WANGARI MAATHAI AND SERUDJ TA: FACING MT. KENYA, REPAIRING THE WORLD Los Angeles Sentinel, 05-02-13, p.A-6 DR. MAULANA KARENGA

his month during which we celebrate landscapes lost their sacredness and were T Earth Day and the birthday of one of exploited as the people became insensitive to earth’s most honored, capable and committed the destruction, accepting it as a sign of advocates, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, progress.” author and activist, Dr. Wangari Maathai of For her, then, the work of healing the Kenya (4/1/1940), we are reminded of the world was not only a matter of healing the urgent obligation to reflect deeply and respond environment, but also doing work “necessary in meaningful and effective ways to the to heal the wounds inflicted” on oppressed ancient African ethical imperative of serudj ta, communities and to enable them “to i.e., to repair, remake and renew the world, rediscover their authentic voice and speak out making it more beautiful and beneficial than on behalf of their rights (human, we inherited it. environmental, civic and political).” In a This moral mandate of serudj ta is found word, she says, “Our task also became to in the ancient Egyptian sacred text, The expand democratic space in which ordinary Husia¸ which teaches us to see and sense the citizens could make the decision on their own world as sacred space, as a shared heritage behalf to benefit themselves, their community, given by the Divine; respected and constantly their country and the environment that renewed by the ancestors and left to us as a sustains them.” rich legacy to cherish, care for and continue to In discussing the ancient life-affirming, renew and then pass on to future generations earth-preserving ways of her ancestors, to do likewise. Indeed, serudj ta is a constant Maathai talks of the sense of the sacred that call and ongoing obligation to actively care for surrounded Mt. Kenya within her ethnic the health, wholeness and sustainment of the group, the Gikuyu. Indeed, Jomo Kenyatta, world: to constantly raise up the ruined; repair the liberation leader, founding father and first the damaged; rejoin the severed; replenish the president of Kenya, affirming the wisdom and depleted; strengthen the weakened; set right worth of Gikuyu culture and its deep sense of the wrong; and make firm and flourish the the sacred, titled his seminal work, Facing Mt. insecure and undeveloped. Kenya. It spoke to the spiritual practice of In our striving to understand and practice turning toward the Divine, the sacred and serudj ta in ever more effective and sustaining. It is this book from which, in the meaningful ways, and to walk gently, justly Sixties, I took my name Karenga—nationalist, and rightly in the world, we are drawn to the defender of the people and keeper of the writings and work of Dr. Wangari Maathai. tradition, and which I used among others in Maathai began her work and writing seeking conceptualizing the centrality of cultural to ground herself, her co-workers and the grounding and cultural revolution in struggles people in vital “spiritual values for healing of liberation and life in my philosophy, ourselves and the world.” Linking concern Kawaida. This turning toward and returning to with the environment with social justice for the upward paths of our ancestors and ancient the people, she notes sadly how colonization culture and retrieving best ideas and practices undermined and eroded the African sense of to use to repair, remake and renew the world self and of the sacred, discrediting views and can rightfully be called “Facing Mount values, suppressing language and punishing Kenya.” resistance in various ways. Thus, “hallowed WANGARI MAATHAI AND SERUDJ TA: FACING MT. KENYA, REPAIRING THE WORLD Los Angeles Sentinel, 05-02-13, p.A-6 DR. MAULANA KARENGA

Thus, by returning to their own rich, Fourth, Dr. Maathai emphasizes the ancient and varied cultural values, Maathai indispensability of service, “using one’s time, says, Africans regain their “self-identity, self- energy and resources to provide services to confidence and self-respect.” Moreover, they others without expecting or demanding build on a cultural heritage which “allows compensation, appreciation or even them to be in harmony with their physical and recognition.” It is a constant self-giving in spiritual environment,” provides “the basis for personal and collective efforts “to achieve the their personal peace,” “enhances their capacity common good.” Also, Dr. Maathai tells us that for self-leadership, decision-making and self- the struggle to repair, remake and renew the guidance,” and serves as “their antennae into environment must take place in the context of the unknown future and their reference point the continuing struggle for liberation of the into their past.” continent as a whole. She reminds us of three Dr. Maathai offers four core values major objectives that “the first post-colonial which guide the Green Belt Movement she African rulers” set for African people: “to founded and serve as a framework for decolonize the entire continent; to promote environmental work in the world. The first unity; (and) to effect economic and social value is “love for the environment,” an active development.” But she notes, echoing Toure, caring which “motivates one to take positive Fanon and Malcolm, that “a more difficult action for the earth, such as planting trees and agenda will be to de-colonize the mind and ensuring that they survive; nurtur(ing) those reclaim the cultural and spiritual heritage of trees that are standing; protect(ing) animals the African people” necessary to complete and their habitat; conserv(ing) soil; and other these tasks. related life-affirming and world-preserving Dr. Maathai tells us that “we are called activities. to assist the earth, to heal her wounds and in Second, she stresses “gratitude and the process heal our own.” This stress on respect for the Earth’s resources.” This means agency and possibility reaffirms the Kawaida “valuing all that the earth gives us and contention that we are injured physicians who because of that valuation, not wanting to must heal and repair ourselves in the process waste any of it; and therefore practicing the and practice of healing and repairing the three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle.” Again, it world. And this requires our returning to the means seeing the earth as sacred space and upward and enlightening paths of our walking gently, justly and rightly on it. Third, ancestors, facing Mt. Kenya, really Mt. Maathai posits the value of “self- Kirinyaga, the Place of Brightness, which empowerment and self-betterment,” stressing looms like a giant lighthouse high above the “the desire to improve one’s life and life horizon of history, pointing toward new circumstances through the spirit of self- possibilities for human flourishing and the reliance,” avoiding “inertia and self- well-being of the world, if we walk gently, act destructive activities” and embracing one’s justly and relate rightfully in and for the own sense of agency through “the world. understanding that the power to change is with you.”

Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center (Us); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture and Introduction to Black Studies, 4th Edition, www.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org; www.MaulanaKarenga.org.