No fanfare as Nobel laureate cremated

Kenyans and the world on Saturday paid their last respects to Wangari Maathai, the late Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and environmentalist, in the country’s third State funeral.

Prof Maathai’s send-off was a brief, simple affair with minimal State involvement.

And just as she lived, often rubbing stereotypes, the powerful and tradition, the wrong way, Prof Maathai was cremated after a ceremony that was devoid of pomp and ceremony.

Indeed, Prof Maathai lived life her way and was sent off her way. In place of a full-fledged religious service, the most symbolic event was tree planting by her children.

That was without doubt the best way to honour a woman who devoted most of her life to planting trees.

The main ceremony, which was attended by President Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, a host of Cabinet ministers and diplomats, started at 10.25 a.m. and in just under an hour at 11.23 a.m., the cortege headed to the Kariokor Crematorium.

The State funeral was unlike those of founding President Jomo Kenyatta and former Vice-President Michael Wamalwa. Both were defined by colourful military processions and conducted by State officials.

As mourners gathered quietly to pay their last respects to the world renowned environmentalist, befittingly it was the Kenya Forestry Service officials who were the designated pallbearers.

And rather than hold the funeral ceremony at the expansive Uhuru Park in view of huge crowds, Prof Maathai had chosen Freedom Corner, a tiny section of the park that is synonymous with her crusades. In place of a burial, she had chosen to be cremated.

Thousands of mourners and curious onlookers not in the family or VIP tents followed the proceedings from a distance.

Mourners started streaming into the ground that epitomised her epic battle to save forests and conserve the environment as early as 8 a.m.

It was at Freedom Corner that police had fought her as she campaigned against the construction of a 60-storey ruling party Kanu building that she said would destroy Uhuru Park and deny city dwellers natural serenity.

It was here that she joined the mothers of political prisoners, incarcerated by President Moi’s regime, in a protest to pressure the government into setting them free.

She was finally honoured with a State funeral at the same corner that she had planted trees with ordinary people and dignitaries, including then Senator Barack Obama. It was at the same corner she had suffered at the hands of brutal State power as she fought political and environmental battles.

Even though the mourners had started to gather early, it was not until 8.55 a.m. that the first prayers were said by clerics from Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Bahai and traditionalist faiths. This was well before the family, the cortege and the State entourage arrived.

The national flag and the presidential standard were not raised until 9:10 a.m. shortly before President Kibaki arrived.

When the President arrived at 10.15 a.m. and the national anthem was played, the master of ceremonies asked Anglican Archbishop Eliud Wabukhala to say the opening prayers.

But the archbishop was asked to wait for the arrival of the hearse. Five minutes later, the hearse arrived led by police outriders.

Her former husband, Mr Mwangi Mathai, with whom she divorced in 1979, joined their three children and other mourners for the ceremony.

This was the woman who, when honoured by the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, compared herself to a little humming bird trying to put out a huge forest fire as bigger animals watched in bemusement.

This was the woman who had scored so many firsts for women of her generation, Africa and the world that when she wrote an autobiography in 2005, she titled it Unbowed.

Bamboo-framed casket

Although she was not known much for religion, in that book she had bemoaned the loss of African cultural and worship practices to missionaries. She had connected it to profiteers who cut trees without regard for the environment.

Prof Maathai’s body lay in a bamboo-framed casket made out of water hyacinth and papyrus reeds so that no trees would be cut to make a wooden coffin for her.

The casket, specially made by three artisans from the Kisumu Innovation Centre Kenya, ensured that her wish not to be buried in a wooden coffin was fullfilled. Instead of a bouquet of roses, a fern was placed on the coffin.

The coffin was not removed from the hearse and there was no public viewing.

The black hearse was parked under the shade of a huge blue gum tree whose leaves rustled softly in the light wind.

Cloud cover completed the cool feel of the morning breeze. The Kenya Police band played softly soulful hymns, and gospel songs.

After opening prayers by Archbishop Wabukala and the Rev Phyllis Byrd Ochilo, Prof Maathai’s children — Muta, Waweru and Wanjira — were invited to plant a tree.

They stepped out and together planted and watered the tree known as oloirien in Maasai, mutamaiyu in Kikuyu, kang’o in Luo and mutero in Meru.

The African wild olive was the only tree planted at the ceremony. A handful of students from Loreto Girls Limuru who had brought trees to plant in her honour did not do so and neither did the State officials and foreign dignitaries.

But a group of women dressed in traditional Kikuyu regalia stepped up to sing a chorus as the tree was planted and afterwards, the family’s master of ceremonies, Prof Karanja Njoroge, asked the mourners for a round of applause.

Then it was time for short speeches. Tanzanian Cabinet minister Anna Tibaijuka, who led a delegation to the funeral, eulogised Prof Maathai as an outstanding daughter of Africa.

A tribute from UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon described Prof Maathai as a champion of human rights and women’s empowerment.

Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka remembered Prof Maathai as a trailblazer. Prime Minister Raila Odinga recollected her sacrifices and struggles in the face of great adversity.

The final tribute was by President Kibaki who euoligsed Prof Maathai as a woman of “great courage and tenacity” and who exemplified “the virtue of selfless service to the nation”.

There were no further tributes, Prof Karanja announced on behalf of the family. All other tributes will be read out at the All Saints cathedral next Friday.

The mourners were then called to a moment of silence during which the bells at the nearby All Saints Cathedral tolled.

The last post and reveille was performed by a group of officers from the Kenya Wildlife Service, Administration Police and the Kenya Police who played the bugle call on wind instruments known as the cornet and the bugle.

A bugle call is used at Commonwealth of Nations military funerals and ceremonies commemorating those who have been killed in a war. It signified she had fallen in the battlefield, fighting to save the worlds trees and forests.

Shortly after the end of the service, the remains of Prof Maathai who died from cancer, were driven off to the crematorium for the last rites in a ceremony reserved for the family.

It was the final moments for a simple village girl who rose to become a professor of veterinary medicine, a woman who had planted so many trees, little by little, that she caught the world’s attention and received the Nobel peace prize in 2004.