how do you think change happens? And what do you think us young
women need to do better if we are going to nurture the kinds of transformations
that you have catalysed? At the end of September I heard the news that Wangari
Maathai had passed away- and there I sat, mourning and celebrating in the
company of a soul who had changed the world.
Fortunately history has its own way of
providing solace. A little over a week after Wangari ‘s passing the Nobel
Committee announced that they had awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to three women –
two of them from Liberia- current President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and feminist
peace activist Leymah Gbowee. My mind began to fill with the songs sung by the
women from the Mass Action for Peace , the famous ‘women in white’ mobilised in
their thousands through the inspiring leadership of Leymah Gbowee to bring an
end to the Liberian civil war in 2003. And so I sat again, in the presence of
souls departed and souls vibrantly alive, considering the transgressive power
of African women on a mission….
Not just what you want, but how you get
there. I may not have had a chance to pose my questions to the Wangari Maathai
in person, yet when I sat recollecting my memories of wise words I had heard
her say, and reading the many eulogies to her life by fellow African feminists,
I realised that the answers lay there in front of me. The answers lay in the
way that she had lived her life and the ways in which she faced injustice – and
won.
The late Wangari Maathai often used
fables and imagery to convey her analysis of the world and of what needs to be
done. In one powerful story she speaks of a hummingbird who sees a forest going
up in flames and decides, against the disparaging comments of its fellow
animals, to carry water in its beak and attempt against the odds to put out the
fire. The hummingbird’s response to its sceptical onlookers is to say: “I am
doing the best that I can…I may feel insignificant but I certainly do not want
to be like the other animals watching as the planet goes down the drain!”
Wangari Maathai was a hummingbird, but
she did not envision herself as a lone fire fighter. Instead, she rooted her
leadership in inspiring others to yearn for an end to the fire of political
deceit and environmental devastation, and a sense that even they could do
something about it. The Greenbelt Movement that she started in 1977 was built
through popular education, developing and passing on knowledge about
conservation and later about politics and social change with “everyday” Kenyan
women. Her populist approach remains an inspiration for a new generation of
African women activists. “She worked on environmental justice, but she spoke
about it in a language that even my grandmother could understand” reflects
Blessol Gathoni, a young organiser from Dandora – a Nairobi community listed as
one of the most polluted places in the world. Wangari Maathai motivated people
to plant millions of trees- inspiring each pair of hands that touched the soil
to consider the wellbeing of the earth and of future generations. That
collective act carries tremendous symbolism for young Nigerian feminist Amina
Doherty, who reflected in a personal email: “when I think about Dr. Maathai I
keep coming back to this wonderfully beautiful image of planting a tree.
Planting just one tree….and of groups of people coming together to plant trees…to
bring about change. It is about recognizing the value of one tree, and of
connecting individual trees to be part of something that is much bigger.”
Wangari Maathai exercised fearlessness
in the face of her calling. Alongside the “small acts” of growing forests, she
vocally denounced corruption and land grabbing, joining other women in daring
displays of popular public opposition against the dictatorship of Daniel Arap
Moi. She mobilised thousands to defend the commons, and as Zimbabwean human
rights activist Elinor Sisulu astutely notes, “she articulated and struggled
for accountability long before it was a safe buzzword.”
If you have met Nobel Laureate Leymah
Gbowee you will know that she shares this quality of fearlessness, and a voice
that never shies from speaking the truth. During the Liberian civil war Leymah
mobilised thousands of Liberian women to form the Mass Action for Peace,
calling on Christian and Muslim women to unite across religious lines in public
protest against war and the devastating violence committed against their fellow
Liberians. It may seem incredulous that a field full of unarmed women could
succeed in ending a lucrative mineral-fuelled civil war, and yet they did just that.
Leymah Gbowee and the women of the Mass Action for Peace were as strategic as
they were brave, using their moral power as mothers and daughters, their rights
as citizens, and their connections to the women in Charles Taylors’ life to
gain audience and put their message for an end to war across.
As a leader amidst this group of women
Leymah Gbowee was relentless in her commitment to the possibility of a Liberia
at peace. In 2003, while governments focused on supporting formal peace
negotiators and warring factions from all sides to come together inside a
conference room in Ghana, she and her colleagues found a way to bring Liberian
women as close as they could- camping outside the conference centre and
continuing their protest for peace. At the time the international community was
yet to recognise the power that Leymah Gbowee and her fellow women could wield.
In fact the protesters relied on the support of fellow African women to
persevere, including financial support and solidarity from the African Women’s
Development Fund and women from Accra and Northern Ghana. On hearing that the
men inside the conference room were refusing to agree, Leymah posed the
ultimate insult to a system of men’s power by threatening to bear her naked
body in public- a form of ritual humiliation common in many African societies.
That act of defiance, communicated in a language no official peace negotiator
can speak, is credited with breaking the stalemate in negotiations. The result
was the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement and a formal end to the second
Liberian civil war. Two years later Africa’s first woman President and now
fellow Nobel Laureate, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, was voted into office with the
support of- and a pledged commitment to – the women who had fought for a better
Liberia.
In the book Voice Power and Soul:
Portraits of African Feminists, Leymah Gbowee reflects on what inspires her own
activism, saying: “the level of passion for change that is exhibited by
ordinary African women speaks to me personally. My thought is always, ‘if she
is not giving up, despite the odds, who am I to give up?’”. The irony is that
we feel the same way about Leymah, as we do about Ellen and our departed
sisters and mentors Wangari, Wambui, Funmilayo – and all the African women who
had led in deed and not just in word. They are hummingbirds, calling on all of
us to consider making an equivalent commitment to quelling whatever flames of
degradation and injustice we encounter. As the African activist salutation
goes- Viva! Long live their example, and long live each of ours.
________________________________
Jessica
Horn is a writer and women’s rights consultant. She is a founding member of the
African Feminist Forum and co-editor of Voice, Power and Soul: Portraits of
African Feminists. She has consulted for a range of organisations including
private donors, women’s rights organisations, international NGOs and UN
agencies on advancing sexual and reproductive rights, ending violence against
women, supporting women living with HIV and ensuring women’s rights in
post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding.
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©2012 WNN – Women News Network
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absolutely inspiring!
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