US foreign policy supported Kenya’s Moi while its movements inspired Maathai

Evidence

The United States played a complex role, as it would in the rise of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. If one of Saro-Wiwa’s primary adversaries was American petro-giant Gulf Chevron, operating collaboratively with Nigerian authoritarianism, in Kenya (a detail Maathai omits from her memoir) the American government refused to turn the screws on President Moi because they perceived him as a friendly authoritarian and valuable ally close to the volatile Horn of Africa. That said, both Maathai and Saro-Wiwa traveled to the United States and drew inspiration from the civil rights and environmental campaigns they witnessed there. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 398

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the US-arms-and-aids authoritarian-author contradiction running through the polyad; pairs with the Saro-Wiwa/Shell case and with base-host ‘friendly authoritarian’ dynamics. — connects to: Vilification and marginality powered Carson and Maathai’s original environmental visions — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 405; Hearing Martin Luther King shaped Maathai’s intersectional environmentalism — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 399; Divided opposition let Moi’s KANU win with minority support in 1992. — Johan Brosché and Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Höglund, Electoral violence and the legacy of…, 57

Broader Connections

• Hearing Martin Luther King shaped Maathai’s intersectional environmentalism #expands (0.80) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 399
• Vilification and marginality powered Carson and Maathai’s original environmental visions #complicates (0.75) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 405
• Divided opposition let Moi’s KANU win with minority support in 1992. #qualifies (0.72) — Johan Brosché and Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Höglund, Electoral violence and the legacy of…, 57