Taking Your First Step
Spirituality & Health magazine
May 15, 2004
Wangari Maathai celebrates with the women of the Green Belt Movement, Kenya, 1999. Photo by Mary Davidson.
This article is excerpted from a longer piece about mental traps that stop us from creating hope and justice, published in Spirituality & Health.
Democracy Is What We Do
One of our most paralyzing thought traps is that democracy comes from above. Our role as citizens is simply to step into the voting booth once a year. But around the globe, people are shedding this limited notion and embracing the idea of living democracy. As my mother says, “Democracy is not what we have, it is what we do.”
We saw this in Kenya, where we went to learn from Wangari Maathai, the first woman in East Africa to earn a doctorate in biological sciences. In the mid- seventies, during the early years of Daniel Fiarap Moi’s presidency, the country suffered rampant deforestation as politicians sold off the forests for cash or political favors. With connections in parliament through her then husband, Maathai began to argue that until citizens, especially women, planted trees, the desert would continue to creep south.
The government’s response? Illiterate women can’t plant trees. Only official foresters can. She pushed; they resisted. So she started on her own. In 1977, Maathai planted seven trees to honor seven Kenyan women leaders. By the time we visited Kenya several years ago, those trees had given birth to the Green Belt Movement, 6,000 village nurseries, and more than 20 million trees.
Yes, she proved the government foresters wrong and dramatically improved the environment, but what impressed us even more is that the Green Belt women changed their frame in the process. They started to see their right to the forests and developed a concept of the commons. They stood up to the government to demand that the trees be protected.
But none of this has been easy. Over the years, Maathai and her collaborators have been beaten by the police and jailed for their radical ideas of sustainable agriculture and public forests. One educator was arrested for simply teaching organic farming. But by planting trees, Maathai planted the seeds of a vibrant pro-democracy women’s movement in Kenya.
. . .
Finding Hope
As we do what we are here on earth to do, it is critical to remember that we are part of something bigger in ways we never know. Each time we stand up for our beliefs, we don’t know who is listening. Each time we identify our own thought traps, we don’t know who is watching. Each time we embrace possibility instead of despair, we don’t see the ripple we create.
Little more than a year after we visited the Green Belt Movement, Kenya held national elections. President Moi, after nearly 25 years in office, was voted out. Under the new president, Wangari Maathai became a minister in parliament. A few weeks later we received an email: Wangari, attacked and jailed for her beliefs by the former government, had been nominated deputy minister of the environment. Women were dancing in the street.
One of our most paralyzing thought traps is that democracy comes from above. Our role as citizens is simply to step into the voting booth once a year. But around the globe, people are shedding this limited notion and embracing the idea of living democracy. As my mother says, “Democracy is not what we have, it is what we do.”
We saw this in Kenya, where we went to learn from Wangari Maathai, the first woman in East Africa to earn a doctorate in biological sciences. In the mid- seventies, during the early years of Daniel Fiarap Moi’s presidency, the country suffered rampant deforestation as politicians sold off the forests for cash or political favors. With connections in parliament through her then husband, Maathai began to argue that until citizens, especially women, planted trees, the desert would continue to creep south.
The government’s response? Illiterate women can’t plant trees. Only official foresters can. She pushed; they resisted. So she started on her own. In 1977, Maathai planted seven trees to honor seven Kenyan women leaders. By the time we visited Kenya several years ago, those trees had given birth to the Green Belt Movement, 6,000 village nurseries, and more than 20 million trees.
Yes, she proved the government foresters wrong and dramatically improved the environment, but what impressed us even more is that the Green Belt women changed their frame in the process. They started to see their right to the forests and developed a concept of the commons. They stood up to the government to demand that the trees be protected.
But none of this has been easy. Over the years, Maathai and her collaborators have been beaten by the police and jailed for their radical ideas of sustainable agriculture and public forests. One educator was arrested for simply teaching organic farming. But by planting trees, Maathai planted the seeds of a vibrant pro-democracy women’s movement in Kenya.
. . .
As we do what we are here on earth to do, it is critical to remember that we are part of something bigger in ways we never know. Each time we stand up for our beliefs, we don’t know who is listening. Each time we identify our own thought traps, we don’t know who is watching. Each time we embrace possibility instead of despair, we don’t see the ripple we create.
Little more than a year after we visited the Green Belt Movement, Kenya held national elections. President Moi, after nearly 25 years in office, was voted out. Under the new president, Wangari Maathai became a minister in parliament. A few weeks later we received an email: Wangari, attacked and jailed for her beliefs by the former government, had been nominated deputy minister of the environment. Women were dancing in the street.