I have decided to write articles on inspiring women as often as I can. Last week I posted information on Harriet Tubman (See 9th-Aug-2005 07:08 am – The ultimate activist: Harriet Tubman). Today I shall provide information on one of the founders of the Green Party, Petra Kelly.
The account below is based on facts that I derived from various sources and I have provided links to information on Petra Kelly below the account and photos.
My reading has led me to conclude that Petra Kelly was a woman of action and one who truly “walked the talk”. In her later years she apparently alientated herself from the Green Party, while continuing to work on the campaigns that reflected Green values, because of internal in-fighting within the party as it grew. Ironically, Kelly was a victim of violence which resulted in her death, an incident whose motive remains a mystery to date.
Petra Kelly
1947-1992
“There is not a little bit of cancer or a little bit of malnutrition or a little bit of death or a little bit of social injustice or a little bit of torture. It does not help us in any way if we begin accepting lower and safer levels of, for example, radioactivity or lower and safer levels of … lead or dioxin. We must speak out clearly, loudly and courageously, if we know that there are no safe levels.” — Petra Kelly.
Kelly lived in Germany and in the U.S. during her life. She studied in the U.S. and in Europe. During the 1968 presidential elections she worked on the campaign of John F. Kennedy.
Kelly participated in demonstrations against the Vietnam War and racial discrimination. She was also interested in the women’s movement and citizen’s rights. Her models were Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Rosa Luxemburg, the women of Greenham Common, Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Andrej Sacharow, and Vaclav Havel.
She was active in the peace movement, anti-uranium movement, environmental movement, human right’s movement, violence-free movement, citizen’s rights movement, and the women’s movement. Kelly hoped that some day we could attain a weapon-free world. She also founded an organization in 1973 dedidated to cancer research for children.
In 1979 she co-founded the West German Green Party, which Kelly described as ‘a non-violent ecological and basic-democratic anti-war coalition of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary grassroots oriented forces within the Federal Republic of Germany’
She served as one of the party’s national Chairpersons from 1980 to 1982 and achieved international noteriety as the German Greens put green politics on the European political agenda in the early 1980s. In 1983 she was elected to the German Parliament as one of 28 Green MPs, was speaker of the Green Parliamentary Group until 1984 and was a member of the Foreign Relations Committee from 1983. She
was re-elected to the Bundestag in 1987.
‘The vision I see is not only a movement of direct democracy, of self- and
co-determination and non-violence, but a movement in which politics
means the power to love and the power to feel united on the spaceship
Earth. … In a world struggling in violence and dishonesty, the further
development of non-violence not only as a philosophy but as a way of life,
as a force on the streets, in the market squares, outside the missile bases,
inside the chemical plants and inside the war industry becomes one of
the most urgent priorities. . .. The suffering people of this world must
come together to take control of their lives, to wrest political power from
their present masters pushing them towards destruction. The Earth has
been mistreated and only by restoring a balance, only by living with the
Earth, only by emphasizsing knowledge and expertise towards soft
energies and soft technology for people and for life, can we overcome the
patriarchal ego.’
PETRA K KELLY
Bundeshaus
5300 Bonn 1
West Germany
“We, the generation that faces the next century, can add the solemn injunction ”If we don’t do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable.””
~ Petra Kelly
References and for further reading:
Wikpedia – provides biographical information
In memory of Petra Kelly
Who killed Petra Kelly?1993 Mother Jones article
Web Guide on Petra Kelly – an anthology of sites
Biography of Petra Kelly – provided by The Metropolitan State College of Denver. Written in english and in german.
Petra Kelly, 1947-1992 – an article posted on Green Left
Petra Kelly
The Right Livelihood Award
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 