‘Those who have consumed the most will need to make restitution to those who have suffered the most. ’
Animal instinct, part one: Nim Njuguna looks at the sheep and the wolves at COP26
‘Outwardly appearing harmless while inwardly remaining hostile – waiting for an opportunity.’
The environmental crisis is an outward manifestation of a crisis of mind and spirit. There could be no greater misconception of its meaning than to believe it to be concerned only with endangered wildlife, human-made ugliness, and pollution. These are part of it, but, more importantly, the crisis is concerned with the kind of creatures we are and what we must become in order to survive – Lynton K Caldwell, principal architect of the 1969 US National Environmental Policy Act.
Despite widespread political and economic uncertainty, Quakers have responded with wisdom and combative compassion on the side of those suffering injustice or indignity. Part of Minute 33 of Yearly Meeting Gathering 2021 reads: ‘To those gathering at COP26 we offer our anger, our grief and our kinder ground, as well as our hope that they can share a vision of a better world. We ask them to renew and redouble their efforts, as we will do ourselves, giving no less than all we can to deliver a liveable planet and just societies.’
In 2005, I registered Nakuru Environmental and Conservation Trust. It works with young people in the UK and Kenya to explore ways of living in harmony with nature. That year, I flew to Kenya with twenty-one young people and their leaders from an inner-London youth club. The youngest was a fifteen-year-old single parent, nervous and excited, experiencing pre-travel anxiety on their first experience of flying. The three-week trip was partly sponsored by the Commonwealth youth exchange programme, with some donations from well-wishers and the young people themselves through fundraising activities.
Arriving at Jomo Kenyatta airport, we were met by one of our prominent supporters. He took turns in shaking everybody’s hand with ‘Welcome to Kenya, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow’. Later I was asked ‘Who was that geezer welcoming us?’ ‘That “geezer”’, I replied, ‘is the British high commissioner to Kenya, whose house you are going for lunch tomorrow.’
The young Londoners were served a sumptuous lunch in comfortable surroundings. They took time to relax in Mombasa, swimming in the Indian Ocean, and spent an afternoon in a Maasai village, sampling a different way of being.
We were guests of Mbaruk Ecology Centre, which had been set up in the 1990s to work alongside subsistence farmers. Most of them were survivors of the 1992 ethnic clashes in Rift Valley Province, Kenya’s breadbasket. Before establishing the Ecology Centre, I had received a small grant from the local World Bank office to conduct a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) exercise, with support from a local university. PRA (later renamed Participatory Learning for Action) is premised on the belief that everyone has the right to be involved in decisions that will affect their life, by enabling them to analyse their own situation through self-inquiry and reflection.
After fifteen days of deliberations, the community – made up of different gender groups, children, the aged, and vulnerable and marginal groups – concluded that clean drinking water, adequate and nutritious food, income-generation, and solar energy for cooking were their priorities. Together we formulated action plans that included environmental care. It was with this community that the young Londoners were going to stay. Working alongside their Kenyan counterparts, they planted trees, prepared the ground for the creation of a demonstration garden, and painted several classrooms of a local primary school. After three weeks of working, playing and eating together, strong bonds of friendships were formed, some of which continue to this day.
This year’s COP – 26 – will be hosted by Glasgow, a city I love, having lived and worked there as a mental health therapist in the 1980s. The event takes place amid a triple crisis of poverty, inequality, and a climate emergency compounded by a global pandemic. The earth has finally and clearly spoken, reminding us that we have been living outside the boundaries of nature’s laws. We need to urgently reframe our relationship afresh, in order to rebuild a regenerative future.
In Matthew chapter ten, Jesus tells his disciples to ‘Listen carefully: I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; so be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves.’ They were to have no self-serving agenda. There are many similes going on in this warning, and I’d like to consider these sheep and wolves as we approach COP26.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing are notorious for savage behaviour towards the sheep. They have a hidden agenda, but can mimic sheep, outwardly appearing harmless while inwardly remaining hostile – waiting for an opportunity to take advantage of the vulnerable. Any sheep relaxing when the wolves tell them they are not hungry are being conned. This may seem unlikely today, but travelling incognito and blending-in to do harm has been done by undercover police officers. In one case it was reported that they had ‘secret children’ with environmental activists from groups they had been sent to infiltrate. Scotland Yard detectives stole the identities of dead babies to make it happen.
Both sheep and wolves can outwardly accept that it is unacceptable how humankind treats our planet, and that this has to change. But they approach the issues differently. Sheep talk the walk with their moral compass headed true north. The wolves, with accomplished and sophisticated lies, eschew that moral compass and their talk is in bad faith. (We must remember, of course, that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. We must not exaggerate the good in the saint or the bad in the sinner. Nothing is fully baked; we are all a work in progress with potential for materialising the spirit.)
Those able to speak truth to power, and to each other, are the enlightened ones, reminding cultural nationalists that the environmental crisis is evidence of massive accumulated wealth and overconsumption, which cannot be sustained. Those who have consumed the most will need to make restitution to those who have suffered the most. Developed countries, which are responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions, must respond to the developing countries, which are the most affected.
The sheep need to be alert to the ideology underpinning climate scepticism. This is tactically promoted by powerful groups of wolves. It is not always apparent in their intention, but it will undermine, curtail and even derail progress if not checked. To have a chance of returning creation to its rightful place, and for humanity to be reconciled, issues should not be addressed from a single wolf perspective, but from angles concerned with equity, justice and care for global wellbeing.
I give the last word to a fellow Kenyan: the late Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. She was the founder of the Green Belt Movement. When I wrote to her in 1982 – while living in Glasgow, as it happens – I asked how I could be of help. ‘Spread the word,’ she said. ‘For me, one of the major reasons to move beyond just the planting of trees was that I have tendency to look at the causes of a problem. We often preoccupy ourselves with the symptoms, whereas if we went to the root cause of the problems, we would be able to overcome the problems once and for all.’
Next week: The six types of wolf to look out for at COP26.
