Around the time the children returned to live with me more or less for good, I was running into serious problems with the government. So it was a blessing that when they completed high school, Waweru and Wanjira, followed a few years later by Muta, went to college in the United States, with my encouragement. I wanted them to experience what I had and to see another world. I did wonder sometimes whether it would have been better for them to see the daily struggles of their mother and not to have to worry from afar whether I'd be all right. But I also knew that, if something were to happen to me, they would be more likely to be able to take care of themselves in the United States than in Kenya. I believe that my children now understand the struggle I was going through and how important it is to live your life with self-respect and dignity.
The later 1970s and early 1980s were hectic years for me. I was being pushed and pulled in many directions and I pushed and pulled myself, too. As the Green Belt Movement took off under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya, its activities attracted some favorable attention in the Kenyan press. We began to be noticed overseas, too, and a Danish schoolchildren's group began raising money to support our work. Soon, the Green Belt Movement was seen as one of the NCWK's most successful initiatives.
With the encouragement of colleagues in the NCWK, I decided to run for the post of NCWK chairman in 1979. I lost by three votes in an election that had a measure of ethnic politics in it. Many in Kenya, including the new president, Daniel arap Moi, an ethnic Kalenjin, wanted to reduce the influence Kikuyus were perceived to have in the country, including in the leadership of voluntary organizations, one of which was the NCWK, which was quite influential at that time. This is the only way I could understand why the NCWK's organizational members would not have elected me chairman, but overwhelmingly voted for me to be vice-chairman, a position in which I would be the immediate assistant to the chair. (In the NCWK it was the organizations that cast votes, not individuals.)
We used the term “chairman” and not “president” because Parliament had passed a law soon after President Moi took office that decreed that Kenya could have only one president. From then on, heads of organizations or private enterprises had to use another term, which most often was “chairman.”
In 1980I ran again for the post of chairman, and there was still considerable infighting among NCWK members about which candidate to support. This time, it wasn't only my ethnicity that generated opposition, but it appeared that elements in the government took an interest in the election, especially through one organization, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake. I realized I was involved in a political game, even though I believed I was not in politics.
Maendeleo Ya Wanawake (Kiswahili for “Progress for Women”), a prominent national women's organization set up to assist rural women to develop their skills and generate income, was one of the NCWK's members. Its chairman was always a rural woman and the leader at that time was very close to the president. My understanding is that elements in the government encouraged Maendeleo Ya Wanawake to take control of the NCWK from the elite women running it. They knew that if the chairman of the NCWK declared, “We support the new president,” it would carry a lot of weight in the country. The president could then say, “See, the women of Kenya support me.”
President Moi, who had been vice president, succeeded President Kenyatta when he died in office in 1978 at the age of eighty-six. Constitutionally, a contested election for the presidency should have been held within ninety days of Kenyatta's death, but instead, President Moi had run unopposed. Many civic groups in Kenya had gone along with this, including the NCWK, which had congratulated the president. There is even a photo of me shaking the new president's hand. Once securely in office, President Moi moved quickly to consolidate his power, including by co-opting civil society organizations.
Another factor against me becoming the NCWK chairman in the government's eyes was my education. At this time in Kenya, the number of highly educated women was still tiny and we were viewed with suspicion by many people in authority.
Most women who gained prominence in society did so because their husbands were important—ministers, members of Parliament, or leading businessmen—not because they themselves were educated or successful. Likewise, the elite of Kenya (businessmen, politicians, and the civil servants) were also relatively few in number and all knew one another. This situation was tailor-made for corruption. Despite my marriage to Mwangi and my position at the University of Nairobi, I was not part of this group. Nonetheless, because of my academic achievements, my work with the Green Belt Movement, and the circumstances of the divorce, I had made some headlines. Now I was known to the authorities and they didn't like what they saw—an educated, independent African woman aspiring to leadership.
I was intrigued by this apparent opposition to my candidacy, which I knew was due in part to my ethnicity, in part to my education, and was again partly due to my marital status. For me, what was most important was the ability to fulfill the objectives of the position. Our refusal to acknowledge and reward ability and performance are among the reasons that Kenya finds itself in a state of underdevelopment. I eventually learned that these are some of the games people in politics play.
The forces opposing my candidacy had a problem. They and their surrogates could not, of course, simply come out and say that the government wanted to control the NCWK by installing its own candidate. The reason they gave for objecting to me, and presumably they thought it a good one, was closer to home: I should not be elected head of a national women's organization because I was divorced, so didn't set a good example for Kenyan women. The fact that I'd been elected vice-chairman in 1979, the year the divorce was granted, and my marital status had not been mentioned, was conveniently forgotten. Not only was this rationale unfair and insulting, I felt as if I was being punished again for the divorce, like beating a dead horse.
Some women in the NCWK asked me to abandon my candidacy. “You don't want the divorce to be in the headlines all over again,” they said. “Save yourself and your children from the embarrassment.”
“But I have nothing to save,” I replied. “Everything has been lost, and you cannot use that to punish me.”
Some even said they had been cautioned by their husbands not to vote for me. I realized I had to fight as a matter of principle. It was one thing for the women not to elect me, but quite another to withdraw before they'd had a chance to vote. I also knew that on a level playing field I would win.
When pressure is applied to me unfairly, I tend to dig in my heels and stand my ground—precisely the opposite of what those applying the pressure hope or expect. At that time in Kenya, if you thought the government didn't want you to take on a certain position, you generally withdrew. Yet the interference of outsiders struck me and many others as petty, verging on the ridiculous. Why should who led the NCWK become a matter of state? A week before the election, the opposition saw I would not stand down, so they tried a different tactic. Apparently, as I understood it, certain groups were told that they should leave the National Council of Women of Kenya. Sure enough, several organizations, chief among them Maendeleo Ya Wanawake and the Girl Guides, withdrew.
This was devastating to the NCWK because Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, especially, represented a majority of Kenya's rural women, while the professional organizations were largely comprised of elite women and therefore deemed not “African” enough. Indeed, the groups that left the NCWK made the serious charge that we did not understand or care about the problems of women in the rural areas, even though many of us were working hand in hand with rural women and later would fight for their rights, something the government most certainly did not like. When these groups left, those who had been officers signed checks for every penny in the NCWK's bank account, leaving it virtually bankrupt.
The controversy over the election attracted the media's attention. Some outlets supported me, while others that were aligned with the government, formally or informally, not surprisingly did
not. For the second time in two years, my character, my actions, and my suitability were being openly discussed in the national media—a spotlight I had not sought. Thankfully, my friends stood by me and when the votes were cast I was elected chairman unopposed. Believe it or not, even some of the newspapers celebrated my victory.
Because of my defiance, however, for the next twenty years, the government ignored the NCWK and promoted Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, which received the bulk of support for “women's programs” in Kenya from international donors. Later, Maendeleo changed its constitution to become the “women's wing” of the ruling party, the Kenyan African National Union (KANU).
As a result, those of us in the NCWK had to become ingenious about raising money and making our presence and work known. One way we did this was to increase our focus on the environment through the Green Belt Movement and a water initiative. While this strategy opened up new sources of funding, we never had oceans of resources. For much of the 1980s, the NCWK and the Green Belt Movement struggled to survive, while from that time on, the regime labeled me “disobedient,” and sought to curtail my activities and my voice. Back in 1980, newly elected the NCWK chairman, I had no idea that my path and the government's would cross repeatedly in the future and with far more explosive consequences.
On a more personal level, the election had brought to the national arena the issue of power and gender. Soon after I became chairman, some of my friends and supporters came to me to say that my election was causing them trouble with their husbands, many of whom were influential in the government. They asked me to step down and allow someone else to lead the NCWK. This saddened me, but I was not wholly surprised. “Some of you have supported me for a long time and I won't ever forget that,” I told them. “But I can never withdraw from the chair after women have given me their support and their confidence. I must stay.” I completely understood the pressure they were under to not be seen as supporting a divorced woman, but I couldn't change my mind.
That election helped me cross the river. Once I got to the other side, I could keep going. As it turned out, I was reelected chairman of the NCWK each year through 1987, when I retired.
The struggle over the chairmanship of the NCWK only intensified my feelings about what those in power had said during this episode and the divorce trial. They had abused and vilified me and I had had no recourse to defend myself: What could I say?
I knew that the only way to hold them accountable for their abuse and vilification of me and further the cause of women in general was to meet them on their own ground. An opportunity arose that could have enabled me to do this—a by-election for a seat in Parliament in early 1982.
In spite of my connection to politics through Mwangi, I had never considered politics as a career, although over the years others had suggested it. During Mwangi's 1969 and 1974 campaigns, many people told me, “You know, you could easily be elected on your own.” If I represented Mwangi at an event, people who had heard me speak would say to him, “Oh, she did so well. We'd vote for her any day.” It made me aware of my speaking skills. In standing for Parliament, I would not be directly competing with Mwangi, who had lost his seat in the 1979 elections to Philip Leakey, the brother of paleontologist and conservationist Richard Leakey.
Very few women were in Parliament at that time. Between 1980 and 1988, only two women were elected MPs. President Moi appointed a handful of other women as parliamentarians, but none wielded real power in that male-dominated assembly. The seat that opened up was in my home region, the constituency of Nyeri. Due to the fact that Kenya had been a de facto one-party state for more than a decade by that time, I could only be a candidate of the ruling party, KANU.
Standing in the election would also mean giving up my job at the university. Parliament had passed a law that said that if you worked for the government or any parastatal organization and wished to be a candidate for office you had to resign your position. This made getting involved in politics risky, since there was always the chance you could lose an election.
I had been at the University of Nairobi since 1966, so becoming a candidate and giving up my job to join politics was a major decision for me. In January 1982I took a big leap, without a safety net below me. Imagine my disgust when, after I had submitted my official letter of resignation to the university, the authorities cooked up a technical reason why I couldn't run. The committee charged with overseeing the election told me I was not registered to vote. I was as certain my papers were in order as I was that the law required a citizen to register as a voter only once in the same constituency. According to the committee, however, I should have reregistered in the previous national election, in 1979. And because I hadn't, I wasn't eligible to run.
It soon became obvious that politics was at play again. The ruling party didn't want me in Parliament and had figured out a way to stop me from getting there. Once again, I decided to fight by taking the authorities to court and challenging their reason for disqualifying me, which I knew to be completely illegal. The court sat at nine o'clock on a Saturday morning, but I was required to present my candidacy papers by noon that same day in Nyeri, which is nearly a three-hour drive from Nairobi. Seeing that it would be impossible for me to meet the noon deadline if I drove, some friends had hired a plane to take me to Nyeri as soon as the court rendered its verdict.
By the time the judge made his final ruling, disqualifying me from running for Parliament, it was nearly midday. Even with the plane and a favorable ruling, I would have arrived in Nyeri too late. My case, like many others, demonstrated a miscarriage of justice that was frequent at that time in Kenya and that led me, later, to be involved in the pro-democracy movement. Once again, I had lost in court. I would not be able to run.
The blows kept coming, one after the other. When I returned to the university, explained what had happened, and asked for my job back as chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy, the university refused to reinstate me. I had presented my letter of resignation to the university on Thursday afternoon. By Friday morning, the university had given my job to someone else. I was stunned: After sixteen years of service, I had been replaced in fewer than twelve hours. I couldn't have had a clearer indication that the university did not want me anywhere near the place! The cloud that was to hang over Kenya for two decades was now beginning to be felt, and the university's vice-chancellor, whose superior was the president himself, didn't want to ruffle any more of the government's feathers. I had fallen afoul of the regime and it was easier for him if I did not return to my post.
As if that wasn't enough, because I had resigned my position and not been fired, I was ineligible to receive any of the benefits that normally accrued to university professors. I hadn't been fully aware of this when I'd made the decision to resign, but I felt the full consequences nonetheless. I walked out of the university with virtually nothing. I had no pension and no health care.
I didn't even return to my office to pick up my belongings. I asked my secretary to do that for me. (I've been told that some of my belongings to this day remain locked in a university storage room.) Although in the intervening years since my abrupt departure from the Chiromo campus I have visited Vert at her office, I have never returned to the Department of Veterinary Anatomy. Life is funny, though: The wheel sometimes comes full circle. After I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the university of which I was an alumna, which was pleased to see the back of me in 1982, and which ignored my achievements during the ensuing years, awarded me an honorary doctorate in science in 2005, with full honors and all pomp and circumstance.
The day after I resigned, as I was preparing to go to court to contest the electoral commission's decision, officials from the university arrived at my door to tell me I had to vacate my house immediately. Housing, they said, was provided only to academic staff. I was incredulous. “I can't leave now,” I told them. “I'm going to court.” When I returned later that afternoon, the officials were still there, insisting that I vacate the house. Eventuall
y they left, but said they would return on Monday with their eviction order. I had a miserable Sunday wondering what would happen to me next.
On Monday, I woke up and was confronted with the question of what to do with my life. I had no job and no salary. I had no pension and very few savings. I was about to be evicted from my house. Everything that I had hoped for and relied on was gone—in the space of three days. I was forty-one years old and for the first time in decades I had nothing to do. I was down to zero.
8
Seeds of Change
None of us can control every situation we find ourselves in. What we can control is how we react when things turn against us. I have always seen failure as a challenge to pull myself up and keep going. A stumble is only one step in the long path we walk and dwelling on it only postpones the completion of our journey. Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
So, while I was down, I was not out. For a time that miserable Monday morning I just sat and thought. Then I began moving, literally. I combed the newspapers looking for a suitable place to live that was reasonably priced. Even as I searched, I packed up the contents of my home. Luckily, I saw an advertisement for a house available for six months and, when I called the number listed in the newspaper, I found the cost was within my means. I moved into that house with all of my belongings the same week. I didn't unpack, because I knew it was only going to be for six months.
After those six months, I moved into a small house I had bought in 1975 but had never expected to live in. I purchased it when I was still married to Mwangi but paid the full cost myself and put my name on the title deed. Maybe I wasn't such a bad investor after all. The house was in South C, an area of Nairobi near Wilson Airport that had been developed in the early 1970s from grassland that once was part of Nairobi National Park.
Unbowed: A Memoir (Vintage) Page 18