WANGARI MAATHAI ON AFRICA'S MICRO NATIONS

On 1 April, the world commemorated Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai's 84th birthday.

Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an organisation that championed tree planting, environmental conservation and women's rights.

In 1989, the government of Daniel Moi, who exerted control over the judiciary and turned Kenya into a one-party state, proposed erecting a British-designed and -owned 60-storey glass skyscraper in Uhuru Park, a popular recreational spot in Kenya's capital of Nairobi. Maathai's protests were enough to force the government to relent. But that did not come before the government referred to her as a 'crazy woman' who, in Moi's words, should be a proper African woman who respects men and stays quiet.

Maathai developed an environmental consciousness through her ethnic community, the Kikuyu, who revered nature and, therefore, believed in conserving the environment. To the Kikuyu, trees are holy and shouldn't be cut down. Conserving trees reduces landslides and increases access to underground water.

Maathai also became the first woman to receive a doctoral degree in Kenya, where she served in the parliament and, later, as a minister. Maathai went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

In this clip from an unknown date, Maathai said that before European colonisers arrived in Africa to extract resources, African communities governed themselves, functioned like a well-oiled machine, and economic and social affairs were in the hands of the people. Before colonialism, people, such as the Kush in the Nile River Valley and the Songhai in West Africa, built civilisations on the continent that prioritised nature. Maathai articulated in this clip that colonial oppressors only had one way to subjugate and gain control: Through a 'divide and conquer' strategy that would ease colonial extraction. She also replaced the word 'tribe' with 'micro-nation' to describe our people's ethnic groups.

Maathai became an ancestor on 25 September 2011. We honour and remember her great works as we celebrate her in a week when she would have turned 84. Rest in power, legend.