Throughout the ages, men have proven that they are very good at making war. As a balance then, it is no surprise that in many cases, it is women who are the peacemakers. Read this article to uncover more about the lives of Mother Theresa, Wangari Maathai and Shirin Ebadi, three winners of the Nobel Peace Prize!
Women of Peace: The Battle
Rages On
Fighting a battle for peace? It seems to be a paradox, a contradiction—but
for three women in particular, it is all too real…
Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize
According to the entry for Wangari Maathai in the 1999 Encyclopedia of World
Biography, her husband divorced her because she was “too educated, too strong,
too successful, and too hard to control.”
Those same qualities have led her to become this year’s recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1977, Wangari founded the Green Belt movement in Kenya.
At that time, it was estimated that for every 100 trees being cut down in Africa,
only 9 were being replanted. It soon led to other problems: sick animals, a
scarcity of firewood, and polluted water.
Wangari’s group has worked hard to replenish the land through planting
trees—over 30 million so far—and most of the hard workers in her group
are…women! Not only is her movement leading to the greening of Kenya,
but it is also providing jobs, income, and a better life for previously poor
women who now make up over 90% of Green Belt.
Encouraged by the success of her campaign, Wangari boldly spoke out against
a government plan to spend 200 million dollars (borrowed mostly from foreign
banks) to build the tallest skyscraper in Africa for
government offices. She said, “We already have a debt crisis—we owe billions to
foreign banks now. And the people are starving. They need food; they need
medicine; they need education. They do not need,” she said, “a skyscraper to
house the ruling party and a 24-hour TV station.”
Her reward for caring about women, for loving the poor? Persecution. She has
been called a “mad woman”, she has been arrested several times for her
humanitarian campaigns, and she was once beaten unconscious by police.
The Nobel Peace Prize committee reacted somewhat differently, praising her
“holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human
rights and women’s rights in particular.”
And Wangari’s current fight? A center for battered women—a place where they
can find peace and “put their thoughts together, remember when they had peace
of mind, and consider what they might do.”
As for the battering she herself has faced, Wangari has only this to say:
“They think they can embarrass and silence me with threats and name-calling.
But I have an elephant’s skin.”