Kumi Naidoo

Kumi Naidoo
Kumi Naidoo at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in 2011

Kumi Naidoo (born 1965) is a South African-born human rights activist of Indian descent who is the current Secretary-General of Amnesty International. Naidoo is the first African head of Greenpeace, an international environmentalist group, serving as its International Executive Director from 2009 to 2015.[1][2] After battling apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s through the Helping Hands Youth Organisation, Naidoo led global campaigns to end poverty and protect human rights. He has served as the Secretary-General of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and of Civicus, an international alliance for citizen participation, from 1998 to 2008.[3] Recently, he led the Global Call for Climate Action (Tcktcktck.org), which brings together environmental aid, religious and human rights groups, labour unions, scientists and others and has organised mass demonstrations around climate negotiations.[4]

Starting August 2018, Naidoo is the Ninth Secretary-General of Amnesty International.[5]

Early activism

Born in Durban, South Africa, Naidoo became involved in anti-apartheid activities when he was just 15, resulting in his expulsion from high school.[6] He was involved in neighbourhood organising, community youth work, and mass mobilisations against the apartheid regime. During the apartheid government, Naidoo was arrested several times and was charged for violating provisions against mass mobilisation, civil disobedience and for violating the state of emergency. This led him to having to go underground before finally deciding to live in exile in England. During this time he was a Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford and he eventually earned a PhD in political sociology. Naidoo's doctorate was earned in the late 1990s, after he returned to England from South Africa. He suspended his studies at Oxford to return to South Africa in 1990 in order to conduct literacy campaigns after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and Mandela's decision to run for president of South Africa. Naidoo, like many South African-born Indians, identifies himself as a Black South African. He noted that the completion of his doctorate was absolutely essential given that he was told that he was "the first Indian activist" from South Africa to earn a doctorate at Oxford.[7]

Post Apartheid work

After Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990, Kumi Naidoo returned to South Africa to work on the legalisation of the African National Congress to lead the adult literacy campaigns and voter education efforts. Naidoo was the founding member and Executive Director of the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO). From 1998 to 2008, he was the Secretary General and chief executive officer of Johannesburg-based Civicus: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, which is dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world. He also served as the founding chairperson of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

Leading Greenpeace International

"It is obvious that too many corporations and governments do not listen and put power and profit over people, ignoring what is in the best interest of humanity. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get their attention – but one thing that we know that works is civil disobedience and peaceful protest. Every act of rebellion – no matter how seemingly insignificant – adds up."

— Naidoo, 2009.[8]

Kumi Naidoo joined Greenpeace in 2009. He had been persuaded by his daughter Naomi to take on the role. Greenpeace's commitment to direct action and civil disobedience was what attracted Naidoo to the organisation. Naidoo saw his role as the executive director of Greenpeace as that of an alliance builder and an agent of change. Importantly, Naidoo saw the intricate connections between environmental justice, women's and human rights as being interconnected, occasionally bringing him much criticism from Western-born environmentalists who tended and tend to see environmentalism as a discrete cause.[9][10]

Naidoo has been actively involved in acts of peaceful civil-disobedience in the Arctic Ocean region against Shell and Gazprom's plan to drill in the Arctic's melting ice. In August 2012, Naidoo along with a group of Greenpeace volunteers occupied Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya oil platform in the Pechora Sea for 15 hours, for the second time in the Arctic.[11] A year before, in June 2011, Naidoo spent four days in a Greenlandic prison after scaling an oil platform owned by Cairn Energy, as part of Greenpeace's "Go Beyond Oil" campaign. He was deported to Denmark where he spent a short time in Danish custody before being released in Amsterdam, Netherlands.[12]

He has been a vocal critic of the failure of bodies like the World Economic Forum,[13] to go beyond "system recovery", "system protection and maintenance" instead proposing a system re-design. Kumi Naidoo uses the WEF to amplify environmental messages to business leaders and politicians and lobby for green business practices and transformational changes in the energy sector.[14] During the World Economic Forum in 2013, while Kumi Naidoo was rubbing shoulders with the world's wealthiest elites,[15] Greenpeace activists were blocking a Shell gas station just outside the Swiss mountain resort demanding that the oil giant drops its ambitions to drill for oil in the Arctic.[16] Naidoo regularly attends United Nations climate negotiations and advocates for increased ambitions from governments to cap emissions and vigorously move towards an energy sector based on renewables meant to help humanity avoid catastrophic climate change.[17]

In 2015 Naidoo announced that he would be leaving the post of International Executive Director in the middle of his second term [18]. Announcing his departure from the role of IED he said; "When I leave, I am looking forward to taking up an even more important role with Greenpeace: as a volunteer." Naidoo returned to South Africa to focus his work on energy justice.

Secretary-General of Amnesty International

On 21 December 2017, Amnesty International appointed him as its next Secretary-General. In August 2018 Kumi succeed Salil Shetty, who served two terms in Amnesty International as the Secretary-General from 2010. The Secretary General is the leader and main spokesperson for Amnesty International and the Chief Executive of its International Secretariat. Amnesty International is the largest human rights movement globally, with a global presence including offices in more than 70 countries, 2,600 staff and seven million members, volunteers and supporters worldwide.[19] He opened his first session in Africa.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "New leadership at Greenpeace International". Greenpeace. Retrieved 17 November 2009.
  2. ↑ "Anti-apartheid activist named head of Greenpeace". Associated Press via CBC. 16 November 2009. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
  3. ↑ Kumi Naidoo bio | Civicus Archived 6 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine.. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
  4. ↑ Tcktcktck.org Partners A-Z List Archived 17 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine.. Retrieved on 10 September 2013.
  5. 1 2 "New Secretary General Kumi Naidoo pledges support for African human rights defenders to hold the powerful to account". amnesty.org. August 2018.
  6. ↑ "Durban Living Legend – Kumi Naidoo". Ulwazi Programme, Durban Public Library. Archived from the original on 16 April 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
  7. ↑ "Kumi Naidoo | Oxford Today".
  8. ↑ Greenpeace's Shard ascent. Greenpeace Blog. (18 July 2013). Retrieved on 10 September 2013.
  9. ↑ History teaches us... The Guardian. (30 November 2009). Retrieved on 10 September 2013.
  10. ↑
  11. ↑ Cold hands, determined hearts. Greenpeace Blog. (28 August 2012). Retrieved on 10 September 2013.
  12. ↑ Greenpeace's Naidoo freed, then deported. Times LIVE. (21 June 2011) Retrieved on 5 January 2012.
  13. ↑ WEF 'Unlike' – Davos-bound. Huffington Post. (21 January 2013). Retrieved on 10 September 2013.
  14. ↑ Interview: Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace. Guardian Sustainable Businesses.(15 February 2013). Retrieved on 10 September 2013.
  15. ↑ Kumi Naidoo at the WEF 2013 in Davos. Reuters. (25 January 2013) Retrieved on 10 September 2013.
  16. ↑ Shell fuel station shutdown in Davos, Swtizerland. Greenpeace Blog. (25 January 2013). Retrieved on 10 September 2013.
  17. ↑ Climate change: tears in the desert. Business Day LIVE. (20 December 2012). Retrieved on 10 September 2013.
  18. ↑ Streep, Abe (1 April 2015). "Why Kumi Naidoo Is Stepping Down from Greenpeace". Outside Online. Retrieved 2 September 2018.
  19. ↑ "Amnesty announces Kumi Naidoo as next Secretary General". amnesty.org.uk.
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