The Challenge for Africa: A new vision
by Wangari Maathai
William Heinemann R240
On the book cover, she is described as, " like a Nelson Mandela or a Mahatma Gandhi." She is the prophet of our time, above most mortals and an inspiration. And her book is now being referred to as a milestone in African writing.
For anyone seeking a modernistic view of the challenges facing our continent, read no further than Wangari Maathai's new release, The Challenge for Africa.
While Wikipedia claims she is the first woman in East Africa to complete a doctorate, Tim Butcher, author of Blood River, called her one of Africa's most positive and far-sighted thinkers.
So did Mia Macdonald of Brighter Green, and Martin Rowe of Lantern Books, who saw here an opportunity to put together a book combining critiques of Africa's troubled past with a rallying cry for Africans to use culture, nature and self-belief to reverse their continent's decline.
Academic, optimistic and refreshing in outlook, Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Green Belt Movement, provides a unique perspective on the tales and fate of Africa, and offers hope and a new way forward.
The challenges facing Africa are real and vast: terrible conflicts rage in the Darfur region of Sudan, southern Somalia, the Niger Delta and eastern Congo. Elections have been violently contested in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Drought and floods are prevalent in both east and west, and HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis ravage the continent.
This, Maathai agrees, is partly the result of global warming which has put the lives of the continent's poor into jeopardy.
It is they who feature in this work, the powerless, the end victims, children, the elderly, the sick and the dying (who are in the majority in Africa).
The challenge here, is to question what is wrong, and what should be done about it.
All too often, Africa's problems are reduced to a series of tableaux vivants connoting dependency, desperation or savagery. What is needed is a different vision - one that comes out of Africa.
That is what Maathai is saying. After three decades as an environmental activist and campaigner for democracy, The Challenge for Africa surveys what is really hampering the continent's development, and argues that the future of Africa lies not in international aid, but in the hands of Africans themselves.
Written in a searingly decisive, yet inspiring voice, and offering nothing less than a manifesto for 21st century Africa, The Challenge for Africa celebrates the enduring potential of the human spirit and reminds us that change is always possible.
In 14 chapters of academic papers, the author delves deeply into the psyche of the modern African mentality, tackling issues on aid and the dependency syndrome, indebtedness, leadership, land, pillars of governance, the enduring legacy of Africa, and ultimately, the challenge to be better.
It is easy to appreciate in this book why Maathai is a winner of the world's most prestigious civil award, the Nobel Peace Prize, largely for her work with the Green Belt Movement.
The movement is a campaign to plant trees (of all things), but is now the most vibrant greening organisation on the continent, striving to break the wall that separates Africans from justice, wealth, peace and respect.
This is a book like no other, I would say, because in planting trees, Maathai has planted more than just wood. She has planted a new vision for Africans.
Through this work, she is asking: Where are the leaders of Africa? Does power reside with the big men of Africa, like Mugabe, Gaddafi, Museveni, al-Bashir and a great many others who embrace controversial political ploys like flamboyance, iron fists, terror, trickery and other power syndromes that make us the laughing stock of other democracies, like those of Europe, for example.
Other African leaders get more favourable mention, like Mandela, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Walter Sisulu, the argument here being: Look, this continent does have some reference points in the names of more eminent sons of the continent who successfully led the early charge during the struggle against colonialism, oppression and apartheid, to freedom.
By the end, Maathai throws the challenge to anyone who reads this book, to undo the paradox of the continent.
This is a land endowed with huge resources in oil, precious metals, forests, water, wildlife, soil, land, agricultural products and millions of people.
Yet those people are disempowered. This is one large dysfunctional family, without dignity, confidence, no self-worth, tracing all the rot from slavery, colonialism and thereafter to modernity and beyond.
The paradoxes are many, and reflect Maathai's own life experiences, and a lifetime of research into the crisis in identity, culture, conflict, development, religion and how to move those millions of people forward, like trees, to grow to their highest potential.
A highly inspiring piece of literature.