Les Lester's Chronicle, Message Board

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Remembering the Good Work of Wangari Maathai

Posted by Maestro on 10/8/2026, 8:55 am

On October 8, 2004, Wangarĩ Maathai, a Kenyan woman from the Kikuyu ethnic group, became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai was an environmentalist who founded the Green Belt Movement to reforest her country.

Maathai's groundbreaking work went beyond the scope of traditional environmentalism. She bridged the environmental movement with the peace movement, famously arguing that protecting the environment is, fundamentally, "peace work."

When accepting her Nobel Prize, she beautifully summarized this philosophy by stating that the Norwegian Nobel Committee was sending a message that "protecting and restoring the environment contributes to peace; it is peace work."

Below, her acceptance speech at the UN:

Kudos to Navi Pillay.

Posted by Maestro on 10/9/2026, 8:32 am, in reply to "Remembering the Good Work of Wangari Maathai"

Navi Pillay, the first non white judge serving on the high court of South Africa has won the Nobel Peace Prize this year for her effort for promoting peace and strengthening international law.

Reacting to the award, Pillay said she thought at first it must be a joke. “Being a lawyer and a judge, I still want to verify this. The last thing I did is the delivery of the report on Gaza, naming what’s happening there as genocide,” she continued. “One of the main reactions to that report is paying tribute to me for my courage. And you can imagine how surprised I was. Why would you need courage to speak the truth?”

Pillay joked that she might share her prize with the US leader.

“If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump,” she said in a video posted on social media by the secretary-general of Amnesty International that showed Pillay being applauded after the announcement of the award.

Re: Kudos to Navi Pillay.

Posted by gm on 10/9/2026, 3:42 pm, in reply to "Kudos to Navi Pillay. "

JUST FORKING AWESOME!
JUST AWESOME!

One of my kids told me about it and it surprised me..
I thought it was going to be Pope Leo, but I'm pleasantly surprised. Hallelujah🙏

Can you imagine how pissed off Teump & Netanyahu must be, given how they & the Israeli lobby have been trying to discredit the UN, the ICC, including Navi Pillay in particular? I think at one time Trump threatened to ban her from traveling to the US - kinda revoke her visa etc etc.

LOL..her point about sharing the prize with Trump is brilliant - a jab at both Trump & the Venezuelan donkey, Maria Machado. Trump played her terribly: she thought he'd make her president after the kidnap of Maduro, but no, she remains in exile somewhere etc etc.

😆🤣..wonder what Kris & Mr TheOne are thinking of Navi Pillay's win...SPLAAAAAAAAAAAT.
Oooops, sorry. Lawwd

But seriously, I miss the board, but the madness was too overwhelming for my taste.

"Navi Pillay is an unabashed American hater", says Trump - want's more sanction on her....n/t

Posted by noting gm on 10/10/2026, 8:32 pm, in reply to "Re: Kudos to Navi Pillay. "

n/t

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Remembering the Good Work of Wangari Maathai

Posted by gm on 10/11/2026, 3:52 pm, in reply to ""Navi Pillay is an unabashed American hater", says Trump - want's more sanction on her....n/t"

I just had to google on Wangari Maathai to see what she was up to since she seems to have just dropped out of the news..
Ouch! OUCH! OUCH!...She died in 2011.
(but then you wrote of her in the past tense--should have picked up that clue)😆

MAY WANGARI MAATHAI REST IN PEACE IN A BEAUTIFUL GREEN HEAVEN. AMEN

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