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Author: Olu Obafemi
Posted to the web: 7/9/2005 10:44:54 PM

Most advocates of women emancipation—especially those of the screaming feminist mode—often trace the beginning of the subservience of women to the age-old dominance of men. The argument, usually of course, and a very plausible one at that, is that women do not suffer from any form of natural depravity or inferiority, except those inflicted on them by men. For instance, Simone de Beauvoir, a French female activist who did a considerable amount of work with Jean Paul Sartre, that renowned French Existentialist philosopher and writer, wrote in her book, Le deuxieme Sexe, translated as The Second Sex, that while men take their identity for granted in society and never begin by presenting themselves as individual of a particular sex, a woman has to define herself as a woman from the start. A woman, she says, is defined against the backdrop of the male-folk, relative to man.Thus, a basic content and locus of women struggle is the cohesive assertion against this complex of categorization. Thus when women burst out to assume the status of being with liberty, or indeed, go ahead to excel, either in creativity or in high-profile sociality and professionalism, it is humanity, not just womanity, that has triumphed.This is why the dynamic and uncommon exploits of women who have made contribution to society, not simply because they are women, but also because they are among the best that humanity has thrown up as people of outstanding and distinctive capacities, there is necessarily a cause for celebration. When such women are honoured as they deserve, as was the case of Dr. Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan intellectual and environmental activist, who became the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize for Peace, we drink from the cup of joy. When on the other sadder side of the coin such great women who have lived their life for the survival of a segment of our humanity, in utter selflessness, pass away, as recently did the British-born, Nigerian naturalized linguist, Professor Kay Ruth Williamson, we celebrate her life and mourn the deprivation that our humanity suffers from her demise.Wangari Maathai: African female Nobel Peace Laureate.Dr. Wangari is a woman of distinctive substance and a blessing to our world. She is an academic intellectual (there are many academics who may not be intellectuals, just as there are many intellectuals who are not academics). She is an environmental activist, mother and politician. She has carried on the campaign on environment for nearly three decades and had suffered great distress and hardships in the process. It is imperative to contextualize her environmental activism and struggle within the penumbra of its accompanying mortal hazards, especially when we remember that our own ken Saro Wiwa was killed for his similar implacable commitment to the environment as does Wangari.It is therefore fitting, on the occasion of the International Women Day, to celebrate Dr. Wangari Maathai, for blazing the Nobel trail for environmentalist and for the women of Africa. It is also refreshing to note her perception of the Nobel Prize, not as a personal achievement, but as an Award won on behalf of the collective—activists, women, and the entire Africa. This also re-echoes Wole Soyinka’s Acceptance of the Prize for Literature nearly two decades ago, in the context of a shared experience, as a national, even continental honour. Rather than merely considering the award as a palpable counter-fact to the dominant phallic consciousness that prevailed, Wangari took the Nobel Prize for Peace on behalf of, in her own words, ' huge constituency' of civil society which comprises environmentalists and people have worked for democratic principles; people who have pushed democratic movements, fighting for peace movements and women movements.This activist insight, and penchant, of acting for and on behalf of a larger humanist, is one of the factors which the Nobel Prize Committee acknowledged as qualifying her, not just for the Prize, but cognizes her as builder and shaper of the 'next state of the world'—the future destiny of mankind. Yes, women all over the world, but in Africa in particular, have a right to clutch unto Wangari, exclusively, even selfishly, for what she has done for the image, stature and standing of women, whom as she herself opined, are usually trampled upon, set aside and abandoned, without deference to the fact that 'we (women) are the most competent at work'.Yet, it would diminish this great woman, in terms of the enormity of her accomplishments and exploits—the battles she has won for mankind, to perceive and celebrate her from her purely from a Manichean (they-us; male-female) perspective. Some of the most courageous and most memorable accomplishments of this Laureate transcend sexual boundaries. Take for instance her participation in the Aba-women-revolt-like rebellion by stripping naked of some Kenyan women, about a decade ago in downtown Nairobi. This self- demeaning sacrificial act was undertaken on behalf of young men put in a protracted period of incarceration by the military in Kenya for seeking political power devolution via multi-party democracy. Wangari protested, nude, in company (indeed ahead of) of barely literate and illiterate women and mothers for the release of these young men, especially since long after, the Government had introduced multi-party styled democracy. Stripping naked by women in public, is a taboo, in the African cosmos. It is in fact a curse by mothers inflicted on sons (symbolized here by a terrorist government run by visionless sons) who commit abominable acts against their mothers. Wangari may have won the Prize for her life-long campaign against environmental degradation and government-supported forest razing. Her Green Belt Movement set up since 1977 was aimed at massive re-forestation. Through her rugged and dogged campaigns to other women, over 30million trees have been planted to stem deforestation. But it is for her campaign for peace through fighting all manners of injustice—perpetrated against youth, women, rights activists—by terrorist and dictatorial governments that additional won her the much-deserved decoration with the Nobel Prize for Peace. It is a combination of all these that put her in a place of honour, alongside, Madiba Nelson Mandela, F.W.de Klerk, Desmond Tutu, Albert Luthuli, Anwar Sadat, and Kofi Annan, previous winners of the Nobel Prize for Peace.Kay Williamson: Died for another tongue.Professor Kay Ruth Williamson is a rarity. Like all great people, she treads uncommon turfs, smashing borders across such times and spaces where angels fear to walk. Here was a Briton, from the British Aristocracy, who gave up wealth and comfort, to build a new home, a new life and a new nation for herself and her new people and nation. Rather than choose the urban, fast and pulsating life of Lagos and Port-Harcourt, she squeezed a humble homestead in the heart of Kaiama in the Kolokuma/ Opokuma LGA of Bayelsa State. Rather than continuing on the beaten path of research into the linguistics of English language, she chose the tedious and unfamiliar challenge of bringing to the limelight the little( or unknown) Ijaw language. Kay Williamson donated her intellect and scholarly energy to the study of the Ijaw language and the fulfillment of the Ijaw dream. She reminds me of Adunni Olorisa, Suzanne Wanger, and the Osun Priestess—the German-born artist who gave up her home, her profession, her matrimony and her nation in order to re-cultivate a Yoruba female pantheon in Osogbo.A genial mind, Kay Williamson took a First Class Honour degree in English from Britain’s most prestigious University, Oxford. With a materially comfortable background and a brilliant mind, she could have made a successful career for herself at home. Yet, at the tender age of Twenty-two, she left all the opportunities and came to Nigeria, and to Ijaw-land, home of the slain Environmental activist and writer, Ken Saro Wiwa. It is pertinent to observe that, as a linguist, Kay knew that the best way understand a people, and to help a people to understand themselves, is to know and understand their language—and the people to appreciate the value of their own language. Hers was a life lived on behalf of others—whom she has no business, except that of a heroic commitment to immortality, to love or live, even die for. Good night, profound intellectual, scholar, culture activist and humanist, Kay Ruth Williamson.