The author repeatedly beats over  modernization, without giving technical and the author repeatedly gets lost in reminiscing the golden times of years passed. She beats over the head without giving industrialization and modernization a chance to vindicate themselves.   

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Wangari Maathai is no stranger to fame. In Kenya, her name is synonymous with civic education and social engagement and environmental conservation.

Her memoirs, ‘Unbowed’ published by Random House,  is a personal recollection of growing up in Kenya and abroad. Reading this book is like reading an amalgamated tale of a Kenyan girlhood, Kikuyu traditional customs and  Kenyan politics all chased down with a healthy dose of social activism. On closer examination however, it is a book about self discovery and the struggles of an inimitable woman to withstand social and political pressure.

In this book she traces her life as a female trailblazer in various fields in Kenya.  She holds such bragging rights as the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a Ph.D., and later the first woman to head a university department. Mathaai’s most notable achievement is organizing women groups in conservation efforts. She eloquently explains why she formed the Green Belt movement and her dreams for the organization as an empowerment tool for marginalized groups as well as for conservation efforts.

From the first few pages, the author is not afraid to show her appreciation for the soil.  She walks readers through a Kikuyu traditional ceremony as a new born baby is fed bits of green bananas, sugarcane juice and other foods before tasting breast milk so they may know the importance of the soil.  From such tender beginnings, it is no wonder the author becomes such an outspoken conservationist.

For all its tedious prose, the book has some jewels. The passage of time in Kenya is marked by one of these jewel phrases as:

The men have still not finished the conversation they begun centuries ago while the women are still selling vegetables by the roadside or carrying firewood on their backs…

Being somewhat familiar with the political scene in Kenya I was looking forward to reading a more insightful look into the  political strife sorrounding the infamous Nyayo House during  Nyayo era. I was disappointed that the author chose to package her experiences in nice sounding clichés like or ‘political prisoners’ or my most unsettling one as yet, ‘becoming a jail bird’ when she is arrested for political agitation. I feel short-changed that she chose not to share her experiences extensively with her readers.

The author repeatedly gets lost in reminiscing the golden times of years passed. She randomly sways from her life story to the effects of introducing new products like oil, salt and sugar into the African diet. On one page she laments that earthenware and woven shopping baskets are not used anymore as people have traded them for cooking pans and flimsy plastic bags respectively. In one of these over the top moments  she reminisces:

Because of the fertile soil, good climate and abundant food, the people of the central highlands were very healthy. They worked very hard and then (they?) did not suffer from many debilitating diseases….

I found her unvarying criticism of modernization quite disruptive.  She repeatedly deplores modernization and industrialization without giving them a chance to vindicate themselves. Science with all its ills has some redeeming qualities, which the author does not take into account. She is a beneficiary of these technological advances as she participated in the famous Kennedy Airlift.

Setting aside the few grammatical errors and the tedious prose, Wangari Mathaai remains unbowed by the pressures of being a woman coming of age in a country with restricting democratic space.

pp. 303

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