Petra Kelly

November 29, 1947 - October 1, 1992 October 1, 2007 is the fifteenth anniversary of the murder of the visionary woman who founded the German Green Party, Petra Kelly. I had the great good fortune to be thrown together with Petra, thanks to a mutual friend, the late feminist and U.S. Congresswoman, Bella Abzug. Bella had set out to create a global network of women working for peace and environment and women’s rights. She founded the organization, WEDO (Women and Environment Development Organization) and organized the November 1991, World Women’s Congress for a Healthy Planet. Bella’s international advisory board for the Congress included Petra Kelly and Wangari Matthai, Vandanna Shiva and many of the world’s most amazing women. Somehow I was there too. When I was first introduced to Petra, I gushed how I had always wanted to meet her. And she said, “And I have always wanted to meet you!” I was sure she was being kind…I have no idea how she would have known of me at all, but she was already a legend. She was bright and smart and funny. There was no ego that I ever saw in the (admittedly) few times we worked together. Although born in Germany and returned to Germany, she had, like me, spent her politically formative years in the turbulent 1960s. In 1968, she had worked for Bobby Kennedy, while I worked for Eugene McCarthy. There were a few things we shared, and now, more than ever, as Leader of the Green Party of Canada, she is an inspiration for me. Her death remains something of a mystery. The official story is a murder-suicide, in which her long-time partner shot her (while she slept) and then himself. I could never quite believe it. And some of the discrepancies of the crime scene never added up. (Her partner’s electric typewriter was still on, stopped mid-word, and the upstairs balcony door was unlocked.) But there were no signs of struggle, no other fingerprints, and the official story is what there is. Petra set a tone for a new type of politics. Here are her views about being an “anti-party,” in her own words: In 1989, she said, “Exactly ten years ago, at the founding of the German Green Party, I coined the term “anti-party-party” for the Greens, trying to express the new type of power (counter-power) that we are all speaking about. This is the power of non-violent change and non-violent transformation, a power that is common to all to be used by all for all. “Power over” is to be replaced by “shared power,” “power to do things,” by the power of our own strength as opposed to a passive receiving of power exercised by others often in our name. It is not power to dominate – not power to terrorize or to oppress -- but the power of non-violent change.” “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 emphasizing knowledge and expertise towards soft energies and soft technology for people and for life, can we overcome the patriarchal ego.” I urge Canadian Greens to learn from Petra Kelly, to reflect on her adherence to non-violence as a core value. It is more than the practice of resisting violence. It is a way of thinking and a way of life. That she should have died violently is unbearable. Her life and her work hold lessons for us. Chief among them for me was her admonishment: “I truly hope that the Green parties will never make the mistake of giving up their Green identity for the sake of being in power!”