Child of the universe

By Kipkoech TanuiProf Wangari Maathai may not have ruled Kenya but the nation’s name shone through hers the world over.
Her name featured in global tributes to conservationists and icons of nature to the extent one could say she was the golden plating on Kenya’s own name, and why not?
In 2004 she became Kenya’s gift to mankind and pillar of African pride, after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace".
From then on she joined the league of real-life African icons such as Desmond Tutu (1984), and Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk (1993).
Only then could she address Legislative assemblies and international forums where no other Kenyan safe the President could.
And outside Kenya, thousands queued to listen to her if possible, and if not, just to see her.
For to the World she was more than the divorcee Kanu regime so loved to call her, or troublemaker and ‘foreign mercenary and saboteur’ the regime’s diehards loved to hate, or even the easygoing and oft simplistic and political greenhorn who represented Tetu in Parliament during President Kibaki’s first term.

President Barack Obama, then Illinois Senator, and Prof Maathai plant a tree at Uhuru Park's Freedom Corner on August 25, 2006. Photo: File/Standard

She fought the big fight, against politicians and merchants of capital, those to whom land and trees are priceless treasure they can easily kill for. She demystified environmental conservation to a level that even the common man or woman could understand.
Her weapons were the rusty and uneven water can she always carried, a rough-edged stick she held onto so as not to stumble into receding water pools deep inside grabbed forests, and of course her sharp tongue.
But not quite her tongue, her razor-sharp mind too. She spoke and the Western capitals listened, and though an ordinary woman in flowing dress and one hairstyle the year round, she hogged as much headlines as presidents, against whom she stood, with a simple word of protest.
Like the proverbial messenger who never was a hero (nay heroine!) at home, in the global arena she also towered over the political reject status she got when she failed to be reelected in 2007.
For she had cut out her dress larger than life itself, and that is why her name will forever remain on the lips of Kenyans, including generations to be born.
Outside Kenya there was a stampede to see her, the global races wanting just a glimpse of the woman with a rope-like hairstyle tied in place with a bandana; who, walking barefoot and drenched in water, after forcing her way through swamps to plant trees, was met with police guns, batons and teargas.
Preservation of Mother Earth She had of course been on international television, her skull opened up with a police rungu, her clothes torn — which was a shame to those who did so given they were old enough to be her children — and blood spattered over
She may not have won that recognition at home, but in life and death, she remains a child of the universe, fighting for the preservation of Mother Earth, even before the dangers of the greenhouse effect, global warming and climate change, rose to the top of the global agenda.
She preached the same message before the Computer Age, and died when the World confronted the prospect of extermination from rising sea levels and escalating temperatures, spread of deserts and aridity, and legendary food scarcities and water shortages.
Killed by cancer, the health hazard whose seedbed scientists believe to be the polluted environment once so clean and serene, Wangari, true to her word, remained unbowed to the end. She was a woman of firsts, and for linking environment degradation to human conflict, she was bestowed the highest honour the World reserves for those who plant the seeds of peace, albeit at a great price themselves.
Long before she turned 71 and death nipped her life on the bud on Monday — and even before the World awoke to the tragedy of environmental destruction — she began her war.
If she had her way, trees would stand tall, proud and unscathed and streams would gently down the cliffs through the year. Smoke rising to the skies to our shame, evidence of burning trees to clear way for new buildings and sukuma wiki gardens, would never be the eyesore that has stuck with us to date.
But she seemingly slipped into silence, not so much due to vagaries of political defeat or because she had the won millions that comes with the Nobel Peace Prize, but inside her the cancer cells had spiraled and defied all forms of conventional treatment.
Greener worldShe shriveled physically, retreated to the comfort of family and friends, smiling wherever she could if only to radiate hope and love for life — which were the cornerstones of her own life. But she was losing the battle, alone just like with the many solitary battles she had fought, won or lost.
She lived like she would never die, because even if she were to die, she should bequeath the children of the universe a better and more peaceful world — and above all a greener one.
That is why she said she would not be buried in a wooden coffin, because in her mind for every such coffin, however cheap of exquisite, she saw a tree felled and an inch of desert beckoned over. In supermarkets she walked around with a traditional kiondo, (sisal basket) because she was a critic of plastic paper bags that fly over our cities, polluting the environment and inviting crows to live in our homesteads.
Her biggest horror, apart from the trees, was the smelly garbage dumps in our town.
"Surely, can’t we do better than this?" was the perennial question she asked those who cared to listen, but it is a question seemed not so obvious to a world fueled by unsustainable greed, self-destructive ethos of consumerism, and one that seemed to only react when disaster it invited to itself knock on the door.
She exited the World she fought so hard for early Monday, leaving behind her the loud ring of that beautiful Desiderata line: "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
To those left behind on their shoulders history thrusts the burden of saving the universe, and there is only one way to do so.
It is to respect, live and fight for Mother Earth as she did, and to nurture a green belt everywhere we are and wherever we go. Green after all is also the colour of peace.
Rest in Peace Mama Green Belt.
—The writer is Managing Editor, Daily Editions