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SMNTY Classics: Wangari Muta Maathai · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this Sandy and Samantha. I do welcome to Stephane.
0:07
Speaker 1: Never told you protection to I Heart Radio. So as
0:19
Speaker 1: this comes out, it is April, and it's here in Atlanta.
0:24
Speaker 1: Spring is in full swing. I mean we've got a
0:27
Speaker 1: lot of like fluctuating weather though we've got it was
0:30
Speaker 1: forty degrees when I woke up this morning, I was like,
0:32
Speaker 1: eighty degree. This up and down has really gotten my
0:37
Speaker 1: body like nope, yes, yes, Samantha's feeling the pressure the
0:44
Speaker 1: weight of the weather change and this jet. Yeah, the
0:48
Speaker 1: pollens out, um, but it is lovely outside and it's
0:52
Speaker 1: very green. Um. I was lucky enough to get to
0:56
Speaker 1: visit my mom who kind of lives in North Georgia
0:59
Speaker 1: Reese at me Um and her yard is just beautiful,
1:03
Speaker 1: like greenery and flowers in bloom and it made me
1:07
Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, yes, the outdoors, I have missed you.
1:14
Speaker 1: But we've been doing a lot of content around environmentalism
1:17
Speaker 1: and Earth Day. If you haven't checked out, um the
1:20
Speaker 1: book clubs we just did on Leah Thomas's book, Um,
1:24
Speaker 1: Intersectional Environmentalism, go check that out. It's just so important
1:29
Speaker 1: to keep in mind the intersectional aspect of of this issue,
1:34
Speaker 1: and as part of that, we wanted to bring back
1:37
Speaker 1: uh this female first that we did with Eves a
1:41
Speaker 1: while back on Gengari Muta maattai Um and all of
1:45
Speaker 1: the work that she did around um, the environment and
1:48
Speaker 1: sustainability that unfortunately doesn't get highlighted enough. So please enjoy
1:53
Speaker 1: this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and welcome to
2:02
Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told your production of I Heart Radio's
2:04
Speaker 1: House Step Parts. It is the first female first. We
2:18
Speaker 1: are joined once again by our good friend and co
2:20
Speaker 1: worker eavese Hi. Thanks so much for being here, Thank
2:25
Speaker 1: you for having me again. We just had a rousing
2:27
Speaker 1: discussion about aliens and how they should look, resolutions, running
2:34
Speaker 1: um and disliking running, and then a little bit of
2:39
Speaker 1: our kind of disastrous mornings. Even I had a bit
2:42
Speaker 1: of a mishaps. We made it through them, which is
2:45
Speaker 1: an important part we did. We did. You're here to
2:48
Speaker 1: tell the tale that actually is probably a very important
2:51
Speaker 1: part to a lot of these female first we talked about, Yeah,
2:53
Speaker 1: you're right, because they do get pretty intense in some parts,
2:56
Speaker 1: Like they went through a lot, they struggled a lot,
2:59
Speaker 1: and they fought a lot, but you know, they did
3:02
Speaker 1: a lot of good things too, Yes, and the one
3:05
Speaker 1: the person you brought for us today. She did so
3:08
Speaker 1: much and very important to the discussions we're having now
3:16
Speaker 1: around the environment and sustainability, things that are on a
3:20
Speaker 1: lot of people's minds, as it should be. Yeah, that's
3:23
Speaker 1: exactly what I was thinking. I was like, I feel like,
3:25
Speaker 1: it's really good to be able to talk about today.
3:28
Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about man Gari Mutta Mattai
3:31
Speaker 1: Um And she did a lot of stuff that had
3:34
Speaker 1: to do with environmental activism and that is clearly something
3:38
Speaker 1: that we're talking about right now today. And I didn't
3:41
Speaker 1: choose say, oh, let me find somebody who's doing something
3:45
Speaker 1: that has to do with the environment. It just kind
3:47
Speaker 1: of came like, oh, she's someone who is, you know,
3:51
Speaker 1: first of all from the African continent, which I feel
3:54
Speaker 1: like maybe we've maybe we've discussed somebody from the African
3:57
Speaker 1: continent so far, I can't remember, but yeah, like that
4:01
Speaker 1: was really important to me. And also the actual work
4:03
Speaker 1: that she's doing is so relevant into what we're talking about,
4:08
Speaker 1: and it's also very recent and also had a very
4:12
Speaker 1: global impact. Um And she knows that she's talking about,
4:17
Speaker 1: she knows what she's doing and She's also left a
4:19
Speaker 1: great legacy behind her that just kind of touched people
4:22
Speaker 1: of all different cultures and people of all different nationalities,
4:25
Speaker 1: which I think is a really cool thing. Yeah, And
4:28
Speaker 1: I was reading her her story. I we always stress
4:33
Speaker 1: the importance of context in these stories that we um
4:37
Speaker 1: that you bring to us, um, and it's it is
4:41
Speaker 1: recent and it's kind of shocking how much she did
4:44
Speaker 1: and how much things have changed just through the sixties
4:48
Speaker 1: and seventies, kind of just this tumultuous cauldron of all
4:53
Speaker 1: these things happening. And it's also just, you know, very
4:58
Speaker 1: indicative of the actual issues that people were going through
5:01
Speaker 1: in Kenya and on the African continent at the time,
5:03
Speaker 1: because obviously environmental issues are global issues, but they're also
5:08
Speaker 1: very specific to the locales and the climates in which
5:11
Speaker 1: all the activists separately reside. Um. They're all different but
5:15
Speaker 1: also related in some way. And I think her perspective
5:19
Speaker 1: and how she kind of got into her activism and
5:23
Speaker 1: her work is indicative of that. But I feel like
5:28
Speaker 1: I'm getting ahead of myself right now. Yeah, I'm just like,
5:32
Speaker 1: oh my god, she's amazing, and I haven't who she
5:34
Speaker 1: really is, so yeah, but I was the first African
5:38
Speaker 1: woman to win the Nobel Prize, and she was the
5:41
Speaker 1: first woman to become an assistant professor at the University
5:44
Speaker 1: of Nairobi. She was the first woman to head a
5:47
Speaker 1: university department in Kenya and the first woman in Eastern
5:50
Speaker 1: and Central Africa to earn a PhD. So a lot
5:54
Speaker 1: of first Yeah, that's what we're here for, right, that's right.
5:59
Speaker 1: So she was born on April first, nineteen forty and Neary, Kenya,
6:04
Speaker 1: and she was the daughter of kiku You subsistence farmers.
6:07
Speaker 1: The kiku You are an ethnic group in Kenya. She
6:09
Speaker 1: had five siblings and she was raised in an area
6:12
Speaker 1: of Kenya that was known as the White Highlands, which
6:16
Speaker 1: is so called because there was policy that certain agricultural
6:19
Speaker 1: lands in Kenya should be reserved for Europeans. So her
6:23
Speaker 1: older brother convinced their parents that she go to school
6:26
Speaker 1: rather than focus on household responsibilities, which you could imagine
6:29
Speaker 1: were plentiful because she had so many siblings, um rather
6:33
Speaker 1: big family to take care of. She went to the
6:36
Speaker 1: Ta Primary School, the St. Cecilia School and then the
6:40
Speaker 1: Laredo Lemuro Girls School. So after completing school there, she
6:45
Speaker 1: got a scholarship and that's because the Kennedy administration in
6:49
Speaker 1: the U S at the time was funding initiatives for
6:54
Speaker 1: people in Eastern Africa and then Kenya specifically to study
7:00
Speaker 1: in the US, and so that's how she got a
7:03
Speaker 1: scholarship to study at university in the US. So where
7:08
Speaker 1: she ended up going was Mount Saint Scholastica College in Kansas,
7:12
Speaker 1: and she stayed in US to study at university for
7:15
Speaker 1: a bit. She graduated with her bachelor's in biology in
7:18
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, and then she stayed in the US
7:21
Speaker 1: she got her masters from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.
7:25
Speaker 1: And then so by this time when she returned to
7:29
Speaker 1: Kenya after she graduated, the whole Eastern colonialism processes and
7:34
Speaker 1: then Kenya had gained its independence and when she went
7:41
Speaker 1: back there was she had a research assistant position that
7:46
Speaker 1: had been promised to her. So she was recruited to
7:49
Speaker 1: be a research assistant in zoology and that was at
7:53
Speaker 1: the University of Nairobi, and she found out when she
7:56
Speaker 1: got to the campus that she had been denied the
7:59
Speaker 1: position and she thought that that was because of gender discrimination.
8:04
Speaker 1: So after that she got another research assistant position and
8:08
Speaker 1: this time it was in a department of veterinary anatomy,
8:12
Speaker 1: so she started. She continued working. She was not discouraged
8:16
Speaker 1: by that, so she started pursuing her doctoral studies in Germany.
8:20
Speaker 1: She got her PhD from the University of Nairobing, so
8:23
Speaker 1: she was the first woman to get a doctorate degree
8:25
Speaker 1: in East and Central Africa. Wow, that's pretty I can't
8:31
Speaker 1: even imagine writing the first person or a woman anything. Yeah,
8:36
Speaker 1: that level of achievement, at that level of achievement. Yeah, yeah,
8:39
Speaker 1: my first surb not not on that same plane. That's cool,
8:45
Speaker 1: though he didn't lead a pathway for other women, not
8:48
Speaker 1: that I know of such a thing, not that I
8:52
Speaker 1: know of. I mean, just like I wonder the reporting
8:57
Speaker 1: on it, or they're like, wow, look, this woman has
9:00
Speaker 1: become the first to do this, and all the negativity
9:04
Speaker 1: possibly probably, but as we know from I feel like
9:09
Speaker 1: previous people and just in general how these things work,
9:12
Speaker 1: a lot of those first aren't recognized in a contemporary manner.
9:16
Speaker 1: It's just like the person is doing a thing, and
9:18
Speaker 1: then we go back and look at them, sometimes posthumously,
9:22
Speaker 1: you know, way back in the day. Um, but we
9:25
Speaker 1: start to realize, okay, you know this, this happened, and
9:29
Speaker 1: this is part of a long story and a long
9:33
Speaker 1: lineage of people and things that they did, so we
9:37
Speaker 1: kind of situate the first within that history after a
9:40
Speaker 1: lot of tom Right, that's true. That's a good point.
9:44
Speaker 1: As far as her personal life, she married an Robi
9:48
Speaker 1: businessman who kind of had aspirations in politics, and she
9:51
Speaker 1: married him in nineteen sixty nine. She met him a
9:53
Speaker 1: few years before, and eventually they had three kids together,
9:58
Speaker 1: and he ran for parliament in the early nineteen seventies.
10:02
Speaker 1: His first campaign was unsuccessful, even though she helped him
10:06
Speaker 1: with that, and then later in their story in the
10:10
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties, they went through this whole divorce suit
10:13
Speaker 1: and he accused her of adultery, and it's also said
10:18
Speaker 1: that he thought that she was too educated and too
10:21
Speaker 1: strong willed and minded and too hard to control, and
10:25
Speaker 1: that was part of the reason that they got a divorce.
10:27
Speaker 1: But it was a pretty contentious situation. Um she ended
10:32
Speaker 1: up going to court, she lost the case, they ended
10:34
Speaker 1: up being divorced. She was even jailed for a short
10:37
Speaker 1: time about three days afterward, because she accused the judge
10:41
Speaker 1: of being incompetent whoa And this is also when his
10:45
Speaker 1: last name was spelled with one A M A M
10:48
Speaker 1: T H A I, and she changed her name to
10:53
Speaker 1: have two a's because of the whole situation. You requested that, Yeah,
10:58
Speaker 1: so it was that was you know, later in life
11:01
Speaker 1: after years of them having been together, they separated before
11:05
Speaker 1: they divorced, but yeah, that was part of their story. Yeah.
11:10
Speaker 1: So in nineteen seventy three, and this is where we
11:13
Speaker 1: get to all of the things. Obviously we're not going
11:16
Speaker 1: to have room to like talk about every single thing
11:20
Speaker 1: that she did because she did so many different things. Um,
11:23
Speaker 1: but in nineteen seventy three, she became the director of
11:26
Speaker 1: Nairobi's branch of the National Red Cross. So we see
11:29
Speaker 1: her already in the late sixties early seventies getting into
11:36
Speaker 1: all of her activism, all of her environmental work, and
11:39
Speaker 1: realizing through her research and just her personal life like observation.
11:44
Speaker 1: The thing I really love about her story is like
11:47
Speaker 1: how often we think of how we think of academics
11:50
Speaker 1: in terms of the work that they do, Like they
11:51
Speaker 1: did all this study at these universities, and this is
11:56
Speaker 1: their education, is what influenced them and what made them
11:58
Speaker 1: be able to address issues in a certain way. But
12:01
Speaker 1: observation is also a very important thing in our lives
12:05
Speaker 1: that can drive us to do better things because and
12:08
Speaker 1: I think her story is just a great example of that.
12:10
Speaker 1: Like she talks about how much in her during her
12:14
Speaker 1: childhood and during her life, how she was just noticing
12:16
Speaker 1: what was happening around her, how she was listening to
12:19
Speaker 1: village women tell her what they needed, and that observation
12:23
Speaker 1: is a big part of what drove her to do
12:25
Speaker 1: her environmental work, realizing that she could connect the things
12:29
Speaker 1: that are actually happening around her and the work that
12:31
Speaker 1: she's interested in doing, and the skills that she does have,
12:34
Speaker 1: and the education that she is getting and combining the two, well,
12:38
Speaker 1: those several things together to really create a huge impact.
12:42
Speaker 1: So I really like that about her story. Um. Yeah,
12:45
Speaker 1: So she started moving up in her roles at the university.
12:48
Speaker 1: She became a senior lecturer in the nineteen seventies, and
12:51
Speaker 1: she became the chair of her department, and then she
12:54
Speaker 1: became an assistant professor in nineteen seventy seven. And so
12:57
Speaker 1: her postdoctoral research made her, as I was saying, aware
13:01
Speaker 1: of all the things that was happening in her country,
13:04
Speaker 1: especially in the rural areas, and all the issues that
13:09
Speaker 1: people were facing, whether that had to do with the
13:11
Speaker 1: environment or like personal issues, and we'll we'll get into
13:14
Speaker 1: some of the things that specifically that drove her research
13:17
Speaker 1: that was happening in Kenya at the time. So later
13:21
Speaker 1: her husband campaign for a seat and in parliament again
13:25
Speaker 1: in one of this is before they divorced. One thing
13:28
Speaker 1: that he advocated for was finding jobs for the unemployed.
13:31
Speaker 1: And so with that spirit, that energy that was happening,
13:35
Speaker 1: Mattai connected that need to her environmental efforts and then
13:38
Speaker 1: she started this business called envirol Care where she was
13:41
Speaker 1: getting people to plant trees. That business wasn't that successful,
13:46
Speaker 1: but those efforts did lead her to you know, more
13:50
Speaker 1: successful efforts, and the connections that she already had with
13:53
Speaker 1: all these people through the work that she was doing
13:55
Speaker 1: led to her getting the National Council of Women of
13:58
Speaker 1: Kenya to help her launch a tree planting project called
14:01
Speaker 1: Save the Land her on Bay and her on Bay
14:03
Speaker 1: is the Swahili word that means all pull together, and
14:07
Speaker 1: that eventually turned into the green belt movement, which is
14:11
Speaker 1: one of her, you know, the most well known initiatives.
14:14
Speaker 1: Even though she did a time right, yeah, time, but
14:17
Speaker 1: that's that's a huge organization. She was active in the
14:24
Speaker 1: National Council of Women of Kenya for a really long time.
14:27
Speaker 1: From around night seven, while she was serving with them,
14:32
Speaker 1: she started introducing this idea of community based tree planting
14:36
Speaker 1: that she had already introduced through her other work. Much
14:40
Speaker 1: of the population in Africa dependent on what for fuel,
14:44
Speaker 1: but at the time there was a lot of deforestation happening.
14:48
Speaker 1: So as their still is UM, but trees were depleting
14:51
Speaker 1: because they were being raised and they weren't being replaced
14:56
Speaker 1: at the same rate UM. So obviously that least two
15:00
Speaker 1: a lot of different issues, including nutritional deficiencies, poverty because
15:06
Speaker 1: there would be they had to walk a long way
15:08
Speaker 1: to get water to be able to get the fuel UM.
15:12
Speaker 1: There was desert where there once was trees. The deforestation
15:16
Speaker 1: also caused soil runoff and water pollution, which is obviously
15:20
Speaker 1: important to a person being able to sustain themselves in
15:24
Speaker 1: terms of the food that they eat. And speaking of
15:26
Speaker 1: sustaining themselves, a lot of the children also had to
15:29
Speaker 1: start being fit with processed foods because of this, and
15:34
Speaker 1: livestock didn't have vegetation to eat. And on top of
15:38
Speaker 1: all that, under the colonial period, like British governors. They
15:41
Speaker 1: were planting non native trees instead of indigenous trees. So
15:46
Speaker 1: it just had all these effects on the way that
15:51
Speaker 1: people lived, in their ability to live whole in fruitful lives.
15:56
Speaker 1: So she started getting into all that and realizing how
16:00
Speaker 1: that affected people and specifically women, and she opened an
16:04
Speaker 1: agency that paid impoverished people to plant trees and shrubs.
16:08
Speaker 1: And so she decided to campaign for a seat in
16:13
Speaker 1: parliament that would become open and neary in nWo and
16:17
Speaker 1: to do this, she had to resign from the University
16:20
Speaker 1: of Narobi. That was one condition that she she couldn't
16:24
Speaker 1: be there to be able to run, and so the
16:26
Speaker 1: electoral authorities said that she couldn't run. She was just
16:32
Speaker 1: qualified for running because she hadn't registered to vote. So
16:35
Speaker 1: because of that registration in the last presidential election, because
16:38
Speaker 1: that registration technicality, they kind of pulled her out of
16:42
Speaker 1: that situation, and she obviously took issue with that decision,
16:45
Speaker 1: but she needed up, you know, being disqualified anyway, and
16:51
Speaker 1: wanted to go back to the university because obviously she
16:54
Speaker 1: needs a job, and they refused to rehire her or
16:58
Speaker 1: restore her benefits, and they evicted her from university housing
17:03
Speaker 1: since she was no longer there anymore. Oh man, m
17:09
Speaker 1: that's time time. So that's definitely one thread in her story,
17:17
Speaker 1: which is there were she had a lot of opposition.
17:21
Speaker 1: So she did have a lot of supporters and also
17:23
Speaker 1: supported a lot of people through employment and just like
17:28
Speaker 1: you know, personal support, but she had a lot of
17:31
Speaker 1: people who opposed the work that she was doing because
17:34
Speaker 1: she was so pro democracy, the things that she was
17:36
Speaker 1: talking about, the things that she was standing up against,
17:39
Speaker 1: and was viewed as kind of anti government, and in
17:42
Speaker 1: that respect, a lot of the press that she got
17:48
Speaker 1: in that the Green Belt movement got in the media
17:53
Speaker 1: that was negative and because of that, a lot of
17:57
Speaker 1: people were discouraged for wanting to be associated with the
18:02
Speaker 1: movement because of its you know, reputation, But it was
18:09
Speaker 1: still a successful movement, which we'll get into too. So
18:14
Speaker 1: she poured her energy into that Green Belt movement um
18:17
Speaker 1: and its main focus was poverty reduction and environmental conservation
18:24
Speaker 1: and focusing on this singular, this goal of planting trees,
18:29
Speaker 1: and its goal was to plant trees all across canyon
18:33
Speaker 1: to fight erosion and to create firewood for the fuel
18:37
Speaker 1: for people there, and to create jobs for women, because
18:40
Speaker 1: women were really instrumental and being the people who planted
18:43
Speaker 1: the trees. And so over the years they planted tens
18:47
Speaker 1: of millions of trees in Africa. Yes, they did this
18:51
Speaker 1: by establishing tons of nurseries that offered free seedlings to
18:55
Speaker 1: people UM and then the communities would plant them and
18:58
Speaker 1: very small a small payment was given for every tree
19:02
Speaker 1: that was planted, but they had to make sure that
19:05
Speaker 1: they took care of the tree for three months. That
19:07
Speaker 1: was part of the deal. And even though it's a
19:10
Speaker 1: small amount, that could make a big difference in someone's life. Um,
19:15
Speaker 1: for many of those women who were subsistence farmers that
19:17
Speaker 1: didn't have extra food to give for our to sail,
19:21
Speaker 1: not give that money was some of their only income.
19:26
Speaker 1: Well Man ten millions was able to help that many
19:31
Speaker 1: in different ways. That's amazing. Yeah, it is, Yeah, and
19:35
Speaker 1: I think that would be really cool. I know we'll
19:37
Speaker 1: probably get to this later, but there's an interview UM
19:40
Speaker 1: that when Gary did with um on on being and
19:44
Speaker 1: she described the power of seeing a tree that you've
19:46
Speaker 1: planted like years and years later, just knowing that you
19:51
Speaker 1: did that and it's outlast. Yeah, yeah, that this tree
19:57
Speaker 1: kind of became the tree itself through all the work
19:59
Speaker 1: that she did kind of became this movement of like democracy,
20:01
Speaker 1: of like the legacy of so many things through the
20:05
Speaker 1: work that she did. Ye, So, yeah, that's a really
20:08
Speaker 1: good point. And all the work through the green belt
20:11
Speaker 1: movement also helped conserve the soil and the ecology of
20:15
Speaker 1: the land and obviously gave thousands of people opportunities for employment.
20:22
Speaker 1: And she worked over time, this became more than just
20:27
Speaker 1: about trees. Obviously it was that from the beginning, but
20:29
Speaker 1: they also started to provide other services besides tree planting.
20:33
Speaker 1: So she worked with the National Council of Women of
20:36
Speaker 1: Kenya to give services like family planning, like nutrition, food security,
20:41
Speaker 1: HIV awareness, and leadership skills. So it became this environmental
20:46
Speaker 1: and civic educational program for people, and that ended up
20:50
Speaker 1: spreading its tendrils throughout a bunch of countries in Africa
20:53
Speaker 1: and throughout the world as well, and eventually it formerly
20:56
Speaker 1: separated from the National Council of Women of king Him
21:01
Speaker 1: and she. Even though Mattai was already so involved in politics,
21:07
Speaker 1: she became more involved in politics over time and protests
21:12
Speaker 1: and activism, and in the nineteen eighty nine she protested
21:17
Speaker 1: the construction of a huge office tower in Uhuru Park
21:21
Speaker 1: in Nairobi. So she started sending out a bunch of
21:24
Speaker 1: letters to all of these people, different government officials, different
21:29
Speaker 1: organizations and Kenya to protest, like just putting the pressure
21:34
Speaker 1: on people to protest this office tower being built. It
21:38
Speaker 1: was a whole complex thing, and she claimed that the
21:41
Speaker 1: building was expensive and that money should instead be spent
21:44
Speaker 1: on other things because this is going to be a
21:46
Speaker 1: tens of millions of dollar project like poverty, hunger and education.
21:51
Speaker 1: And obviously this project had a bunch of foreign investors.
21:54
Speaker 1: And through all of the protesting that happened, even though
21:58
Speaker 1: she was getting a lot of black impress once again
22:02
Speaker 1: for her protest and for not being quiet, complacent and
22:09
Speaker 1: all those things that you know a woman's supposed to be,
22:14
Speaker 1: she still managed to like that that whole protests managed
22:19
Speaker 1: to be successful and investors ended up pulling out of
22:24
Speaker 1: the whole situation not long after her protesting began, and
22:28
Speaker 1: the skyscraper wasn't built, So that was one thing of
22:32
Speaker 1: the many things that she protested against. And she also
22:36
Speaker 1: opposed the one party state that there was in Kenya
22:38
Speaker 1: at the time, so Matta was also involved in the
22:42
Speaker 1: Forum for the Restoration of Democracy, which was a group
22:45
Speaker 1: that opposed among other things. This group kind of branched
22:48
Speaker 1: off had groups in different countries, but and Kenya, it
22:51
Speaker 1: was opposed to the leadership of the President Daniel are
22:54
Speaker 1: At Moy and her opposition earned her the ire of
22:57
Speaker 1: the president not just through her work with the Forum,
23:01
Speaker 1: but also all the other things that she was doing.
23:03
Speaker 1: So going back to that project with the Office Tower,
23:07
Speaker 1: he was really against her speaking up about that too
23:10
Speaker 1: and had a lot of nasty things to say about
23:12
Speaker 1: her for her vocalizations on that issue, and she faced
23:18
Speaker 1: many risks, beatings and dealings because of the work that
23:22
Speaker 1: she was doing. She advocated for the release of political
23:27
Speaker 1: prisoners and in she wanted to hunger strike with the
23:30
Speaker 1: group of mothers of political prisoners and that ended up
23:37
Speaker 1: being successful, even though she had a lot of other
23:39
Speaker 1: people who were involved in the strike. We're beaten by
23:43
Speaker 1: police during the protest, but at the end of that strike,
23:48
Speaker 1: the government did released the majority of the political prisoners.
23:54
Speaker 1: We have a lot more of our discussion with Ease,
23:56
Speaker 1: but first we have a quick break for a word
23:58
Speaker 1: from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you, sponsor, Let's
24:14
Speaker 1: get back into it. She was also arrested for more
24:17
Speaker 1: of her protest and later charged with spreading rumors that
24:21
Speaker 1: the president was planning to turn government power over to
24:23
Speaker 1: the military. And so while she was in jail waiting
24:28
Speaker 1: on her charge, she was refused medical treatment. So it's
24:32
Speaker 1: just like it's there was a lot of like fighting
24:36
Speaker 1: happening there. Like, there was a lot of conflict and
24:39
Speaker 1: a lot of this kind of fabrication of like issues
24:43
Speaker 1: when it came to the work that she was doing
24:45
Speaker 1: because she was so vocal and because she was so
24:47
Speaker 1: active um in her environmental causes. She said that she
24:55
Speaker 1: was running for parliament and for the presidency as part
24:58
Speaker 1: of the Liberal Party of and Yeah, and as part
25:03
Speaker 1: of her campaign, she was continuing to say the same
25:06
Speaker 1: things be about be about what she had always been about,
25:09
Speaker 1: basically denouncing the corruption in the government and imagining a
25:13
Speaker 1: society where people really embraced their cultural with spiritual background
25:21
Speaker 1: um as they participated in government. But her candidacy was
25:25
Speaker 1: withdrawn by the party without notifying her until days before
25:32
Speaker 1: the election. That said, she didn't announce her campaign until
25:37
Speaker 1: not long before the election itself, but she ended up
25:41
Speaker 1: not getting that parliament seat. Wow, they didn't tell her.
25:47
Speaker 1: It's just like people are afraid of strong women. This
25:50
Speaker 1: is true of power and obviously the opposition they had
25:53
Speaker 1: to do everything they could to try to undermine her. Yeah,
26:00
Speaker 1: he was determined. Another thing that she did as part
26:04
Speaker 1: of all her work was working on the Jubilee two
26:08
Speaker 1: thousand campaign, which was this global campaign UM, but in
26:14
Speaker 1: her case when she became the co chair of the
26:16
Speaker 1: campaign in Kenya, which she did in n UM specifically
26:21
Speaker 1: focusing on the countries in Africa, but the whole campaign
26:24
Speaker 1: was aiming to cancel foreign debt for poor countries by
26:27
Speaker 1: the year two thousand, which is where the number two
26:29
Speaker 1: thousand comes from and the name of the campaign. Yeah,
26:32
Speaker 1: so she wasn't There were a lot of people who
26:34
Speaker 1: were against her, including you know moy and all a
26:38
Speaker 1: bunch of other government officials and just people in general
26:42
Speaker 1: UM who didn't like how she was challenging government and
26:45
Speaker 1: how she was speaking up for all these pro democracy
26:49
Speaker 1: positions and all these activities that she had going on
26:51
Speaker 1: in relation to that. Just as some examples, she was
26:58
Speaker 1: hospitalized in or a head wound and a concussion that
27:02
Speaker 1: she suffered during uh government arranged attacks. So she was
27:08
Speaker 1: working on this project where she and some supporters were
27:11
Speaker 1: planting trees in the Corea forest which is in Nairobi,
27:15
Speaker 1: and she was protesting against the clearing of the forest
27:19
Speaker 1: for a private development. Um. That's one thing that happened
27:23
Speaker 1: to her. At another point, they forced the Great Belt
27:27
Speaker 1: Movement to mood from its office um in a government
27:31
Speaker 1: owned building to her home. Um. She when she formed
27:36
Speaker 1: the Tribal Classes Resettlement Volunteer Service in nineteen to help
27:41
Speaker 1: victims of state sectioned political violence in the Rif Valley,
27:45
Speaker 1: the government accused her of inciting violence and tried to
27:49
Speaker 1: shut down her organizations meetings by sending and police to
27:54
Speaker 1: disrupt things. Yeah. So those are just some of the
27:57
Speaker 1: things that she was up against. Um, the list could
28:01
Speaker 1: go on, but we won't do that. Yeah, it sounds
28:04
Speaker 1: like quite a lot. And she definitely put her She
28:07
Speaker 1: was somebody who put her body on the line. Say
28:09
Speaker 1: she was a powerhouse and everything her obviously in her
28:12
Speaker 1: work and her ethic and and just in her beliefs.
28:17
Speaker 1: She was unmovable. The plant like a tree, yes, oh,
28:22
Speaker 1: look at that. Actually don't work together. Civil war. There
28:28
Speaker 1: we go. We got to America. Yeah, I'm actually surprised
28:31
Speaker 1: there haven't been more tree puns, but I'm glad it's
28:34
Speaker 1: not appropriate. You're saving them for the end, is what
28:36
Speaker 1: you're really doing. And they're all in my keeping them
28:40
Speaker 1: to myself for once. You're writing it for later writing
28:44
Speaker 1: them down. So one of her biggest opponents, boy left
28:51
Speaker 1: office in two thousand two, and that same year she
28:55
Speaker 1: ran for parliament and was elected with a large majority
28:58
Speaker 1: of the vote. Um the president and ended up appointing
29:01
Speaker 1: her the Minister for Environment, Natural Resources in Wildlife and
29:05
Speaker 1: she served in the government and in Parliament until two
29:08
Speaker 1: thousand five. And this is um We're getting into the
29:13
Speaker 1: later years of her life at this point, and she
29:16
Speaker 1: was recognized for a lot of her work. She got
29:19
Speaker 1: a lot of honorary degrees and awards, like too many
29:24
Speaker 1: to mention here, um, but a ton of them. But
29:26
Speaker 1: one of the big ones was the Nobel Peace Prize,
29:30
Speaker 1: which she got into thousand four and she was the
29:33
Speaker 1: first African woman to get the Nobel Peace Prize and
29:37
Speaker 1: she got it for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy
29:40
Speaker 1: and peace. So that's that's one of the awards that
29:45
Speaker 1: she got. And in her acceptance speech, which, um, it's
29:51
Speaker 1: really interesting. She noted how she was influenced by the
29:55
Speaker 1: things that you know, as we were talking about earlier,
29:57
Speaker 1: she observed when she was a child in Kenya. Um,
29:59
Speaker 1: she saw for us being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations,
30:04
Speaker 1: and she saw a local bio diversity being destroyed. And
30:10
Speaker 1: she also said that when she started the green Belt movement,
30:13
Speaker 1: she was really responding to the needs that rural women
30:16
Speaker 1: were saying that they had, which were specifically the lack
30:19
Speaker 1: of firewood, clean drinking water, balanced diets, shelter, and income.
30:26
Speaker 1: And she also called out to the fact which is
30:29
Speaker 1: how integral women were in the development of the work
30:33
Speaker 1: that she wanted to do with the green Belt movement
30:35
Speaker 1: and the work that she ended up doing with the movement,
30:38
Speaker 1: and that be saying that because they were primary caretakers
30:43
Speaker 1: throughout Africa there was responsible for taking care of the
30:45
Speaker 1: land and for taking care of the family, that they
30:48
Speaker 1: were often the first ones to become aware of any
30:54
Speaker 1: environmental damage that was happening, even if they didn't recognize
30:58
Speaker 1: how one thing was necessarily affecting the other in their
31:01
Speaker 1: personal experience, right, Yeah, And she got yeah, so some
31:06
Speaker 1: of the other awards that she got were the Goldman
31:08
Speaker 1: Environmental Prize, the French Legion of Honor, Japan's Grand Cordon
31:12
Speaker 1: of the Order of the Rising Sun. Um like i
31:15
Speaker 1: said more honorary degrees. He also authored several books. One
31:19
Speaker 1: of them was a memoir that was called Unbowed and
31:22
Speaker 1: another book called a Challenge for Africa and other writings.
31:26
Speaker 1: She was named a un Messenger of Peace in two
31:30
Speaker 1: thousand nine, and the next year, in partnership with the
31:34
Speaker 1: University of Narrobi, she found at the Wangari Matai Institute
31:37
Speaker 1: for Peace and Environmental Studies. And yeah, so she just
31:42
Speaker 1: continued help not only doing her own work and her
31:48
Speaker 1: organization when it came to environmental causes, but also participating
31:52
Speaker 1: in like teaching other people about those things and making
31:56
Speaker 1: sure that other people learned about environmental issues when it
32:00
Speaker 1: came to academics, but just general you know, environmental education
32:04
Speaker 1: for people. Um so, you know, spreading all of that
32:08
Speaker 1: knowledge around the world. And in two thousand eleven she
32:13
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and she ended up dying
32:16
Speaker 1: that year from complications of the cancer. Yeah, but her
32:20
Speaker 1: legacy that was what you know, only so long ago.
32:24
Speaker 1: But you know, her legacy is clearly still a parent
32:29
Speaker 1: in the world and a parent in Kenya, and she's
32:32
Speaker 1: well remembered and fortunately was able to be recognized during
32:37
Speaker 1: her lifetime. Yeah, And I think one of my favorite
32:42
Speaker 1: things about her and the things that she did is
32:46
Speaker 1: there is this awareness of taking care of the future,
32:51
Speaker 1: of looking out for future generations. That she started all
32:55
Speaker 1: of these things and spread her knowledge to make sure
32:58
Speaker 1: that things would continue once she was no longer around.
33:03
Speaker 1: And I actually think that's one of the biggest problems
33:05
Speaker 1: with humanity is and when it comes to sustainability, is
33:09
Speaker 1: we're really bad about doing that. We're really bad about
33:12
Speaker 1: thinking about future generations because right now this is the
33:16
Speaker 1: easy thing to do, to continue as we are. But
33:20
Speaker 1: she made sure that she's left behind these things so
33:26
Speaker 1: that hopefully we could continue the work that she was doing.
33:30
Speaker 1: Right it seems her whole ideas were an idea of
33:35
Speaker 1: the big picture. She didn't see as a one little thing.
33:38
Speaker 1: It was we're planting trees. As we're planting trees, but
33:41
Speaker 1: with these things in mind, whether it's to provide economic
33:44
Speaker 1: stability for a group of women, a group of people
33:48
Speaker 1: who need that assistance right now, but we'll do it
33:50
Speaker 1: through this avenue. She had this very thoughtful consciousness of
33:54
Speaker 1: how to get things done in a multifacet way, which
33:57
Speaker 1: is phenomenal, especially when you think of how little that
34:01
Speaker 1: happens today. There's no real conversation of what can we
34:05
Speaker 1: do and put it together as a blanket, not necessarily
34:10
Speaker 1: a blanket, but at least an overhaul of the whole system.
34:12
Speaker 1: And that's what she did, which all on her own,
34:15
Speaker 1: which is phenomenal, especially with all of the pushback and seeing, okay,
34:20
Speaker 1: you go, you aren't seeing the bigger picture. You're just
34:22
Speaker 1: angry because I'm making a difference and it could be
34:24
Speaker 1: taken away from you, whether it's money or your fame
34:27
Speaker 1: or your credibility. But this is what it has to
34:30
Speaker 1: be done. That's phenomenal. It's a whole different level of
34:33
Speaker 1: thoughtfulness and a whole different level of understanding the need
34:37
Speaker 1: for sustainability and the needs to for growth and the
34:39
Speaker 1: need to continue beyond. Yeah. And I think that to
34:42
Speaker 1: the interesting point about what she said of her being
34:45
Speaker 1: having this kind of multifascinating way in which she worked,
34:48
Speaker 1: is that her vision was also very singular um and
34:53
Speaker 1: focused and like she was like, I have a goal, Um,
34:57
Speaker 1: I know how I can get the thing done, and
34:58
Speaker 1: we're going to get it done end. We're going to
35:00
Speaker 1: get it done together. And just the way in which
35:03
Speaker 1: she empowered so many people, not in not from a
35:06
Speaker 1: position of like I have the things, and I have
35:08
Speaker 1: the knowledge, and I have the education. I was fortunate
35:11
Speaker 1: enough to go to you know, us to study, you know,
35:15
Speaker 1: under this scholarship that was funded by the government or
35:18
Speaker 1: anything like that. It was just kind of like, I'm
35:21
Speaker 1: not giving these people these things, these opportunities because I'm
35:25
Speaker 1: able to do that because she isn't. She is using
35:27
Speaker 1: her position of power, obviously, But it was in such
35:30
Speaker 1: a way that was community lad you know, it was
35:33
Speaker 1: in such a way that was about the way that
35:35
Speaker 1: people were together and just it being so inspiring the
35:40
Speaker 1: fact that she realized how important it was to incorporate
35:43
Speaker 1: all these other things when it came to the leadership
35:46
Speaker 1: development and stuff like that, where this wasn't just about
35:50
Speaker 1: a person here, They're getting this many Kenyan Sinse too.
35:56
Speaker 1: You know, grow a tree. It was about growing tree
36:00
Speaker 1: these and creating a better environment and creating a better world,
36:03
Speaker 1: and within that, creating better communities that were able to
36:07
Speaker 1: thrive and not just survive, and that were connected and
36:11
Speaker 1: that were you know, uh, future focus, but also present focus,
36:17
Speaker 1: where in a way they were like, this is my
36:18
Speaker 1: community that I have now, and I'm working together with
36:21
Speaker 1: them to really in this embodied way where my hands
36:24
Speaker 1: are on the soil and I'm really contributing to the
36:28
Speaker 1: future of my community. But also I'm thinking about our
36:31
Speaker 1: children that are here right now. What kind of food
36:34
Speaker 1: am I feeding them? What do our traditional diets look like?
36:37
Speaker 1: But also their future, like what will the land look
36:40
Speaker 1: like to them? Will they be able to respect their land?
36:42
Speaker 1: The children are learning to respect the land at the
36:44
Speaker 1: same time. Um, it's I just think, Yeah, everything that
36:49
Speaker 1: she was doing was so important, but I'm just still
36:54
Speaker 1: struck by how many different things but still how tight
36:59
Speaker 1: like her vision was right and that's it was very coesive,
37:04
Speaker 1: we very coesive. Yeah, And that's an amazing balancing act
37:09
Speaker 1: to pull up of. Yeah, we need to think about
37:12
Speaker 1: the future generations, but we also have to think about
37:14
Speaker 1: the president. Like to be able to do both, I
37:17
Speaker 1: mean that's amazing. Yeah, And I also really find so
37:24
Speaker 1: many of these women need bring to us ease. I
37:26
Speaker 1: find it so impressive that we know as women, at
37:32
Speaker 1: least I can speak from my own I always have
37:35
Speaker 1: all these doubts. I have all these doubts, and a
37:38
Speaker 1: lot of times it keeps me from even putting myself
37:41
Speaker 1: forward for things. And that's we know, that's why a
37:42
Speaker 1: lot of women don't run for office. And it's not
37:45
Speaker 1: to say that the women you've brought to us don't
37:48
Speaker 1: have doubts, but they just were like, somebody needs to
37:51
Speaker 1: do this. I can do it. I'm going to step up. Well.
37:55
Speaker 1: I mean, you and I have talked about the times
37:56
Speaker 1: that we get criticisms and that kind of sometimes shots
37:59
Speaker 1: me down. I can't imagine the level of lies and
38:02
Speaker 1: criticisms that were thrown at her purposely by the most
38:05
Speaker 1: powerful man in that country, in that nation, at that point.
38:09
Speaker 1: I mean I could not. I don't know. I don't
38:11
Speaker 1: know how it would fathom or even feel under pressure,
38:13
Speaker 1: but to continue forth and still keep fighting, and still
38:16
Speaker 1: keep fighting, still being told you know, you are whatever
38:19
Speaker 1: damaging by those who have the loudest voices, But knowing
38:23
Speaker 1: that she can make a difference than what she's doing
38:24
Speaker 1: is like, right, it's amazing, and it's to look back
38:29
Speaker 1: on it now you're like, oh, wow, that's encouraging. But
38:31
Speaker 1: to be in the middle of that, I don't know,
38:33
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, oh, the fear of failing is
38:36
Speaker 1: already there. But being told you're ruining something or you're
38:40
Speaker 1: being your disaster to something. What a way to have
38:44
Speaker 1: to fight against that? How do you do that? And
38:47
Speaker 1: how was she able to do that? And she did though,
38:49
Speaker 1: and finally got what she deserved all the accolades as
38:53
Speaker 1: she did earn. But man, that road to get there, right,
38:57
Speaker 1: it had to be a long, long, very loud. Yeah. Um,
39:04
Speaker 1: it's impressive and inspiring in a good way to start
39:07
Speaker 1: the year. The female first, Um, is there anything else
39:10
Speaker 1: you want to have you? I don't think so. I
39:13
Speaker 1: would highly recommend The interview on on being is very beautiful. Yeah,
39:20
Speaker 1: and just anything where she's speaking, Yes, highly recommend if
39:26
Speaker 1: you're looking for some some inspiration and like a newfound
39:30
Speaker 1: appreciation of trees. Oh my gosh. Right, we are also
39:35
Speaker 1: in a city of trees, so we are. It's a
39:37
Speaker 1: big if. Speaking of things being topical. Uh, that is
39:41
Speaker 1: a topic of conversation in Atlanta where we are right now,
39:44
Speaker 1: which is that we've historically been called the city of
39:48
Speaker 1: like the city in the forest, and we are known
39:51
Speaker 1: for having a ton of trees, which we're not the
39:53
Speaker 1: biggest metropolis like in the United States and definitely not
39:56
Speaker 1: in the world, but for being a city of our
40:00
Speaker 1: hallis in the stature. We like have a lot of
40:03
Speaker 1: forest and a lot of tree canopy here, but a
40:06
Speaker 1: lot of that is also being raised for private development
40:10
Speaker 1: and gentrification, which are huge things that are happening right
40:14
Speaker 1: now in Atlanta. So on a micro level, from this
40:18
Speaker 1: macro conversation we're having, all of her work is very
40:22
Speaker 1: relevant to things that are happening here in metro Atlanta. Absolutely. Uh,
40:26
Speaker 1: that's one of my favorite parts about Atlanta. So we
40:32
Speaker 1: will continue to see where that goes. We have some
40:37
Speaker 1: more to talk about, but first we have one more
40:40
Speaker 1: quick break for word from our sponsor and we're back.
40:56
Speaker 1: Thank you sponsor. But in the meantime, thank you so
41:01
Speaker 1: much Eaves for for coming on as always, thank you
41:03
Speaker 1: for having me. Where can the listeners find you on
41:07
Speaker 1: social media? On that is on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. UM,
41:12
Speaker 1: I'm on this sand History Class, which is a different
41:15
Speaker 1: podcast that was about days and history. UM. You can
41:20
Speaker 1: also find me at Unpopular on all those same social
41:24
Speaker 1: media platforms. Yeah, our eaves, Jeff Goo is my name,
41:29
Speaker 1: and do whatever you want to do with that information
41:35
Speaker 1: kind of things. Good point, but yeah, listeners should definitely
41:41
Speaker 1: go check both of those out there. Amazing and if
41:45
Speaker 1: you would like to contact us you can. Yes. Um
41:50
Speaker 1: Our email is Stuff Media mom Stuff at iHeart media
41:53
Speaker 1: dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
41:54
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You.
41:58
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super produced Sir Andrew Howard,
42:01
Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You,
42:05
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42:07
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