Personal diary of John Barnabas (aka Barney) Leith

A couple of posts on my friend Rob Weinberg’s excellent new blog, Where the World’s Going, give us fascinating Bahá’í perspectives on:

Whatever

Truth, Fallibility and Consultation

Go, read, I urge you. You’ll enjoy the output of a lively spiritual sensibility.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Rob Weinberg, truth, fallibility, consultation

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The Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has today added two Bahá’í shrines to the list of World Heritage sites. The resting places of the twin Founders of the Bahá’í Faith - the Báb and Bahá’u'lláh - are the first sites connected with a modern religious tradition to be added to this prestigious list. They join famous World Heritage sites like the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Vatican, and Stonehenge.

Dr Albert Lincoln, secretary-general of the Bahá’í International Community, expressed the community’s pleasure at the decision:

We welcome the UNESCO recognition, which highlights the importance of the holy places of a religion that in 150 years has gone from a small group found only in the Middle East to a worldwide community with followers in virtually every country.

The Bahá’í community is particularly grateful to the government of Israel for putting forward this nomination.

You can read more about this in the story on the Baha’i World News Service. And it’s well worth reading this longer, more reflective piece, “People can sense the presence of God”, about the significance of these shrines and the whole Bahá’í World Centre.

Bahá’ís long to have the opportunity to visit or, even better, to make their pilgrimage to these stunning buildings and gardens. I have been fortunate to be able to visit regularly and I am awed by them every time I go.

Significance of this UNESCO inscription

This is an exciting development, one that I know has been under consideration for quite some time. As fellow Baha’i blogger Marco Oliveira has pointed out:

I believe it is important to that this inscription is VERY significant. Iran is a signatory of the UNESCO world heritage list, next time they destroy a Baha’i holy place in Iran we can put more pressure on them as with the Shrines being inscribed its a recognition that the Baha’i Faith’s figures and history are of “outstanding universal value” and of importance to humanity.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Baha’i World Centre, Bab, Baha’u'llah, UNESCO, World Heritage Site, Israel

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Heavy evening traffic slows our progress towards New Southgate and the grave of Shoghi Effendi. By 8.20 p.m., when the three of us in the Secretary’s car arrive outside the green custodian’s hut, the other six have already gathered in the enclosure around the familiar eagle-topped marble column.

This is the time for prayers in this special place that the National Spiritual Assembly (the national governing council of the UK Bahá’í community) had long promised itself.

There’s a certain attitude, a certain posture, that Bahá’ís adopt as they pass between the overhanging pines and wrought iron gates that open into the outer, brick-walled court of this holy place. They pace slowly with slightly lowered head and hands clasped in front of them along the red gravel path until they reach the two steps that lead through the opening in the stone balustrade surrounding the monument itself.

And then they raise their eyes to the gilded eagle with partly opened wings that perches on the stone globe at the top of the column.

Shoghi Effendi

That eagle symbolizes Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith from 1921, when he was in his 20s and a student at Balliol College, Oxford, until he died prematurely at the age of 60 during a trip to London. A man who wrote books setting out his vision of a future world civilization built on unity and justice, a man who laid out gardens and oversaw the building of great edifices, a man who wrote letters of encouragement to the small but growing Bahá’í community around the world, a man who guided the Bahá’ís through the early stages of building the administrative institutions ordained by Bahá’u'lláh and by Shoghi Effendi’s grandfather, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi was a man of extraordinary achievements. Sadly those achievements are as yet little known to the world outside the Bahá’í community.

A posture of reverence

The posture of reverence that Bahá’ís adopt when they approach this place of prayer is not required, it is not a ritual, it is not set down in any text. It is a response of the spirit to the power of the place and the knowledge of the extraordinary responsibility laid on Shoghi Effendi by his Grandfather’s Will and Testament while Shoghi Effendi was still a child and which remained unknown until the Will was read after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s death in 1921.

So there we nine stand on the white gravel of the inner court, as the twilight deepens, facing the column. A breeze rattles the leaves of the tall trees that grow nearby. There’s a hint of rain in the air.

Prayer list

The Secretary clears his throat and begins to read out our list of the sick, the departed, those who have achieved something special, those who are suffering, the Bahá’ís in Iran, those who have particularly asked for the National Assembly’s prayers. As he reads, the distant sound of the trains rushing through New Southgate station on the Great Northern line floats up the hill, but does not penetrate the prayerful peace surrounding us.

The Secretary comes to the end of the list and falls silent. One of the other members clears her throat and recites a prayer. One by one, along the line, each in turn reads a favourite prayer or a prayer that seems particularly appropriate as we remember the triumphs and the suffering, the victories and the crises, as we express our love for our friends, for the Bahá’ís, for suffering humanity.

Transcendence

These prayers connect us to God. And they connect us to Shoghi Effendi, whose forebears, the Báb, Bahá’u'lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, revealed them in matchless language to give expression to the deepest yearnings of our hearts.

I love to pray outside. When I pray outside I feel a connection not only to God but also to the natural world, which in itself is one of the books of God. But praying as night falls in this particular spot, so holy for Bahá’ís across the world, opens a unique door to transcendence.

The last prayer read, we remain silent for a time. Someone shifts his feet on the gravel. Someone coughs. And then we begin to move, to tear ourselves from this place that so strongly links us to the divine world. We reverse down the steps from the inner court, along the red gravel and back to the wrought iron gates. This walking backwards marks the kind of respect subjects give to a king, in our case a servant king who always signed his letters to the Bahá’ís “Your true brother”, or “Your co-worker”.

But more than that, we can scarcely bear to leave this place and to return to our responsibilities in the quotidian world.

Photo: © Brenton Edwards

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Shoghi Effendi, holy place, prayer, spirituality

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The Bahá’í World News Service’s Iran Update has just been updated. I’m both angry and deeply concerned to learn that:

The seven members of the committee that sees to the minimum needs of the 300,000-member Baha’i community of Iran are still being held by the government. No formal charges have been filed against them, and none of them have been allowed contact with an attorney.

The Baha’i International Community learned several weeks ago that the seven were each allowed one brief phone call to their families. Since then, however, there has been no contact with them, nor has there been any news regarding their health or well-being.

Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr. Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid Rezaie, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli and Mr. Vahid Tizfahm (all arrested on 14 May) and Mrs. Mahvash Sabet (detained in Mashad on 5 March) are believed to be held in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran.

The update makes it clear that these faithful and dedicated Bahá’ís were arrested purely because they are Bahá’ís and not for any alleged risk to Iran’s national security.

The statement of support from the six women Nobel Peace Prize laureates is also mentioned and there’s a round-up of some of the other significant statements of support we have received.

Read the update here. Oh, and please note that the URL for the Bahá’í World News Service is http://www.news.bahai.org/. Apparently some people are still using outdated versions of this address.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Iran, human rights, Evin, Nobel Peace Prize, Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Behrouz Tavakkoli Vahid Tizfahm, Mahvash Sabet

Bilo’s blog, Baha’i Faith in Egypt and Iran, reports that Bahá’í children in Egypt are being turned away from school, even though Egypt’s administrative court recognized the right of Bahá’ís to have ID cards back in January.

According to this story in Daily News Egypt:

Adel Ramadan, a lawyer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) — which brought the case that was ruled on in January — says that schools are refusing to accept personal identity documents printed on paper…

According to a report published in Arabic-language daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, school officials claim that they cannot accept identity papers in which the religious affiliation field is left blank.

Ramadan says that the decision was taken in pursuance of the state’s policy of forcing people to issue the new computerized identity papers, but has the effect of discriminating against Bahais who either hold the old paper identity documents or have not been issued new documents following the Interior Ministry’s failure to implement the Administrative Court’s decision.

I very strongly agree with Bilo’s closing comment about this outrage:

This sad development must be seen by all Egyptians as a disgrace. Identity cards or not, these children belong in the schools, not the streets. How can a civil society tolerate such atrocities directed at innocent children? Unfortunately this is the exact same strategy that has been pursued in Iran against its children. Is this what Egypt–a nation endowed with so much great heritage–wants to be remembered for? One would certainly doubt that!

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Egypt, human rights, education, ID cards

The Khaleej Times reports that the Iranian parliament is about to debate a draft bill which would make certain blogging activities punishable by death.

MPs on Wednesday voted to discuss as a priority the draft bill which seeks to “toughen punishment for harming mental security in society,” the ISNA news agency said.

The text lists a wide range of crimes such rape and armed robbery for which the death penalty is already applicable. The crime of apostasy (the act of leaving a religion, in this case Islam) is also already punishable by death.

However, the draft bill also includes “establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy”, which is a new addition to crimes punishable by death.

Those convicted of these crimes “should be punished as “mohareb’ (enemy of God) and “corrupt on the earth’,” the text says.

Under Iranian law the standard punishments for these two crimes are “hanging, amputation of the right hand and then the left foot as well as exile.”

The bill — which is yet to be debated by lawmakers — also stipulates that the punishment handed out in these cases “cannot be commuted, suspended or changed”.

I certainly don’t approve of promoting corruption or prostitution, but a great deal turns on how the Iranian judiciary interpret “corruption”. And our old friend “apostasy” - already featuring in a draft penal code under consideration by the Iranian parliament - would attract a mandatory death sentence.

Now what the law says and how judges make use of the law are not always straightforwardly related in Iran, and laws worded in this way would almost certainly be used against Iranian Bahá’ís, since any attempt to inform people about the Bahá’í Faith can be interpreted as promoting “apostasy”.

Hat tip: Mideast Youth for blogging this story.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Iran, blogs, apostasy, death penalty, human rights

Birth of the National Health Service

I can’t think why I’ve only just realized that I was born before the National Health Service came into being. Now, that may not strike non-UK readers as important, but those of us who’ve lived with and been treated by the NHS most or all of our lives are very happy that this extraordinary social institution is still with us after 60 years.

I was born in December 1947. My parents would have had to pay the hospital where I was born for its services. Now our medical treatment is free at the point of use.

The NHS was conceived in the middle of the Second World War, when Britain was almost on its economic knees. Before this visionary new service was born - on 5 July 1948, at a time of extraordinary privation for the British people - people who could afford it (including my parents) paid for medical treatment, and those who couldn’t afford it went without.

Women queuing for food in the severe winter of 1947

Despite all the NHS’s faults and weaknesses, I am grateful for the vision of William Beveridge and the determination Aneurin Bevan, health minister in the 1945 Labour government to ensure that…

…everybody, irrespective of means, age, sex or occupation shall have equal opportunity to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available.

Of course, the NHS has never fully lived up to this promise, but as a retired GP who qualified as a doctor on the day the NHS began has commented:

Nobody realised how much unknown sickness there was until the NHS began. So many people just could not afford to go to the doctor. The new service uncovered a huge cavern of unmet need. There was an unprecedented rush to the GPs with problems people had been putting off for years. Before the NHS, healthcare in this country was a disaster, particularly if you were poor.

If you want to read the history of this great social invention, you can download Sixty Years of the National Health Service from the Department of Health website.

Celebration in Westminster Abbey

So around 2,000 of us - doctors, nurses, chaplains, patients, administrators, and many more - came to Westminster Abbey yesterday afternoon - to celebrate the NHS’s 60th birthday.

Prince Charles was there. The Prime Minister was there. And I was there, oh yes, I was there representing the UK Bahá’í community (I am one of two Bahá’í members of the Multi Faith Group for Healthcare Chaplaincy), and sitting next to Sikh, Muslim and Jewish friends.

Westminster Abbey has a grand way with these ceremonial occasions - processions, robes, choir, music, solemn language - and yesterday’s service was no exception.

(I was part of the small “other faiths” procession. It’s an awe-inspiring experience to follow a verger at the stately processional pace favoured by the Church of England through the Nave and into the Quire of this place where God has been worshipped by Christians for over a thousand years - although this particular building was begun in 1245 - watched by the congregation, who surely must have wondered at this motley group of besuited and unrobed men, one in a turban and one with a Jewish kippah.)

Reasons to be thankful

In his address the Rt Revd Michael Perham, Bishop of Gloucester and Chairman of the Hospital Chaplaincies Council, highlighted four reasons to be thankful on this occasion:

The first is that the National Health Service happened at all. It was a brave and visionary social revolution emerging, surprisingly, out of a world of post-war austerity. It was opposed by most of the professionals who would have to work within it. Its background was economic hardship and entrenched opposition. Yet it came into being, promoted by courageous politicians, and it was not very long before it was the pride and joy of the nation and the envy of the world. Give thanks!

The second is that it has continued to evolve, responding to radical change - not so much radical change imposed by politicians and administrators (though, of course, there has been that), but radical change brought about by medical advance and by new insights within the medical profession…

The third reason to rejoice is the huge satisfaction and pride that the people of this country still have in the Health Service. Politicians, challenging one another, rightly always want to get it better. Newspapers sometimes run horror stories of things that go wrong. Some people have a raw deal. This week’s BBC poll on the NHS found that 82% of people were still proud of the NHS and half of those still saw it as the envy of the world. I’d give a lot for a vote of confidence like that. Give thanks!

The fourth reason to celebrate? Simply this - and it’s hugely important. The Health Service work-force deserves honour and praise. Health care “professional” - I use the word in its widest meaning, doctors of many kinds, nurses of many kinds, administrators of many kinds, support workers of many kinds, chaplains of many faiths - continue to be people of dedication, continue to exercise care and compassion towards their patients. “Honour physicians for their services . . the skill of physicians makes them distinguished,” says the writer of Ecclesiasticus, and we need to widen that honouring of those who care for the sick and work for health to include the entire profession. For the people of the NHS, give thanks!

However,

That profound sense of thankfulness needs to be set against the inevitable difficulties that have been encountered as the NHS has tried to respond to change over the years. Nor will the difficulties vanish away, however much we try to anticipate change.

What of the future?

Bishop Michael’s conclusion contains wise words:

There is much that a future NHS will need that is beyond the knowledge of a bishop! There is probably much that is beyond the imagination of most of us. Our forebears in 1948, for all their vision, cannot have pictured the advances and the changes that we have seen. But I think I do know that, if the National Health Service is to continue to serve, it will need to hold on to two timeless truths.

• The human person is a wonderful combination of the physical, the mental, the social and the spiritual, a divine design beyond compare.

• To heal the sick and to make people healthy is a vocation, a collaboration with the God from whom all health and wholeness comes.

Reception

So, the service finished and we all ceremoniously recessed to the Great West Door. Outside in the Sanctuary, the Abbey bells rang through the light, persistent, rain. The congregation hoisted their umbrellas and trooped across the road into the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre for sandwiches, scones, tea, a speech by Alan Johnson, the Secretary of State for Health.

And for a song by soprano Lesley Garrett, who is married to a GP.

When he launched the NHS, Nye Bevan said:

We shall never have all we need. Expectations will always exceed capacity… The NHS must always be changing, growing and improving. It must always appear inadequate.

No wonder Lesley Garrett sang “To Dream the Impossible Dream”!

Technorati Tags: NHS, National Health Service, Westminster Abbey, 60th anniversary, Christian, Baha’i, Sikh, Muslim, chaplaincy

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Jaseep Singh Degun and Ushna Moghal of the Yorkshire and Humber Youth Interfaith Council addressing the IFN National Meeting

More and more people are doing it! Inter-faith dialogue is on the up here in the UK.

And this is not just amongst religious leaders and followers. Inter-faith increasingly prominent in the public realm in the UK. Following public consultation on its Face-to-Face and Side-by-Side: A Framework for Inter Faith Dialogue and Social Action document, the government is soon to launch its own inter-faith strategy with a focus on shared social action (i.e. faith communities working together side-by-side) at local and regional levels.

Of course, “side-by-side” shared social action is very important, but some faith practitioners are beginning to fear that the more traditional forms of “face-to-face” and, more importantly, “heart-to-heart” inter-faith dialogue are in danger of being washed away by the streams of funding that support the “side-by-side” work.

Why is “face-to-face” dialogue important?

More and more of us live in towns and cities, and those cities - London, New York, Sydney, Buenos Aires, and many others - are drawing in followers of all the world’s faiths and cultures.

If these increasingly diverse societies are to hang together, we have to learn to understand each other’s beliefs (whether religious or non-religious) and practices. Dialogue is a crucial way of building that understanding and is a foundation for mutual respect (even where we disagree with each other).

Inter Faith Network conference

This is why yesterday’s national meeting of the Inter Faith Network for the UK addressed the theme “Face to Face and Heart to Heart”: People of Faith in Dialogue.

Representatives of national, regional and local inter-faith bodies joined Baha’is, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and Zoroastrians in Glaziers’ Hall, across the Thames from the City, hard by London Bridge, to discuss the role of inter-faith dialogue in the 21st century.

IFN Director Harriet Crabtree opened the day by drawing a word-picture of what she called “the dialogical landscape”.

Five kinds of dialogue

Harriet listed five kinds of dialogue that are taking place in this country:

• Encounters and dialogue in everyday life: people from different faiths may, for example, find themselves working together and begin to talk to each other about their beliefs and their practices.
• Dialogue in local inter-faith bodies: this kind of dialogue may be more structured; people of different faiths may be invited to give short presentations about their religions.
• Dialogue in schools, colleges and universities.
• Formal dialogue between faith communities, supported by national faith leaders and often carried out at national level. Sometimes several faiths may be involved, sometimes three, sometimes two.
• Dialogue on social issues: this is happening increasingly between faith communities and central, regional and local government.

Dialogue - a pioneering business

“Dialogue is a risky, pioneering business,” said David Gifford, Chief Executive of the Council of Christians and Jews, an organization with more than 60 years of experience in inter-faith dialogue. “It is not easy.”

Dialogue, said Dr Gifford, is built on a foundation of relationships of trust and respect. We can achieve trusting and respectful relationships only if we meet reasonably often, if we start with the basics and break down misconceptions we may have about other faiths, and if we start from where we are, rather than trying to solve the big problems right at the outset.

And we need to learn some skills if we are to have a genuine dialogue, rather than a series of statements and counter-statements from people of different faiths. There has to be genuine engagement and a willingness to learn from each other. These skills are not always easy and one of the most essential and most challenging skills is listening.

“Dialogue is a journey, not a destination,” concluded Dr Gifford, “and we need to start with small steps.”

Experience from the faiths

Dr Nawal Prinja, Co-Chair of the Inter Faith Network, shared Hindu thoughts and experience of dialogue. “Sisters and Brothers of America,” the opening words of Swami Vivekananda’s speech to the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 (where, incidentally, the Bahá’í Faith was publicly mentioned for the first time in the West), sum up the Hindu approach, said Dr Prinja. Hindu belief is that the earth is one family, he said, and he argued that the spiritual must be balanced with the practical and political if dialogue is to be effective.

Sughra Ahmed, Adviser on Women and Faith and a Research Fellow at the Islamic Foundation, gave a fascinating and inspiring presentation about a course she had developed and coordinated to help Muslim women engage in inter-faith initiatives. The women on the course learned more about Islam and about other faiths and non-religious beliefs; they also learned about existing inter-faith structures and organizations; and they worked on their personal and social skills.

The women had to make a considerable commitment to take part. One woman who travelled regularly from Cardiff to Leicester for the course had never driven on the motorway before and overcame her fear of this to get to Markfield. Sughra said that when this woman arrived for the first residential of the course, she gave Sughra a big hug and thanked her for empowering her to travel on her own in this way. “I didn’t do anything,” said Sughra, “I just set the conditions for the course and this woman was motivated to do something she’d never done before.”

Sadly the government funding for the course is no longer available, but the course led to the launch of the Women in Faith Network, which supports Muslim women as they engage in inter-faith dialogue.

By building a culture of encouragement and accompanimet, Sughra helped build skills and confidence in a group of people who might not otherwise think of inter-faith dialogue as something they could do.

Youth and inter-faith dialogue

Jaseep Singh Degun, a Sikh, and Ushan Moghal, a Roman Catholic (see picture above) spoke with great enthusiasm and excitement about the Yorkshire and Humber Youth Interfaith Council, which was launched last year and is linked to the work of the Yorkshire and Humber Faiths Forum.

Jasdeep, who is 16, is the Chair of the Youth Interfaith Council.

So much of the inter-faith work that is going on in the UK is undertaken by “mature” people (like me). It’s wonderful when young people take the lead and it is essential that they do so if dialogue is to continue and expand.

The landscape is changing

The dialogical landscape has changed a great deal in the last five years or so, certainly in the UK. We’ve seen the arrival of lots of new inter-faith initiatives. New people are getting involved. Some of these new initiatives are criss-crossing and overlapping in ways that can be quite confusing for those who are not familiar with the whole field. The smaller faith communities are anxious inequality in dialogue - they’re afraid that they’re being left out of the new initiatives. Dialogue between people with religious and non-religious beliefs is getting going. And government is becoming ever more involved in the whole scene.

“Soundings” programme

The Inter Faith Network needs to find ways of navigating the new scenery. To this end, Harriet Crabtree announced the launch of the “Soundings” programme, the Network’s new venture of discussions amongst invited individuals from different faiths about a number of the features of the changing landscape. These discussions will start in the autumn and continue over the next two or three years.

Reflections

I found much to think about from yesterday’s presentations and discussions. There’s no doubt that inter-faith dialogue is alive and healthy in the UK, but it will have to be nimble to deal with the changes and challenges that will face those involved in dialogue over the coming years.

Technorati Tags: inter-faith, dialogue, Inter Faith Network, Baha’is, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Council of Christians and Jews, Islamic Foundation

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Rob Weinberg has just launched a new blog, Where the World’s Going. Rob introduces his blog thus:

For some time now, I have been coming across news items and stories which strike me as illustrating two major processes that are at work in the world - the disintegration of outmoded ways of thinking and doing, and the burgeoning processes of integration. So, I thought I’d keep a blog about it. Enjoy!

I shall be keeping an eye on it.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, blog, Rob Weinberg

I was thrilled to learn that six women Nobel Peace Prize winners (only 12 women have ever won the Nobel Prize) have put out a statement calling on the Iranian government to free the seven leading Bahá’ís who are currently in jail in Tehran.

Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire (founders of the Peace People in Northern Ireland and winners of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976), Rigoberta Menchu Tum (a leading advocate of ethno-cultural reconciliation in her native Guatemala and Nobel winner in 1992), Professor Jody Williams (international campaigner for the banning of land mines, Nobel winner in 1997), Dr. Shirin Ebadi (Iranian human rights lawyer, winner in 2003), and Kenyan environmental activist Professor Wangari Muta Maathai (Nobel winner in 2004) have signed the following statement:

We note with concern the news of the arrest of six prominent Baha’is in Iran on 14 May 2008. We note that Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr. Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid Rezaie, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Mr. Vahid Tizfahm are members of the informal group known as the Friends in Iran that coordinates the activities of the Baha’i community in Iran; we further note that another member of the Friends in Iran, Mrs Mahvash Sabet, has been held in custody since 5 March 2008; we register our deepest concern at the mounting threats and persecution of the Iranian Baha’i community.

We call on the Iranian Government to guarantee the safety of these individuals (and) grant their immediate unconditional release.

The statement has been issued in the name of the Nobel Women’s Initiative, which the six women laureates established in 2006 to contribute to building peace by working together with women around the world.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Friends in Iran, human rights, Nobel Peace Prize, Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Muta Maathai