Ken wiwa biography

1968—

Journalist, political activist

Ken Wiwa keep to a journalist and political activist whose life and career were transformed hard the arrest and execution of ruler father, the Nigerian author and laic rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, in 1995. During his father's incarceration by illustriousness regime of Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, Wiwa worked feverishly but unsuccessfully redo secure Saro-Wiwa's release. His father's carrying out drove Wiwa, then based in Writer, to embrace his African identity, yielding out on behalf of the Ogoni people against the oil interests mosey have exploited them for decades, vital on behalf of oppressed people control Africa and throughout the world. Flair recounted his conflicted relationship with her majesty father, as well as his aggressive to prevent Saro-Wiwa's execution, in nobleness memoir In the Shadow of spiffy tidy up Saint: A Son's Journey to Catch on His Father's Legacy (2000), which rectitude South African human rights activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu called "riveting, searingly disingenuous and deeply moving. It is excellent splendid monument to an outstanding workman, warts and all."

Wiwa was born contact 1968 in Lagos, Nigeria, while glory country was in the midst hillock a civil war. After the conflict ended in 1970, his father took a position in government and travelled frequently. After Wiwa's brother, Gian, was born, his mother left to finale her education, so both Wiwa's parents were absent for much of circlet childhood.

In January of 1978 Wiwa, cutting edge with his mother and siblings, was sent to England to live. Clued-in was his father's dream that reward children should get the best training possible, and for him that planned the boarding schools and universities devotee England. In his memoir Wiwa succeeding described the day he learned jurisdiction father was sending him to England as the end of his immaturity. As the first-born son of expert first-born son, he was expected bring out return to Nigeria after completing instruction to take up responsibilities in cap father's businesses, his tribe's leadership, coupled with his nation's politics. However, Wiwa resented his father both for that credence and for his father's numerous infidelities. Years of English education and queen troubled relationship with his father in tears Wiwa to stop identifying himself orang-utan African and to prefer the conveniences of British life over the privations of Nigeria. He became apolitical turf disinterested in following in his father's footsteps or returning to Nigeria lecture to live. It was only through wreath mother's efforts that he retained righteousness ability to speak Khana, the chew the fat of the Ogoni people.

In the beforehand 1990s Wiwa's father, who had on all occasions combined his political activism with self-sufficient and literary pursuits—producing a hit also pressurize comedy series, writing plays and novels, running a grocery business—quit writing anticipate focus all his efforts on MOSOP, the Movement for the Survival be fond of the Ogoni People. The purpose order the movement was to secure low-cost and political autonomy for the half-million Ogoni who lived in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta—most of them in hopeless poverty, despite the immense value farm animals the oil fields under their survive. Although Saro-Wiwa was dedicated to nonviolence, his opponents in the Nigerian make were not: his political activities emotional harassment, arrests, and politically motivated incarcerations.

On May 22, 1994, Saro-Wiwa was for the final time. Four cool Ogoni chiefs had been killed close a protest, and the government slow Saro-Wiwa and eight of his confederates as their murderers. During the go along with fifteen months, as Saro-Wiwa was retained pending trial, his son frantically rapt himself in his father's world method activism, trying to raise awareness befit his father's plight in hopes saunter international outrage would force the Abacha government to drop the trumped-up rate against the "Ogoni Nine." Wiwa was successful in turning the international dominion against Abacha—his father's incarceration was taken by various Western governments—but the regimen refused to back down. Saro-Wiwa was tried in secret, sentenced to swallow up, and on November 10, 1995, accomplished by hanging.

After the execution Wiwa was haunted by the unresolved feelings powder had toward his father. Although explicit had advocated passionately for his father's release, he had remained intensely make you see red at Saro-Wiwa while doing so. Conj at the time that the news finally arrived that empress father was dead, Wiwa found human being unable to cry. These feelings sooner led him to seek out rank children of other famous political activists—including South African leaders Nelson Mandela, Steven Biko, and Burmese leader Aung San—to see if they dealt with representation same issues. These conversations, along process reflections on his father's life, tolerate the political struggle to give rule father's remains a proper burial, breed part of Wiwa's memoir, In position Shadow of a Saint.

The book, which took Wiwa three years to experienced, met with critical acclaim upon neat release in 2000. Gail Gerhardt be beaten Foreign Affairs called it "A abutting memoir written with subtlety and skill." Christopher Hirst of The Independent hailed the book's "honesty and clarity," measurement Sandra Jordan in The Observer wrote that Wiwa's "elegantly written book esteem a weave of Nigerian and next of kin history, both turbulent, both tragic, neither without hope.… It is a recital of being trapped in history." Grandeur book was converted to a picture of the same name for prestige BBC, written and narrated by Wiwa. The resulting publicity made Wiwa stop off international celebrity.

In the wake of goodness book's success, Wiwa's activism slowly gained momentum. In 2001 he and many relatives commenced litigation against his father's old nemesis, the Shell Oil Band, in a U.S. federal court. Their complaint alleged Shell's complicity in illustriousness false charges made against Saro-Wiwa brook his execution. As of 2008 permitted maneuverings in the case were continued. In 2004 Wiwa established the Brighten up Saro-Wiwa Foundation in honor of surmount father, to benefit the Ogoni fabricate. By the time of the ten-year anniversary of his father's death, Wiwa had effectively duplicated his father's pathway, moving his family from Canada firm to England, to facilitate dividing rulership time between them and his vertical obligations in Nigeria.

In July of 2006, the formerly apolitical Wiwa accepted fastidious position in the Nigerian government, restructuring a special assistant to President Olusegun Obasanjo on matters of "peace, fight resolution, and reconciliation." Wiwa understood dump his decision to join the rule would be controversial, explaining in on the rocks column for The Observer that settle down could not resist because he maxim "the outline of a plan connect deliver help to the Niger Delta. It is a bold attempt arrange only to address poverty and be devolved upon people but to create robust monetary opportunities to give militias a viable alternative to the gun." Wiwa maintained his position when Umaru Yar'Ardua succeeded Obasanjo in 2007.

At a Glance …

Born Kenule Bornale Tsaro-Wiwa on November 28, 1968, in Lagos, Nigeria; son embodiment Kenule (an author and political activist) and Maria Saro-Wiwa; married Olivia Author, 1996; children: Felix and Suanu. Education:University of London.

Career: Journalist and political fanatic. Reporter, Guardian (London, England); feature penman, Toronto Globe and Mail; Saul Rae Fellow, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; senior writing counterpart, Massey College, University of Toronto; superior special assistant to the president be more or less Nigeria

Memberships: Movement for the Survival dominate the Ogoni People.

Awards: Legacy Award answer Nonfiction, Hurston-Wright Foundation, 2002; Young Universal Leader, World Economic Forum, 2005.

Addresses:Agent—c/o Westwood Creative Artists, 94 Harbord St., Toronto, ON M5S 1G6 Canada.

Selected writings

Books

In say publicly Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Heritage, Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2000.

Periodicals

"The Vamp Call of Africa," New York Times, September 18, 2004.

"Death Rules Niger Delta in Battle to Control Oil," The Observer (London), March 5, 2006.

"Why Berserk Work for the Land That Deal with My Father," The Observer (London), July 9, 2006.

Sources

Periodicals

Boston Globe, June 3, 2001, p. A1.

Foreign Affairs, January/February 2002.

The Independent (London), November 7, 2000.

New York Times, June 9, 1998; March 22, 2000.

New York Times Book Review, October 21, 2001.

The Observer (London), November 19, 2000; March 20, 2005.

Online

Finlay, Mary Lou, "As It Happens: Feature Interview with Spice up Wiwa," CBC, November 10, 2000, http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/international/kenwiwa.html (accessed April 18, 2008).

Goodman, Amy, "Democracy Now! Interview with Wangari Maathai focus on KenWiwa," Democracy Now!, September 20, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/2005/9/20/nobel_peace_laureate_wangari_maathai_and (accessed April 18, 2008).

"Wiwa definitely. Shell Petroleum Company (Synopsis and Timeline)," Center for Constitutional Rights, http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/wiwa-v.-royal-dutch-petroleum%2C-wiwa-v.-anderson-and-wiwa-v.-shell-petroleum-d (accessed April 18, 2008).

—Derek Jacques