KEN SARO
WIWA
Ken Saro Wiwa was a Nigerian
campaigner for the human rights of the Ogoni people in the Niger River delta
who was executed by dictator Sani Abacha’s regime in 1995. The Ogoni are a
minority group of one million in a country of 200 million, so his focus on his
own people did not make him a national figure in his life time. But his rigged
trial and execution - together with eight others, making ‘the Ogoni Nine’ –
outraged international sensitivity and made his name known. Saro Wiwa was also
a writer and a broadcaster, so his campaign was not just focused on one issue
but developed a wider consciousness of civic awareness, particularly in the way
the Shell Oil company was allowed by the Nigerian government to exploit the
rich oil reserves of the delta without attending to the environmental impact on
the lives of the people. Mark Dummett, of Amnesty International, says that
while the company claimed that in one area of Ogoniland, only 1,640 barrels of
oil spilled into the environment, an independent estimate put it at 100,000
barrels. Shell saw its Nigerian business as ‘the jewel in the crown of its
exploration and production division’.
The result is that Saro Wiwa is
now remembered principally as a prophet of ecological justice, something that
is becoming increasingly relevant today. In his speech at his trial in 1995, he
said;
‘We all stand
before history. I am a man of peace, of ideas. Appalled by the denigrating poverty
of my people who live in a richly endowed land, distressed by their political
marginalisation and economic strangulation, angered by the devastation of their
land, their ultimate heritage, anxious to preserve their right to life and
decent living and determined to usher in to this country as a whole a fair and
just democratic system which protects everyone and every ethnic group and gives
us all a valid claim to human civilisation, I have devoted my intellectual and
material resources, my very life, to a cause in which I have total belief and
from which I cannot be blackmailed or intimidated.’
His courage and commitment are
echoed in the readings we have this Sunday: ‘Let is lie in wait for the
virtuous man, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life.’ The Book of
Wisdom is a scene setter for the gospel words; ‘the Son of Man will be
delivered into the hands of man; and they will put him to death.’ We can see
the deaths of Ken Saro Wiwa and his eight companions in this tragic tradition
of a world ‘groaning on one great act of coming to birth.’ Their deaths repeat the
death of the Son of Man and set off an explosion of revulsion across the
planet. But it also forged a conviction among many, especially the young, that
the struggle for justice was the one worthwhile cause facing humanity today.[1]
19 September 2021 Sunday
25B Wis 2:12…20 James
3:16-4:3 Mk 9:30-37
[1]
Material for this piece comes from: Fallon, H, (ED), I am a man of peace, Writings
inspired by the Maynooth University Ken Saro Wiwa Collection, 2020
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