Nobel Prize For Wangari Muta Maathai "The Acacia Tree"

Wangari Muta Maathai (Source: nobelprize.org)

JAKARTA - Wangari Muta Maathai is an opponent. He is against all the injustices that have occurred in his country. He even opposed several presidential policies that were considered to be damaging to the environment, to the point of being labeled subversive. This environmentalist from Kenya became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wangari Muta Maathai was born on April 1, 1940 in Nyeri, Kenya. He could be said to be a school star. Because of his intelligence, Maathai won a scholarship to study biology at the Mount St. Campus. Scholastica in Atchison. He graduated there in 1964. He obtained a master's degree in science from the University of Pittsburgh.

Maathai did not rush into complacency. He returned to continue his education to obtain a doctorate in animal anatomy at the University of Nairobi. She became the first woman in East or Central Africa to have such a title, according to the Nobel Prize website. As a doctor, it is certainly not complete if you have not written a book. So, in 2006, he published a book entitled Unbowed: A Memoir.

Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Like what the Nobel committee called at that time, he was awarded the award for his contributions to sustainable development, democracy and peace. It was a moment of great pride in Kenya and all of Africa in general.

Its Green Belt Movement has succeeded in planting as many as 30 million trees in Africa and has empowered nearly 900,000 women, according to The New York Times. "Wangari Maathai is a force of nature," said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations (UN) Environment Program.

Steiner analogized Maathai as an acacia tree that is everywhere in Africa. "Strong character and sometimes able to withstand the harshest conditions," said Steiner quoted from the same article.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Maathai also received many honors, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh in 2006. In addition, he also received the Legion award from France and the Grand Cordon from Japan.

Maathai, is one of the most respected women on the continent. He has many contributions there, ranging from environmentalists, feminists, politicians, professors, human rights activists to the founder of the Green Belt Movement which he founded in 1977.

Wangari Muta Maathai (Source: nobelprize.org)

Accused of being subversive

Maathai's struggle was not without obstacles. He was in conflict with the President of Kenya Daniel arap Moi. Maathai was so fiercely opposed that Moi called the Green Belt Movement fronted by Maathai a subversive movement during the 1980s.

Moi once scoffed at Maathai for orchestrating a protest to Moi about the government's plan to build a skyscraper on the site of Nairobi's only central park. The application was eventually dropped shortly after local police beat Maathai during the protest.

When Moi resigned after 24 years in power, Maathai served as a member of parliament as well as assistant minister for the environment. He was then sacked as assistant minister a few years later when he fell out of favor with Kenya's new leaders.

In 2008, after he was expelled from the government, an incident of violence that had been perpetrated by the authorities befell Maathai for the second time. He was once attacked with tear gas by police during protests against entrenched Kenyan politicians.

Apart from that, her domestic life was not free from problems. Her husband, Mwangi, divorced her on the grounds that Maathai was too strong for a woman. While in the divorce trial, Maathai was sentenced to lose by a judge. Not satisfied with the judge's decision, he then criticized the judge until he was sent to prison.

Maathai died in Nairobi, Kenya at the age of 71. The cause is cancer, according to information from his organization, the Green Belt Movement. Before dying, Maathai was treated for ovarian cancer in the past year and that he had been hospitalized for at least a week before he died.

In his speech when he received the Nobel Prize, Maathai once said that the greatest inspiration for all the work he has done comes from life in rural Kenya. At that time he recalled how the water flowing next to his house had dried up, and he told how delicious and fresh it was to drink clean water.

"In the course of history, there have been times when humanity was called to shift to a new level of consciousness," said Maathai. "One day we have to get rid of our fears and give hope to each other. And that time is now," he said.