Apple and Greenbelt

Friday, 14 October 2011 02:14

Written by Neric Acosta

There were two deaths of iconic individuals this month that I have had a connection with in differently direct ways, and both of whom I am compelled to pay tribute to. One is the defining force of modern computing, Steve Jobs, who has changed our lives and how we relate to the world in richly creative and fiercely individualistic, personal ways. As I write this on my Macbook and check my notes on my iPad, I am indebted to the wizard who made such innovative gadgetry possible (and yes, fun and amazingly democratic) for millions around the world.

The other is 2004 Nobel Peace laureate, Wangari Maathai of Kenya, who helped redefine the way we view the environment and sustainable development as a path to peace. In 2005 I was privileged to travel to Kenya for a United Nationals Environment Program conference in Nairobi and a week of immersion with the rural women of the Wangari’s Greenbelt Movement responsible for practically restoring thousands of hectares of northern Kenya’s denuded mountains. Our group had the fortunate chance to meet and speak with Wangari at length, herself an ebullient, strong-willed force of nature, the epitome of an African woman of substance.

For Jobs, the paeans are legion and have been largely effusive – mostly in the very devices or gizmos that were made possible by his genius. In Steve Jobs’ demise on October 5, I recount what has become a uniquely global event, a communal human experience, as it were. Perhaps not in the magnitude of 9/11 or the landing on the moon, but nevertheless roundly significant and meaningful for millions around the world.

For denizens of the 21st century, attached to cellphones or laptops and sundry technological gadgets like they were part of our central nervous system, the news of Jobs’ passing was a collective human experience – a real-time sharing of grief and gratitude, likely derived and expressed on an iPhone or an iPad. I am not exactly a ‘tech-ie,’ readily drawn to the excitement of new inventions and technological products. Sometimes I get rather overwhelmed by the vast array of mobile phones, iPods, laptops and all sorts of contraptions that bring the world of information and entertainment at one’s fingertips. I gaze with wonder and bewilderment at how my teenage son, a creature of this digitized generation, can multi-task: listen to his iPod, have the sports channel on TV on the side, a laptop to work on a school assignment, beside a desktop computer that is connected to the Internet, chatting with friends of Facebook, or browsing the world wide web all at once.

But I am at minimum wired and keyed into cyberspace with the aid of Jobs’ inventions, the metaphorical ‘apples’ that I need to make me functional at home or work – and connected in real-time to countless others around the globe. Music, photos, books, videos and other materials are made readily accessible and transmittable 24/7 via numerous, ubiquitous “apps” that we have in our Apple products. Steve Jobs is our 21st century wizard, weaver of dreams, harbinger of a new world. For that and more he has entered the pantheon of heroes and lives on in the technology that is now an integral given in our daily lives.

Wangari Maathai was a presence that was both forceful and kind-hearted, whose megawatt smile set against dark skin and brightly-colored African headdresses mixed with an easy wit and determined will. She almost singlehandedly, with an army of thousands of women in the denuded hillsides of northern Kenya, planted and cared for millions of trees that restored depleted watersheds. Her environmental advocacies and dogged push to make government sit up and listen (once taking on singularly the oppressive rule of Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi and being thrown to jail for it) have been legendary. The Nobel Prize declared in 2004 that with Wangari’s work in greening the earth, she proved that sustainable development and the protection of ecosystems were essential to peace in conflict-plagued and impoverished regions of Africa. I witnessed this first-hand for a week spent in the rugged hinterland of Kenya, and will be always greatly thankful for the unique opportunity of the Greenbelt experience and example.

Steve Jobs and Wangari Maathai leave this earth much richer than when they found it. One showing us that invention is a function of great imagination, the other reminding us that stultified structures are transformed by sheer will and spirit – the unbending belief that if we can think it, we can make it happen with individual passion and inspiration. And from the time we first dream of these plans, we do not allow setbacks and hurdles, large or small, to deter our clear pursuits.

Apple and Greenbelt are living testimonies to Jobs’ and Wangari’s indomitable drive, emblematic of their founders’ trail-blazing can-do spirit. But we mourn their passing because we see our higher selves in them and the search for greatness that we all relate to at a deeper instinctive level. We celebrate their excellence but we know we inherit a burden of having to carry on with more imagination and daring ourselves.

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