With heroes and heroines being born on a daily basis, history will never cease to be made. To demonstrate this fact, this essay compares and contrasts sheik Zayed with Professor Wangari Maathai. The essay highlights the major achievements the two personalities achieved in their lifetimes.
To start with, Sheik Zayed was from UAE, while Wangari was from Kenya. Professor Wangari is remembered for her influence in the green movement that focused on protecting the environment, while Zayed is remembered for his influence in the formation of UAE (Quinn, 2006). Apart from this, Wangari won the Nobel peace prize, while Zayed does not have such a record (UNESCO, 2014). This notwithstanding, it is worth noting that the two personalities were born at different times, with professor Wangari being born in 1940 and Zayed being born in 1918 or there about. Although the two personalities were in politics, Wangari did not equal Zayed because she only became a member of parliament (Florence, 2014). On the other hand, Zayed became a president and served in other political offices before becoming a president. With regard to religion, Zayed was a Muslim while Wangari was a Christian.
In terms of similarities, the two personalities are already dead. Sheik Zayed died in 2004 while professor Wangari died in 2011 (Quinn, 2006). More importantly, both of them were politicians and they influenced politics in one way or the other. Furthermore, the two can be regarded as the people that transformed the environment during their lifetimes. Professor Wangari, on one hand, protested against forest destruction in Kenya while Sheik Zayed promoted tree plantation and agriculture in the UAE when he was president (UNEP, 2007).
The two people may have served in two different capacities and times, but they both transformed their areas of influence. Professor Wangari was able to fight for protection of the environment while Sheik Zayed initiated the formation of UAE and promoted agriculture in the UAE (UNEP, 2007)
References
Florence, N. (2014). Wangari Maathai: Visionary, environmental leader, political activist. New York: Lantern Books.
Quinn, D. (2006). Dubai explorer. Dubai: Explorer.
UNEP. (2007). GEO year book 2007: An overview of our changing environment. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme.
UNESCO. (2014). Wangari Maathai: and the green belt movement. Paris: UNESCO.