One Woman can make a Difference

One Woman can make a Difference

I was watching a show called Independent Lens… I don’t know the name of
the subject for that day..but it was about Africa… very interesting….

I don’t know a lot about Africa, just a few things of the books and media. Like
how we got our slaves from there in the 1700’s and also how some of the rebels
in the past years have stolen male children to make them in to druggy, fighting
machines.. Making those particular Africans scum in my eyes. It is bad enough
when men fight wars. But to take children and have them do the work for them is disgusting in itself, but to make them in to druggy terrorist by beating and drugging
them is a new low in warfare.

The story on Independent Lens was about the trees of African near Kenya and in Kenya. It started out about how in the early years of the 1880’s the British decided to settle in a small area. There were 40 different Tribes at that time. In order to do this, they had to find a way to get rid of the natives. Or at least control them. That way they could remove the trees, and also enjoy the hunting. They decided to take over the natives with guns in hand… Caitlin guns. The natives had spears. In many areas they were told to kill all but the children. They couldn’t figure out how to take them over, even though they had a weapon power as there were far more natives than the few men with guns… so they decided they would destroy their culture. Starting with the Medicine men and elders of great powers. They sent in the Catholic Priest to convince the natives that Jesus was the only way, and the Elders and such, were the devil that they preached about in the bible. In time the natives turn against their Elders. (Kind of reminds me of the war against the Indians in the 1800)

In 1952, the Mau Mau from the Land Free African decided to rebel against this. So the British burnt the huts of the natives in the area, as they said they were hiding the rebels. Then they would take over the land of the burnt houses. They also burnt the forest in sections because they knew the rebels hid in the forest. They sent the natives to the British schools so they could learn how to be more civilized. Most Catholic schools. Kind of like Americans did to the Indian children. The British killed about 100,000 of these people.

In 1963, the British gave the Natives their freedom by having a Prime Minister, with the backing of the British. And he ruled for 15 years…

The women decided to get their trees back, so they started to plant trees in great numbers.
There was a woman called Professor Wangari Maathal, who was put in the Catholic Church as a child. Her mother use to talk about how the river ran thru their area, and the trees and how wonderful life was when she was a child. Wangari decided that she would take advantage of her education and put in for a University in America and she was accepted. She graduated with a PhD. She was the first African woman to do so. She came back to Africa and got married. Had 3 children. But ended up divorced. Losing her privileges and money because women didn’t have rights without their husbands.
But she didn’t give up. She had a dream of planting trees and bring back their green forest. She gathered women as she went. And all with this she brought in human rights.
The women started to plant trees, everywhere…. The government was starting to feel threaten by this group of women, who also talked about their rights.

In 1989 the Green Belt Movement was founded by Professor Maathal, who had started with the planting of the trees and went on to protest the Times Tower in her country. Taking the fight to the British. Telling how the tower would replace trees that were growing and also how they wanted to protect the trees and the vegetables and other vegetation in that area. The government was furious that she and the women had taken it out of the local area. And tried to put down the women… the women went on a hunger strike as the government had arrested their sons. They sat and sang in the Freedom Park area. And men had joined them. After 3 days the government were fed up with this so they sent their army to beat the women. It looked like the government was going to win, until one of the women yelled to the rest for them to stripe. And one of the men said to the army, that beating the women was like beating their own mothers. And the beating stopped.
The near by Catholic Church offered them protection by putting them up at the church.
More and more people started to join them. Until there were thousands of them.
The Prime Minister Moi let the sons free.

In 1998 the Government had sold the forest and told the women if they entered they would be killed. They protested again, and after Moi was defeated. Another Prime Minister and the Army General sympathized with the women and allowed them to plant trees, in fact they join the women in their planting and over a million trees were planted that year. In all total, there were over 35 million trees were planted. And now the people have a government by the people. Not perfect but a lot better.

And no I don’t see any level with Professor Maathal and Sarah Palin…not even close.

And you can Google Professor Maathal and her Green Belt Movement and read better stories than what I wrote… She is an amazing woman.

I have told my daughter thru the years, you can be anything you want to be, the only thing stopping you, is yourself…. I recently told one of my son’s who was complaining about the government, that why doesn’t he do something about it…. Start local…
I asked him the question … Do you go to your council meetings? As I do… What have you done for your city?