Wangari Maathai on Debt

Yesterday (Monday), we had the unique opportunity to hear Professor Wangari Maathai deliver an address on debt. Deliver is perhaps too weak a word. She took the stage in a beautiful fury of controlled passion and deep outrage at the West’s lack of moral response to the needs of the poor. “How could the most powerful, the most influential bank – the bank with the best minds” lend so irresponsibly and recklessly, she asked. Maathai rightly linked the debt of Southern nations to every other pressing issue: healthcare, education, the environment etc. She challenged us: How can God do his work from heaven, she questioned. He put us here on Earth. We are the ones to do his work. “We are the agents of the Lord.” We are the ones to fight the IMF and World Bank, and the oppression of the West.

“We have the numbers,” Maathai said. “We have the voice. But we don’t use that voice… raising our voices might compromise our own safety and comfort.”

I was so stunned by her presence that I kept forgetting to take notes. I do know, however, that she closed with a story about a hummingbird. There was a huge fire that broke out in a forest. All of the animals were abandoning their homes, running from the flames. But a small hummingbird saw what was happening and decided he wanted to do something. He flew fast as he could to the river, and drew a small drop of water in his beak and placed it on the fire. He continued, flying to the river, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, at a speed you can’t even explain. The other animals sat in safety and disbelief. How can this small bird even try to put out this enormous fire? The hummingbird explained, “I’m doing the best I can,” and continued down to the river.

[For those of you who don't know, Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Prize last year for her enviromental work with The Green Belt Movement - an effort to combat deforestation in Kenya, her homeland.]