tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/julius-nyerere-35987/articlesJulius Nyerere – The Conversation2023-06-04T07:46:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2065082023-06-04T07:46:28Z2023-06-04T07:46:28ZTanzania has moved its capital from Dar after a 50-year wait - but is Dodoma ready?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529324/original/file-20230531-17-d3kbys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tanzania designated Dodoma as it’s new capital following a public referendum 50 years ago.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Tanzania designated Dodoma as its new capital in place of the seaside city of Dar es Salaam following a public referendum 50 years ago. Since then, the country has made small steps towards this goal – including the relocation of Parliament in 2017 – but Dodoma remained the national capital only in name. With the inauguration of the new presidential offices in Dodoma in May 2023, the transition to the capital is now all but complete. Ambrose Kessy, a public administration expert, answers the key questions</em>. </p>
<h2>What’s the background to Tanzania’s capital city relocation?</h2>
<p>The history of Tanzania’s capital city is lengthy and complex. It stretches back to the German colonial era. To take advantage of Dar es Salaam’s protected harbour, the German government chose Dar es Salaam as the capital of German East Africa rather than the well-established port of Bagamoyo a mere 60km north. </p>
<p>The first president of Tanzania, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, announced the planned move from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma in 1973. A state agency and ministry were established to oversee the implementation of the plan. It was decided that Dar es Salaam would continue to serve as the nation’s principal port and commercial capital. This choice posed a difficult development challenge. Government services and resources had to be relocated and infrastructure had to be built. A comprehensive array of administrative functions were needed in Dodoma.</p>
<p>Several observers of Tanzania’s social, economic, and political environment wondered why such a step was taken in the context of Tanzania’s development philosophy of socialism and self-reliance. Dodoma was a capital nobody desired, and some called it a political hoax or a white elephant project.</p>
<p>I recently published <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358995614_The_Long_Waiting_for_Relocating_Capital_City_in_Tanzania_The_Continuity_of_the_Game_Changer_and_the_Challenges_Ahead">a paper</a> outlining the pivotal role played by President John Pombe Magufuli (2015-2021) and his successor President Samia Suluhu Hassan to make the move a reality. It took Magufuli’s bold actions and Suluhu’s persistence to end decades of apathy. </p>
<h2>Why was the relocation necessary?</h2>
<p>The reasons are complex. The following are some of the most important factors that informed the decision: </p>
<p><strong>Overcrowding and strain on infrastructure:</strong> Dar es Salaam has a <a href="https://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/Census2022/matokeomwanzooktoba2022.pdf#page=17">population</a> of 5,383,728 people and is suffering from <a href="https://theconversation.com/heat-and-health-dar-es-salaams-informal-settlements-need-help-181816">overcrowding</a> and infrastructural strain. Moving the capital aimed to redistribute some of the population and ease pressure on resources and public services in Dar es Salaam. The rate of population growth in Dar es Salaam region <a href="https://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/Census2022/matokeomwanzooktoba2022.pdf#page=21">has decreased</a> from 5.6% in 2012 to 2.1% in 2022. </p>
<p><strong>Uneven development:</strong> Tanzania’s development was heavily concentrated in Dar es Salaam and other coastal regions. The move aimed to stimulate economic activity in previously neglected regions. </p>
<p><strong>Accessibility and national unity:</strong> By relocating the capital to a more central location, the government aimed to make it more accessible to all and foster national unity and inclusiveness. </p>
<p><strong>Efficiency of government operations:</strong> The idea was to reduce the cost and time associated with travel between Dar es Salaam and other parts of the country for government officials. </p>
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<img alt="Aerial view of Dar es Salaam city" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Dar es Salaam has experienced congestion and strain on infrastructure.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MOIZ HUSEIN STORYTELLER / Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Why has it taken so long?</h2>
<p>Despite the clear benefits, the relocation process has been slow due to a combination of political, economic, and logistical factors. The national leadership lacked the commitment. Successive governments delayed the move owing to competing priorities like developing education and health.</p>
<p>Economic challenges have also played a role, as Tanzania has had to carefully allocate its limited budget. Moving an entire capital city also poses logistical challenges.</p>
<p>But the 50-year journey culminated on 20 May 2023, with the opening of the new State House building in Chamwino, Dodoma. The building will hold presidential offices and the official home of the president.</p>
<h2>What challenges does Dodoma face as the new capital?</h2>
<p>The city must develop the necessary infrastructure, including transport systems, water supply and housing, to accommodate government workers and residents. </p>
<p>Two districts in Dodoma region, <a href="https://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/Census2022/Administrative_units_Population_Distribution_Report_Tanzania_volume1a.pdf#page=54">Dodoma and Chamwino</a>, comprise the new capital city with roughly 765,179 and 486,176 people respectively. Service provision in Dodoma has been improving but still lags behind Dar es Salaam. It is <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/national/challenges-galore-as-dodoma-reclaims-capital-city-status-2606528">anticipated</a> that by the end of 2023, more than 1,500 officials will have moved to Dodoma as part of the relocation. </p>
<p>The new city has a deficiency in utilities and community infrastructure to meet rapidly rising demand, notably in solid and liquid waste management, education, healthcare, and integrated public transport.<a href="https://dodomacc.go.tz/storage/app/uploads/public/5e4/d3c/7ee/5e4d3c7ee3181202034761.pdf#page=74"> For example</a>, only 6% of the Dodoma city population is linked to the sewage system, with the other 94% relying on various methods of waste water disposal.</p>
<p>The government has made some good efforts to address these challenges. Detailed design work for the <a href="https://www.jica.go.jp/english/our_work/social_environmental/id/africa/tanzania/c8h0vm0000f5xmir.html">construction</a> of 63 <a href="https://projectsportal.afdb.org/dataportal/VProject/show/P-TZ-DB0-025%20">ring roads</a> in Dodoma city has been completed. And the city council has built several commuter transport routes within the region to serve residents in new areas. The government has also started work on <a href="https://unitedrepublicoftanzania.com/economy-of-tanzania/infrastructure-in-tanzania/airports-in-tanzania/overview-the-msalato-international-airport-new-dodoma-construction-project-design/">a new international airport at Msalato</a>, Dodoma. The new airport will have a three-storey terminal for departing and arriving passengers, with a capacity of 1,500,000 persons per year.</p>
<p>Healthcare facilities in Dodoma <a href="https://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/Census2022/matokeomwanzooktoba2022.pdf#page=31">have increased</a> from 429 in the year starting June 2020 to 467 in the year ending June 2023. Water supply has increased over the period from 61.5 million litres per day on average to 67.8 million litres per day. </p>
<p>Despite these efforts by the government, Dodoma might not be fully ready to handle a massive population influx from other regions. It must attract businesses and investors to create a self-sustaining economy. The city will need to address potential social issues, such as the need for more accommodation and recreational facilities, as the population grows. It will also need a strong services sector. </p>
<h2>What can Tanzania learn from other African countries?</h2>
<p>Nigeria’s change of capital from Lagos to Abuja in the 1990s can provide <a href="https://www.scirp.org/html/6-1150402_95128.htm">insights</a> into the planning and execution of such a relocation. Abuja was a purpose-built city. </p>
<p>Key takeaways include the importance of involving stakeholders in the planning process, ensuring adequate infrastructure development, and promoting the new capital as a business hub to attract investment. </p>
<p>Proper planning and financial management are crucial. The relocation process can be costly, as seen in Nigeria. Tanzania should budget carefully for the move while ensuring transparency and accountability in financial management. </p>
<p>The country can also learn from South Africa’s approach of developing more than one city as a capital. Tanzania should continue to invest in the development of Dar es Salaam as an economic hub and maximise its growth potential. </p>
<p>By considering these lessons, Tanzania can ensure a successful transition, and promote long-term growth and development in Dodoma and the whole country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206508/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ambrose T. Kessy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dodoma will need to address social issues such as increased accommodation and recreational facilities as population growsAmbrose T. Kessy, Professor of Public Administration , University of DodomaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2054942023-06-01T14:39:45Z2023-06-01T14:39:45ZHarry Oppenheimer biography shows the South African mining magnate’s hand in economic policies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528020/original/file-20230524-17-ybhahz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The late South African mining tycoon, Harry Oppenheimer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harry Frederick Oppenheimer in his Johannesburg office. (Photo by William Campbell/Sygma via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Harry Oppenheimer: Diamonds, Gold and Dynasty, his outstanding <a href="https://www.jonathanball.co.za/component/virtuemart/harry-oppenheimer-diamonds,-gold-and-dynasty">biography</a> of the South African mining magnate who died in 2000, Michael Cardo shows that there is still mileage to be made in the study of dead white males who played a role in the making of South Africa. Based on a remarkable depth of research, it is written in an elegant style which makes for a delightfully easy read. </p>
<p>It is rendered the more impressive by the author’s deep conversance with the debates over the relationships between mining capital, Afrikaner nationalism and apartheid. <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/person-details/28">Cardo</a> is an opposition MP. </p>
<p>Cardo’s reckoning is that Oppenheimer transcended his country’s parochial political arena to become a significant figure on the world stage. As chairman of both Anglo-American Corporation and De Beers Consolidated Mines, he expanded their global reach and dominion. </p>
<p>In South Africa, the Anglo powerhouse came to dominate the economy, which by the 1980s accounted for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/16/business/international-business-south-african-industrial-giant-moving-to-london.html">25% of South Africa’s GDP</a> and an estimated 60% (or more) of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, for all the limitations of his liberalism – and there were many – Oppenheimer made a vital contribution to political and economic progress in a country hamstrung by rival racial nationalisms. (pp.442-43)</p>
<p>Three dimensions of this biography stand out. First, it paints a fascinating picture of Oppenheimer as a person. Second, it offers a careful assessment of his liberalism. Third, it profiles his behind-the-scenes influence as a magnate.</p>
<h2>The man behind the money</h2>
<p>The Oppenheimer empire was built on cheap black labour. Yet Oppenheimer emerges from this study not as a “malevolent monster” (p.1) but as a personally likeable individual, intensely loyal to his friends. One who was highly cultured and sophisticated, with a deep love of art, literature, old books and antiques for their own sake, rather than for opulent display.</p>
<p>His devotion to his Anglican faith was deep and real, underlying his perhaps too-convenient conviction that wealth and power could be combined with “doing good”. He was also highly able. His father, Ernest, was the founder of the Oppenheimer empire, but Harry would become its consolidator (p.18).</p>
<p>By the time of Ernest’s death and his succession by Harry as chairman of both companies in 1957, Anglo had become the world’s largest producer of gold while its twin, De Beers, commanded 90% of the world’s diamond trade.</p>
<p>Born in 1908, Harry enjoyed an exceptionally close relationship with his father, who had converted to the Anglican faith in the mid-1930s. Harry followed in his wake, his Anglo-centricity shaped by his education at public school (Charterhouse) in England before “going up” to Oxford in 1927.</p>
<p>After returning to South Africa in 1931, Harry began his long apprenticeship to his father. After settling at Brenthurst, the “English country house” built by Ernest in Johannesburg, he lived a “blend of business, politics and pleasure”. Then, after a brief (but brave) period in the army, his status as heir to Ernest resulted in his early return to civilian life in 1943.</p>
<p>Oppenheimer now plunged into business, developing Anglo’s interests in the Orange Free State goldfields. By now married with two children, he watched his father meld business with politics. Much impressed by the liberal philosophy of citizenship promoted among troops during the second world war, he sensed the urgent need for social reform. However, while supporting the recommendations of prime minister Jan Smuts’ <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/archive_files/FAGAN%20REPORT.pdf">Fagan Commission</a> that black urbanisation must accompany industrialisation, he clung to a belief in political segregation. His liberalism allowed for more humane treatment of black people while denying them equal rights (p.116).</p>
<h2>The conservative liberal</h2>
<p>Oppenheimer served as a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Party">United Party</a> (UP) MP from its defeat in 1948 by the National Party, which went on to formalise apartheid, until 1957. He left parliament to become chairman of Anglo after his father’s death. He served as the party’s financial spokesman and was touted as a future leader. </p>
<p>Later, when liberals formed the Progressive Party, he lent them his firm support. He became the party’s main funder and power behind the throne.</p>
<p>Cardo characterises Oppenheimer’s liberalism as “pragmatic”, opposing the idea of a universal franchise. Instead, he favoured a common roll qualified franchise. On this basis, he met Albert Luthuli, leader of the African National Congress (ANC), to see if he would play ball (which he wouldn’t). Nonetheless, he gave discreet financial backing to the defendants in the Treason Trial which, beginning in 1956, saw 156 anti-apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela, accused of treason. Thereafter, he backed proposals for constitutional reform which would steer a middle path between the ruling <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">National Party</a>’s racial exclusivism and the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/12011115423">ANC-led Congress liberation movement</a>’s demand for universal franchise.</p>
<p>Regarding himself heir to British colonialist and businessman <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cecil-Rhodes">Cecil Rhodes</a>, he deplored the threat to civilisation represented by “primitive tribesmen”. Yet he had to accommodate Africa’s new heads of state if his ever-expanding commercial empire was to flourish. He struck up cordial relationships with both presidents Kenneth Kaunda (of today’s Zambia) and Julius Nyerere (of today’s Tanzania), despite questioning their socialist policies. Indeed, his fondness for Kaunda survived the latter’s (catastrophic) nationalisation of Anglo’s operations in Zambia in 1974.</p>
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<p>Shocked by the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">Soweto uprising in 1976</a> and fearing bloody revolution and the installation of a Marxist government, he collaborated with fellow tycoon and philanthropist <a href="https://www.nb.co.za/en/view-book/?id=9780624048190">Anton Rupert</a> to establish the <a href="https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/items/e6e73d0b-fae6-495f-91dd-d0b2f673bda8">Urban Foundation</a>. Its goal was to improve the conditions of black urban dwellers and promote a property-owning black middle class, thereby laying the ground for an orderly political transition. </p>
<p>Oppenheimer supported a qualified franchise until 1978, but Soweto had changed the game. He now gave his wary support to the Progressive Party’s proposals for constitutional negotiations. These were underpinned by the principles of a universal franchise, federal government, a bill of rights, executive power-sharing between majority and minority parties, minority vetos, and a constitutional court as the final arbiter of disputes. </p>
<h2>The influential magnate</h2>
<p>Even after his retirement in 1982, Oppenheimer’s influence did not wane. His views remained highly sought after, especially internationally. He exercised all the soft power at his disposal, through Anglo and his personal contacts with politicians locally and internationally.</p>
<p>His advice to prime minister and president PW Botha to inaugurate multiracial negotiations was ignored. But when Botha’s notorious <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01600/05lv01638/06lv01639.htm">“Rubicon” speech</a> in August 1985 prompted a massive outflow of capital, he urged US companies to resist the disinvestment drive. Meanwhile, he backed initiatives for democracy which would not crash the economy. </p>
<p>All these efforts were capped by Gavin Relly, who had succeeded Oppenheimer as chairman of Anglo, meeting with the ANC in exile. Oppenheimer considered Relly’s initiative “unwise” (p. 375), yet he did not move to stop it. When the meeting was held at Kaunda’s safari ranch in Zambia, it was a roaring success. There was a friendly but robust exchange of views between the old white corporate elite and the new black political elite about the inevitability of liberal democratic governance (p.376). Even so, he confided in UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher that the ANC’s economic strategies were unrealistic and reinforced her own view that support for the ANC was exaggerated and that Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the Zulu-ethnic Inkatha movement, was the dominant black political leader in South Africa (p.377). </p>
<p>Oppenheimer and Anglo now reached out to leading figures in the ANC to reshape their ideas on the economy. In Nelson Mandela they found a man who was willing to listen. Soon he became a regular dinner guest at Brenthurst. Yet, famously, it was not Oppenheimer and Anglo who shifted Mandela’s views on nationalisation, but the advice of Chinese and Vietnamese socialist leaders at the meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos <a href="http://www.mandela.gov.za/mandela_speeches/1992/92_davos.htm">in February 1992</a>. Oppenheimer grew in confidence as his intimacy with Mandela developed, and the message that private enterprise was essential was getting home. He foresaw a new government with which business could work (p.399). Nonetheless, he had long since sent much of his money abroad! (p.401).</p>
<p>Cardo discounts leftist suspicions of a bargain between powerful white capitalists and the black political elite. He argues that the formers’ influence was marginal and that the repositioning of the ANC’s approach to economic affairs was primarily a result of the collapse of communism and other global pressures. At most, he argues, the ANC’s retreat from its <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02039/04lv02103/05lv02120/06lv02126.htm">Reconstruction and Development Policy</a> – a redistributive economic framework – and its transition to the conservative <a href="https://www.treasury.gov.za/publications/other/gear/chapters.pdf">Growth, Employment and Redistribution</a> macroeconomic policy was “accelerated” by Anglo (p.413). Yet he does allow that the white business establishment felt an “understandable compulsion” to demonstrate their bona fides to the new government. </p>
<p>Their solution, pioneered by Anglo and <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/37420687.pdf">Sanlam</a>, the historically Afrikaans insurance company, involved the transfer of unbundled assets to ANC luminaries. They established the model later codified as <a href="http://www.thedtic.gov.za/financial-and-non-financial-support/b-bbee/broad-based-black-economic-empowerment/">Black Economic Empowerment</a> (p.413). Ultimately, Cardo concludes, this gave rise to an undesirable form of “comprador capitalism” – the alliance between big business and dependent political elites– for which Anglo and Oppenheimer must share the blame. But he also asks: what else could they reasonably have been expected to do?</p>
<p>This book does not offer a radical re-interpretation of either the Oppenheimers or the Anglo-American empire. But what it does do is to valuably complicate both our understanding of “white monopoly capital” and its relationship to liberalism in South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205494/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Regarding himself heir to Cecil Rhodes, Oppenheimer deplored the threat to civilisation represented by ‘primitive tribesmen’.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2024482023-04-03T13:57:39Z2023-04-03T13:57:39ZTanzania-South Africa: deep ties evoke Africa’s sacrifices for freedom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517946/original/file-20230328-16-hrrcio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, left, hosts his Tanzanian counterpart during a state visit in March 2023.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan recently paid a <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/opening-remarks-president-cyril-ramaphosa-during-official-talks-state-visit-tanzanian-president-samia-suluhu-hassan%2C-union-buildings%2C-tshwane">state visit to South Africa</a> aimed at strengthening bilateral political and trade relations. As the South African presidency <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-host-her-excellency-president-hassan-tanzania-state-visit">noted</a>, ties between the two nations date back to Tanzania’s solidarity with the anti-apartheid struggle. </p>
<p>This history is an important reminder of the anti-colonial and pan-African bonds underpinning international solidarity with southern African liberation struggles. It’s also a reminder of the sacrifices many African countries made to realise continental freedom.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Tanganyika">Tanganyika</a>, as Tanzania was known before independence in 1961, was the first safe post for South Africans fleeing in the aftermath of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville massacre</a> on 21 March 1960, when apartheid police shot dead 69 peaceful protesters. The apartheid regime <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/origins-formation-sharpeville-and-banning-1959-1960">banned liberation movements</a> shortly thereafter. </p>
<p>Among those who left South Africa to rally international support for the liberation struggle were then African National Congress deputy president <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-is-celebrating-the-year-of-or-tambo-who-was-he-85838">Oliver Reginald Tambo</a>, Communist Party and Indian Congress leader <a href="https://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/people.php?kid=163-574-661">Yusuf Mohammed Dadoo</a>, and the Pan Africanist Congress’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/nelson-nana-mahomo">Nana Mahomo</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/peter-hlaole-molotsi">Peter Molotsi</a>.</p>
<p>Not many people will know that on 26 June 1959 <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-128;jsessionid=5715EBDE3CC6DEEF837F2753FC3A4D39">Julius Nyerere</a>, the future president of Tanzania, was among the speakers at a meeting in London where the first boycott of South African goods in Britain was launched. Out of this campaign, the <a href="https://www.aamarchives.org/">British Anti-Apartheid Movement</a> was born a year later. It spearheaded the international solidarity movement in western countries over the next three decades.</p>
<h2>Liberation struggle bonds</h2>
<p>Tanzania’s support for South Africa’s liberation struggle needs to be understood as part of its broader opposition to colonialism, and commitment to the achievement of independence in the entire African continent. In 1958, Nyerere <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/panafrican-freedom-movement-of-east-and-central-africa-pafmeca/A08CAFDC63C736384E47D52AA94191E2">helped establish</a> the Pan African Freedom Movement of Eastern and Central Africa to coordinate activities in this regard. This was extended to the Pan African Freedom Movement of Eastern and Central and Southern Africa at a conference in Addis Ababa in 1962. Nelson Mandela <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/1962-nelson-mandela-address-conference-pan-african-freedom-movement-east-and-central-africa/">addressed the conference</a> with the aim of arranging support for the armed struggle in South Africa. These efforts eventually led to the creation of the <a href="https://www.africanunion-un.org/history">Organisation for African Unity (OAU) in 1963</a>.</p>
<p>In February 1961, James Hadebe for the ANC and Gaur Radebe for the PAC opened an office in Dar es Salaam representing the <a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/sacp/1962/pac.html">South African United Front</a>. It was the first external structure set up by the two liberation movements. Their unity was short-lived. But, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital, grew into a centre of anti-colonial activity after independence from Britain in December 1961. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man with a serious look on his face rests his chin on his left shoulder. His watch shows." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The late Julius Nyerere was a staunch supporter of the movement for Africa’s independence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">William F. Campbell/Getty Images)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At independence, Tanzania faced a shortage of nurses as British nurses left in droves rather than work for an African government. On President Nyerere’s request, Tambo arranged the underground recruitment of 20 South African nurses (“the 20 Nightingales”) to <a href="https://www.jamboafrica.online/clarence-kwinana-the-untold-story-of-the-20-nightingales-a-contribution-never-to-be-forgotten/">work in Tanzanian hospitals</a>. The remains of one of them, Kholeka Tunyiswa, who died on 5 March 2023 in Dar es Salaam, were repatriated to South Africa for reburial in <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/remains-sa-nurse-tunyiswa-repatriated/">her home city of Gqeberha</a>, Eastern Cape.</p>
<p>In the early 1960s, Tanzania was the southernmost independent African country from which armed operations could be carried out into unliberated territories in southern Africa. Its capital was chosen as the operational base of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41394216">OAU’s Liberation Committee</a>. The committee provided financial and material assistance to liberation movements. Its archives remain in Tanzania. </p>
<p>In 1963, the ANC officially established its Tanzania mission, with headquarters in Dar es Salaam. A military camp for guerrillas of its armed wing, <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1098?rskey=uSBACj&result=1">uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK)</a>
, who had returned from training in other African and socialist countries, was opened in Kongwa. The Tanzanian government donated the land. </p>
<p>Also stationed there were the armies of other southern African liberation movements – <a href="https://www.saha.org.za/collections/the_mafela_trust_collection_7.htm">ZAPU</a>, <a href="https://www.aluka.org/struggles/partner/XSTFRELIMO">Frelimo</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41502445">SWAPO</a> and the <a href="https://www.tchiweka.org/">MPLA</a>.</p>
<p>In 1964, the PAC also moved its external headquarters to Dar es Salaam after it was pushed out of Lesotho. It <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0018-229X2015000200002">established military camps</a> near Mbeya and later in Mgagao, and a settlement in Ruvu. Both the PAC and the ANC held important conferences in Tanzania, in Moshi in 1967 and in Morogoro in 1969, respectively. These led to internal reorganisation and new <a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/anc/1969/strategy-tactics.htm">strategic positions</a>.</p>
<h2>Hitches in the relationship</h2>
<p>In spite of Tanzania’s support for the liberation movements, their relationship was not without its contradictions or moments of ambivalence. </p>
<p>In 1965, for example, the ANC had to move its headquarters from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, a small upcountry town far from international connections. The Tanzanian government had decided that only four members of each liberation movement would be allowed to maintain an office in the capital. This reflected Tanzania’s anxiety over the growing numbers of revolutionaries and trained guerrillas it hosted. </p>
<p>In 1969 Tanzania, Zambia and 12 other African countries issued the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45312264">Lusaka manifesto</a>, which was also adopted by the OAU. It expressed preference for a peaceful solution to the conflict in South Africa over armed struggle. There were also rumours of ANC involvement in an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/13/archives/tanzanian-treason-trial-entering-third-week.html">attempted coup against Nyerere</a>. In this climate, the ANC had to evacuate its entire army to the Soviet Union. Its soldiers were allowed back in the country a couple of years later.</p>
<h2>Lived spaces of solidarity</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, ANC headquarters moved to Lusaka, in Zambia, and uMkhonto we Sizwe operations <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1098?rskey=uSBACj&result=1">moved</a> to newly independent Angola and Mozambique. But Tanzania remained a significant place of settlement for South African exiles. </p>
<p>In the late 1970s and 1980s, additional land donations from the Tanzanian government enabled the ANC to open a school and a vocational centre near Morogoro. The Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Mazimbu and the Dakawa Development Centre were set up <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/education-in-exile">to address the outflow of young people</a> from South Africa following the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">June 1976 Soweto uprising</a>. Its other aim was to counter the effects of <a href="https://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/sidebar.php?kid=163-581-2">Bantu education</a>, a segregated and inferior education system for black South Africans. </p>
<p>These became unique spaces of lived solidarity between the ANC and its international supporters. They accommodated up to 5,000 South Africans. Some of them died before they could see a liberated South Africa. Their graves are in Mazimbu. Besides educational facilities, the camps included an hospital, a productive farm, workshops and factories. They were all developed with donor funding.</p>
<p>Tanzanians, too, contributed to these projects through their labour. Many Tanzanian women became entangled in South Africa’s liberation struggle through intimate relationships, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2014.886476">marriage and children</a>. Thanks to these everyday social interactions, Tanzania became “home” for many South African exiles. The ANC handed over the facilities at Somafco and Dakawa <a href="https://www.conas.sua.ac.tz/historical-sites">to the Tanzanian government</a> on the eve of the first democratic elections in 1994. But these personal and affective connections live on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arianna Lissoni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ties between the two nations date back to Tanzania’s solidarity with the anti-apartheid struggle.Arianna Lissoni, Researcher at History Workshop, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1978512023-01-13T19:31:56Z2023-01-13T19:31:56ZFrene Ginwala remembered: trailblazing feminist and first speaker of South Africa’s democratic parliament<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504487/original/file-20230113-14-ka7h5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Frene Ginwala addressing the media in 2017, tireless in her fight for justice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gulshan Khan/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Frene Ginwala, feisty feminist, astute political tactician and committed cadre of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (<a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/">ANC</a>), has <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-pays-tribute-%C2%A0dr-frene-ginwala-founding-speaker-parliament-13-jan">died at the age of 90</a>. In a country blessed with exceptional leaders, Ginwala must surely count among the best. Typically for her, but unusually for the ANC leadership, she will be laid to rest in a private ceremony. While she was modest about her achievements, she has left an indelible mark on South Africa’s constitution and democratic institutions.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/frene-noshir-ginwala-1932">Frene Noshir Ginwala</a> was born in 1932 in Johannesburg. Her <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dr-frene-noshir-ginwala">Parsee grandparents</a> immigrated from Mumbai in India in the 1800s and made a life for the family in Johannesburg. Ginwala left South Africa after high school, to pursue an LLB degree <a href="https://www.mandela.ac.za/Leadership-and-Governance/Honorary-Doctorates/Frene-Ginwala-2003">at the University of London</a>. She qualified as a barrister at the Inner Temple. Around this time her parents moved to Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) in Mozambique. She returned to South Africa after graduating and moved to Durban where her sister, a medical doctor, had settled.</p>
<p>Although she supported the ANC, she was not politically active in any significant way until 1960, when the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville Massacre</a> set off a crisis for the ANC, and the <a href="https://pac.org.za/">Pan Africanist Congress of Azania</a>, both of which were banned and many of whose members went into exile. Ginwala’s family links to east Africa suddenly became a valuable resource, as did her political obscurity. </p>
<h2>Life in exile</h2>
<p>She was asked by ANC leader <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/walter-ulyate-sisulu">Walter Sisulu</a> to go to Mozambique to facilitate the exit of ANC members and supporters into exile. One of those exiles was <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/oliver-tambo">Oliver Tambo</a> president of the ANC. Ginwala helped him get across the border into Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and into a safe house. It was the beginning of a long and important comradeship. Ginwala became assistant to Tambo, who went on to lead the exiled ANC <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-is-celebrating-the-year-of-or-tambo-who-was-he-85838">for 30 years</a>. She was instrumental in setting up the ANC office in Tanzania. </p>
<p>Ginwala’s work in creating a politically effective ANC in exile – arguably the most powerful exiled liberation movement in the world – was invaluable. She loved to point out the ANC had more missions abroad <a href="http://www.freedomcollection.org/interviews/frene_ginwala/">than the apartheid government had embassies</a>.</p>
<p>In the early 1960s, she created a newspaper, <a href="https://www.tambofoundation.org.za/trustees/frene-ginwala-acting-chairperson/">Spearhead</a>, wrote articles for a variety of international media outlets, wrote speeches for Tambo and gave speeches herself. Her time in Tanzania was interrupted when she was suddenly banned herself by the government of Tanzania for her critical commentary, and she left for the UK. President Julius Nyerere lifted her ban in 1967 and asked her to return to Dar es Salaam to establish a new national newspaper, <a href="https://www.tambofoundation.org.za/trustees/frene-ginwala-acting-chairperson/">The Standard</a>.</p>
<p>But her independent and forthright views – a hallmark for all of her life – got her into hot water and once again she was banned. This time she returned to the UK, where she registered for a <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/graduations/2022/dr-frene-ginwala-remembers-wits.html">PhD at Oxford University</a>. Her doctorate, awarded in 1976, was a sharp reading of the relationship between class, race and identity among Indian South Africans. She continued to build the ANC’s external profile. Her writing on the South African situation was prodigious, well-informed and hard to ignore. She was soon sought after by the United Nations to advise on peace-building globally. </p>
<h2>Return from exile</h2>
<p>When the ANC was unbanned <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/place-of-thorns/unbanning-of-the-anc-political-violence-and-civic-politics-19901995/505D6A37A01673DFB67D2458D4A71A44">in 1990</a>, Ginwala returned after an absence of 31 years. She became the first speaker in the National Assembly in 1994, creating the office as a democratic institution and ruling parliament with a firm, authoritative and fair hand for a decade. Later, she was the prime mover behind the formation of the <a href="https://au.int/en/pap">Pan-African Parliament</a> and one of the most prominent supporters of the <a href="https://www.advocacyinternational.co.uk/featured-project/jubilee-2000">Jubilee 2000 Campaign</a>, which successfully lobbied for the scrapping of the onerous debt incurred by the world’s poorest countries. </p>
<p>Others will write about her many contributions to the ANC and to her status within the liberation movement. My generation of feminists will remember her, above all, for her remarkable championing of the struggle against patriarchy. This began when she was in exile, when she worked with ANC Women’s Section to ensure that ANC principles included non-sexism. It was a long and conflictual process, but by the mid-1980s all ANC documents carried the commitment to a <a href="https://repository.uwc.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10566/5829/Non%20racialism%20and%20the%20African%20National%20Congress%20views%20from%20the%20branch.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">“nonracial, nonsexist democracy”</a>. This was so much more than a linguistic shift; it enabled feminists within the ANC to demand that the commitment be followed through in programmes and policies.</p>
<p>Ginwala was always somewhat impatient and to the left of the <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/anc-womens-league/">ANC Women’s League</a>. She feared that there was a conservative streak in the league that caved in to the patriarchal assumptions of the movement’s leaders. She was worried this made it ineffective in pushing for gender equality. She worked from the side – cajoling comrades (ANC activists), and when that did not work badgering them, into action. </p>
<p>She set up the <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/49th-national-conference-commission-on-emancipation-of-women/">ANC’s Emancipation Commission</a> in 1991, dedicated to advancing gender equality and combatting sexism in the movement. Although not intended to compete with the Women’s League, it did have strategic status that was ensured by placing it under the authority of then-ANC president Tambo. It was a base from which Ginwala could drive the demand for gender equality unconstrained by the Women’s League.</p>
<p>During the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">multiparty negotiations</a> to end apartheid in the 1990s, when it became apparent that gender concerns would sink to the bottom of the ANC’s list of priorities, she led the process of forming an independent women’s organisation – the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4066477">Women’s National Coalition</a> – that would unite women across political parties and ideological lines. She described it as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40971570.pdf">“conspiracy of women”</a>. </p>
<p>It was a remarkable body that coalesced around two key demands: the inclusion of women in all decision-making about the shape of the post-apartheid state and constitution, and an end to violence against women.</p>
<h2>Impatience and integrity</h2>
<p>Ginwala understood power and politics better than most ANC leaders; her analysis of the balance of forces on any given issue was rapier-like. She knew that the transition process offered an opening to insert feminist principles into the new state, but understood that the window of time was fleeting. This made her impatient at times with other feminist leaders who wanted to build the Women’s National Coalition from the bottom up. </p>
<p>She was clear in her views and at times obstinate, but there was never any doubt about her integrity. Inevitably, there were bitter struggles over the pace of development of the flagship document of the Women’s National Coalition, the <a href="http://www.kznhealth.gov.za/womenscharter.pdf">Charter for Women’s Equality</a>. </p>
<p>Ginwala was concerned that the slow consultative processes preferred by the leaders of the charter process, <a href="https://www.pregsgovender.com/about">Pregs Govender</a> and <a href="https://www.apc.org/users/debbie">Debbie Budlender</a>, would mean the charter would not be ready to be included alongside the Bill of Rights in the constitution, and that the moment for greatest impact would lapse without any long-term gains.</p>
<p>Although the charter was only adopted after the main constitutional debates were concluded, the Women’s National Coalition ensured that gender equality was firmly embedded in the country’s final 1996 <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a>. </p>
<p>The contestations that took place in the drafting of the charter about the meaning of gender equality offer a rich and long-lasting archival resource for political activists as well as researchers.</p>
<p>Ginwala was passionately concerned about economic transformation and set up numerous study sessions on issues such as unpaid care. She wrote a <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/8766832.pdf">hard-hitting challenge</a> to the 50 male economists who crafted the ANC’s key economic policies as it took power. In conversations and seminars among feminists, she was insistent that political representation was only a lever for feminism, not its end goal. </p>
<p>As Speaker of the National Assembly, she took responsibility for establishing training programmes for women parliamentarians, drawing on her vast global network for funding and educational materials.</p>
<p>Hamba kahle, lala ngoxolo Comrade Frene. (Go well, rest in peace.)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with a hurtful clarity. (<a href="https://poems.com/poem/when-great-trees-fall-reprise/">Maya Angelou</a>)</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shireen Hassim receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.</span></em></p>A younger generation of feminists will remember her, above all, for her remarkable championing of the struggle against patriarchy.Shireen Hassim, Canada150 Research Chair in Gender and African Politics and Visiting Professor, WiSER Wits University, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1772592022-02-20T05:50:45Z2022-02-20T05:50:45ZThe story of how Swahili became Africa’s most spoken language<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447271/original/file-20220218-37276-ov27yd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere, a Swahili advocate.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keystone/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Once just an obscure island dialect of an African Bantu tongue, Swahili has evolved into Africa’s most internationally recognised language. It is peer to the few languages of the world that boast over 200 million users. </p>
<p>Over the two millennia of Swahili’s growth and adaptation, the moulders of this story – immigrants from inland Africa, traders from Asia, Arab and European occupiers, European and Indian settlers, colonial rulers, and individuals from various postcolonial nations – have used Swahili and adapted it to their own purposes. They have taken it wherever they have gone to the west. </p>
<p>Africa’s Swahili-speaking zone now extends across a full third of the continent from south to north and touches on the opposite coast, encompassing the heart of Africa.</p>
<h2>The origins</h2>
<p>The historical lands of the Swahili are on East Africa’s Indian Ocean littoral. A 2,500-kilometer chain of coastal towns from Mogadishu, Somalia to Sofala, Mozambique as well as offshore islands as far away as the Comoros and Seychelles. </p>
<p>This coastal region has long served as an international crossroads of trade and human movement. People from all walks of life and from regions as scattered as Indonesia, Persia, the African Great Lakes, the United States and Europe all encountered one another. Hunter-gatherers, pastoralists and farmers mingled with traders and city-dwellers. </p>
<p>Africans devoted to ancestors and the spirits of their lands met Muslims, Hindus, Portuguese Catholics and British Anglicans. Workers (among them slaves, porters and labourers), soldiers, rulers and diplomats were mixed together from ancient days. Anyone who went to the East African littoral could choose to become Swahili, and many did.</p>
<h2>African unity</h2>
<p>The roll of Swahili enthusiasts and advocates includes notable intellectuals, freedom fighters, civil rights activists, political leaders, scholarly professional societies, entertainers and health workers. Not to mention the usual professional writers, poets, and artists. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hip-hop-and-pan-africanism-from-blitz-the-ambassador-to-beyonce-151680">Hip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé</a>
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<p>Foremost has been Nobel Laureate <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1986/soyinka/biographical/">Wole Soyinka</a>. The Nigerian writer, poet and playwright has since the 1960s repeatedly called for use of Swahili as the transcontinental language for Africa. The <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/african-union-adopts-swahili-as-official-working-language/2498467">African Union</a> (AU), the “united states of Africa” nurtured the same sentiment of continental unity in July 2004 and adopted Swahili as its official language. As <a href="https://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/member/joaquim-chissano/">Joaquim Chissano</a> (then the president of Mozambique) put this motion on the table, he addressed the AU in the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3871315.stm">flawless Swahili</a> he had learned in Tanzania, where he was educated while in exile from the Portuguese colony.</p>
<p>The African Union did not <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/200407060715.html">adopt</a> Swahili as Africa’s international language by happenstance. Swahili has a much longer history of building bridges among peoples across the continent of Africa and into the diaspora.</p>
<p>The feeling of unity, the insistence that all of Africa is one, just will not disappear. Languages are <a href="https://qz.com/africa/996013/african-languages-should-be-at-the-center-of-educational-and-cultural-achievement/">elemental</a> to everyone’s sense of belonging, of expressing what’s in one’s heart. The AU’s decision was particularly striking given that the populations of its member states speak an estimated <a href="https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/5769808/mod_resource/content/1/MAKONI%20and%20PENNYCOOK%20Disinventig.pdf">two thousand languages</a> (roughly one-third of all human languages), several dozen of them with more than a million speakers.</p>
<p>How did Swahili come to hold so prominent a position among so many groups with their own diverse linguistic histories and traditions? </p>
<h2>A liberation language</h2>
<p>During the decades leading up to the independence of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in the early 1960s, Swahili functioned as an international means of political collaboration. It enabled freedom fighters throughout the region to communicate their common aspirations even though their native languages varied widely. </p>
<p>The rise of Swahili, for some Africans, was a mark of true cultural and personal independence from the colonising Europeans and their languages of control and command. Uniquely among Africa’s independent nations, Tanzania’s government uses Swahili for all official business and, most impressively, in basic education. Indeed, the Swahili word uhuru (freedom), which emerged from this independence struggle, became part of the <a href="https://inpdum.org">global lexicon</a> of political empowerment.</p>
<p>The highest political offices in East Africa began using and promoting Swahili soon after independence. Presidents <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Nyerere">Julius Nyerere</a> of Tanzania (1962–85) and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jomo-Kenyatta">Jomo Kenyatta</a> of Kenya (1964–78) promoted Swahili as integral to the region’s political and economic interests, security and liberation. The political power of language was demonstrated, less happily, by Ugandan dictator <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Idi-Amin">Idi Amin</a> (1971–79), who used Swahili for his army and secret police operations during his reign of terror.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-kiswahili-science-fiction-award-charts-a-path-for-african-languages-163876">New Kiswahili science fiction award charts a path for African languages</a>
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<p>Under Nyerere, Tanzania became one of only two African nations ever to declare a native African language as the country’s official mode of communication (the other is Ethiopia, with Amharic). Nyerere <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/shakespeare-goes-to-east-africa">personally translated</a> two of William Shakespeare’s plays into Swahili to demonstrate the capacity of Swahili to bear the expressive weight of great literary works. </p>
<h2>Socialist overtones</h2>
<p>Nyerere even made the term Swahili a referent to Tanzanian citizenship. Later, this label acquired socialist overtones in praising the common men and women of the nation. It stood in stark contrast to Europeans and Western-oriented elite Africans with quickly – and by implication dubiously – amassed wealth.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the term grew even further to encompass the poor of all races, of both African and non-African descent. In my own experience as a lecturer at Stanford University in the 1990s, for instance, several of the students from Kenya and Tanzania referred to the poor white neighbourhood of East Palo Alto, California, as Uswahilini, “Swahili land”. As opposed to Uzunguni, “land of the mzungu (white person)”. </p>
<p>Nyerere considered it prestigious to be called Swahili. With his influence, the term became imbued with sociopolitical connotations of the poor but worthy and even noble. This in turn helped construct a Pan African popular identity independent of the elite-dominated national governments of Africa’s fifty-some nation-states. </p>
<p>Little did I realise then that the Swahili label had been used as a conceptual rallying point for solidarity across the lines of community, competitive towns, and residents of many backgrounds for over a millennium.</p>
<h2>Kwanzaa and ujamaa</h2>
<p>In 1966, (activist and author) <a href="https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/maulana-karenga-39">Maulana Ron Karenga</a> associated the black freedom movement with Swahili, choosing Swahili as its official language and creating the Kwanzaa celebration. The term <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-kwanzaa-means-for-black-americans-88220">Kwanzaa</a> is derived from the Swahili word ku-anza, meaning “to begin” or “first”. The holiday was intended to celebrate the matunda ya kwanza, “first fruits”. According to Karenga, Kwanzaa symbolises the festivities of ancient African harvests.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447275/original/file-20220218-43804-1dt7li6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman sings and dances, dressed in traditional East African fabric with headpiece and holding a wooden bowl, the sides strung with cowrie shells." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447275/original/file-20220218-43804-1dt7li6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447275/original/file-20220218-43804-1dt7li6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447275/original/file-20220218-43804-1dt7li6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447275/original/file-20220218-43804-1dt7li6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447275/original/file-20220218-43804-1dt7li6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447275/original/file-20220218-43804-1dt7li6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447275/original/file-20220218-43804-1dt7li6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Kwanzaa celebration in Denver, US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>Celebrants were encouraged to adopt Swahili names and to address one another by Swahili titles of respect. Based on Nyerere’s principle of <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-172">ujamaa</a> (unity in mutual contributions), Kwanzaa celebrates seven principles or pillars. Unity (umoja), self-determination (kujichagulia), collective work and responsibility (ujima), cooperative economics (ujamaa), shared purpose (nia), individual creativity (kuumba) and faith (imani). </p>
<p>Nyerere also became the icon of “community brotherhood and sisterhood” under the slogan of the Swahili word ujamaa. That word has gained such strong appeal that it has been used as far afield as among Australian Aborigines and African Americans and <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Swahili_State_and_Society.html?id=-9MwAAByvf0C&redir_esc=y">across the globe</a> from London to Papua New Guinea. Not to mention its ongoing celebration on many US college campuses in the form of dormitories named ujamaa houses.</p>
<h2>Today</h2>
<p>Today, Swahili is the African language most widely recognised outside the continent. The global presence of Swahili in radio broadcasting and on the internet has no equal among sub-Saharan African languages. </p>
<p>Swahili is broadcast regularly in Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland and Tanzania. On the international scene, no other African language can be heard from world news stations as often or as extensively.</p>
<p>At least as far back as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022495/">Trader Horn</a> (1931), Swahili words and speech have been heard in hundreds of movies and television series, such as <a href="https://intl.startrek.com/database_article/uhura">Star Trek</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089755/">Out of Africa</a>, Disney’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110357/">The Lion King</a>, and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146316/">Lara Croft: Tomb Raider</a>. The Lion King featured several Swahili words, the most familiar being the names of characters, including Simba (lion), Rafiki (friend) and Pumbaa (be dazed). Swahili phrases included asante sana (thank you very much) and, of course, that no-problem philosophy known as hakuna matata repeated throughout the movie. </p>
<p>Swahili lacks the numbers of speakers, the wealth, and the political power associated with global languages such as Mandarin, English or Spanish. But Swahili appears to be the only language boasting more than 200 million speakers that has more second-language speakers than native ones.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-kwanzaa-means-for-black-americans-88220">What Kwanzaa means for Black Americans</a>
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<p>By immersing themselves in the affairs of a maritime culture at a key commercial gateway, the people who were eventually designated Waswahili (Swahili people) created a niche for themselves. They were important enough in the trade that newcomers had little choice but to speak Swahili as the language of trade and diplomacy. And the Swahili population became more entrenched as successive generations of second-language speakers of Swahili lost their ancestral languages and became bona fide Swahili.</p>
<p>The key to understanding this story is to look deeply at the Swahili people’s response to challenges. At the ways in which they made their fortunes and dealt with misfortunes. And, most important, at how they honed their skills in balancing confrontation and resistance with adaptation and innovation as they interacted with arrivals from other language backgrounds. </p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract of the <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780896804890_chapter_01_and_toc.pdf">first chapter</a> of <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/The+Story+of+Swahili">The Story of Swahili</a> from Ohio University Press</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John M. Mugane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Over two millennia, Swahili has built bridges among people across Africa and into the diaspora.John M. Mugane, Professor, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1729672021-12-09T09:54:04Z2021-12-09T09:54:04ZTanzania must face up to calls for reform if it wants to keep the peace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435556/original/file-20211203-15-1srqw4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zanzibar's anti-riot police officers stand guard over protesters cornered during opposition protests in Stone Town, Zanzibar.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sixty years after independence, Tanzania is still guided by the path created in its early years, one dominated by an all-powerful ruling party. The line between the state and the party is blurred. </p>
<p>Tanganyika inherited a multi-party political system. But in 1964, the union of Tanganyika and the island of Zanzibar to form Tanzania marked a shift from liberal to more state-centric policies. President Julius Nyerere’s administration saw a need for a stronger state in order to defend national interests. </p>
<p>In 1967, the <a href="http://library.fes.de/fulltext/bibliothek/2-tanzania-s0019634.pdf">Arusha Declaration</a> formally rooted socialist policies into Tanzania’s politics. This further entrenched one-party dominance. </p>
<p>The country faced a combination of international and domestic challenges in the 1970s. They included <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/160747">poor economic policies</a> and the international oil crisis. As a reaction, the state became more insular and sought to further cement the ruling party’s hold. In 1976, for example, <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---emp_ent/---coop/documents/publication/wcms_672857.pdf">cooperative societies</a> were abolished, mostly for political reasons which were disguised as economic. The move protected the ruling party’s hold on power. </p>
<p>Due to international pressure and the failure of domestic policies, Tanzania had to embark on a liberalisation and democratisation processes. It adopted structural adjustment policies in line with the <a href="https://www.ned.org/docs/Samuel-P-Huntington-Democracy-Third-Wave.pdf">democratisation trend</a> in African countries after the break-up of the Soviet Union. The country also amended its constitution to allow multi-party politics. A number of political parties were registered in the early and mid 1990s. <a href="https://www.andrewleunginternationalconsultants.com/files/brookings-2015-africa-foresight-report.pdf#page=53">The elections</a> between 1995 and 2015 were considered credible thanks to the improved democratic space in which opposition parties could participate. </p>
<p>Tanzania’s ability to maintain peace and stability since independence has been attributed to the “nation building” efforts of Nyerere. The nation-state is well composed, with no ethnic contestations. It has had a peaceful transition from one president to another and respected term limits without a fuss.</p>
<p>The last six years, however, under President John Magufuli, has exposed the entrenched autocratic system that one-party dominance created. Despite multi-party politics, the line between the state and the ruling party has been increasingly blurred. With the expansion and consolidation of opposition parties, the ruling party has become more autocratic and ready to use state force to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26661997">keep its grip on power</a>. </p>
<p>This desperation is threatening the peace and stability of the country. Intensified partisan politics has led to polarisation along party lines. Added to this is policy instability due to weak institutions. A situation where <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52983563">personalities can sway important institutions</a> is also a threat to economic progress. </p>
<h2>Democratic seesaw</h2>
<p>Since the 1990s, each electoral cycle has improved the opposition parties’ vote share. In 1995, in the first elections after the re-introduction of multi-party politics, the main opposition party gained 24% of the presidential <a href="https://www.eisa.org/wep/tan1995results2.htm">votes</a>. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-ruling-party-wins-election-again-but-poll-is-annulled-in-zanzibar-49934">2015</a>, the opposition party gained 40%. </p>
<p>But after 2015, Tanzania experienced a sharp <a href="https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10079042/3/Paget%20Paget,%20The%20Authoritarian%20Turn%20in%20Tanzania,%20April%202017.pdf">authoritarian turn</a>. The Magufuli administration <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47334545">banned</a> political parties’ rallies, banned live broadcasting of parliament, banned pregnant school girls from returning to school and restricted freedom of expression. Under his administration <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54484609">opposition</a> party leaders were arrested and detained and faced assassination attempts.</p>
<p>Magufuli’s administration also <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-covid-19-response-puts-magufulis-leadership-style-in-sharp-relief-139417">denied</a> the COVID-19 pandemic and <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00362-7/fulltext">refused</a> vaccines. The peak of this authoritarianism was in the 2020 elections, which was marred by violence and massive <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/49290/tanzania-dark-days-ahead-says-opposition-as-magufuli-sworn-in-for-second-term/">rigging</a>. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-magufuli-has-steered-tanzania-down-the-road-of-an-authoritarian-one-party-state-149760">elections</a> gave the ruling dominant party 98.8% of the parliamentary seats and 84.4% of the presidential vote.</p>
<p>After the death of Magufuli in March 2021, President Samia Suluhu Hassan took over power as per the constitution. The transition was smooth, which is one of the positive aspects of Tanzanian politics. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-hassan-faces-her-first-political-test-constitutional-reform-165088">Tanzania's Hassan faces her first political test: constitutional reform</a>
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<p>To her credit, President Hassan has embraced and welcomed scientific measures against COVID-19 and allowed pregnant girls to go back to school. Nevertheless, she has kept to the same autocratic path with a few cosmetic changes based on rhetoric. She has continued to ban public political <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/07/tanzania-sees-only-glimpses-change-new-president">rallies</a>, criminalised calls for constitutional <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/clamour-for-new-katiba-tanzania-3461544">reforms</a> and detained the chairman of the main opposition party, <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/president-samias-halo-is-slipping">Freeman Mbowe</a>.</p>
<h2>Challenges and opportunities</h2>
<p>Two <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-90206-7_7">immediate challenges</a> Tanzania faces are managing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-hostilities-between-tanganyika-and-zanzibar-still-challenge-tanzanian-unity-76713">union with Zanzibar</a> and <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/OXAN-DB232146/full/html">demands for constitutional reforms</a>. The issues include distribution of resources between the mainland and the island, and the rights of Zanzibar as an autonomous country.</p>
<p>At 60, Tanzania should appreciate the changing times, expectations and politics by engaging in constitutional reforms. This is arguably the most important thing it can do to maintain peace and stability. A constitutional reform process would provide space for different groups, such as opposition parties, to express their views and concerns. It could address grievances and be an opportunity to unify the nation. </p>
<p>The emerging partisan politics and the polarisation it creates is a new threat. It does not provide space for democratic contestation, as opposition parties are restricted from political activities. If unaddressed, the polarisation and increasing grievances could destabilise the country. The future of politics in Tanzania depends on the ability of the policy makers and politicians to take advantage of a more enlightened 2021 citizenry as compared to 1961.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aikande Clement Kwayu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The emerging partisan politics and the polarisation it creates is a new threat for Tanzania.Aikande Clement Kwayu, Independent researcher & Honorary Research Fellow, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1723102021-12-06T14:59:47Z2021-12-06T14:59:47ZTanzania at 60: a model of co-existence held back by political rigidity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435581/original/file-20211203-17-1ato7v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Hayduk/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tanzania gained its <a href="https://uca.edu/politicalscience/dadm-project/sub-saharan-africa-region/tanzania-1961-present">independence</a> on 9 December 1961 after 71 years of colonial administration, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/tanzania-gains-independence">first under Germany and later Britain</a>. At independence the country had <a href="https://edi.opml.co.uk/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/04-TID_Civil-Service.pdf">only 11</a> indigenous university graduates and 71% of the senior civil service were expatriates.</p>
<p>Like other newly independent African countries, Tanzania faced numerous socio-economic challenges. These included low agricultural productivity and a low industrial and manufacturing base. At the same time, it strove to become a <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0217.xml">nation</a> – a viable, coherent state based on a national identity and consciousness. It also had to build a public authority. </p>
<p>What followed independence, however, was off the African post-colonial script. Tanzania’s first post-independence philosopher leader, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, undertook a bold political experiment known as <em>Ujamaa</em> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/11/tanzania-hidden-socialist-history-president-julius-nyerere">African socialism</a>. The <a href="http://www.nathanielturner.com/ujamaanyerere.htm">doctrine</a>, proclaimed in 1967, was underpinned by self-reliance, respect for human dignity and human rights. This became the guide for Tanzania. </p>
<p>For a while, the country also spearheaded pan-Africanism, the ideal of a united Africa.</p>
<p>Forging a coherent national body politic is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13569775.2013.804150">most difficult</a> for African countries characterised by ethnic diversity. This is because of the nature of ethnic politics and the mobilisation of communal groups as the primary political constituency. Kenya, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are instructive examples.</p>
<p>But under Nyerere and its subsequent leaders, Tanzania managed to <a href="https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/551674/Kessler_Ilana_Thesis.pdf">forge a national consciousness</a> that goes beyond creed, race and ethnic affiliation. In sharp contrast to many an African country, Tanzania has demonstrated the possibility of <a href="https://thefutureofafrica.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/ethnic-diversity-in-east-africa-the-tanzania-case/">co-existence in diversity</a>.</p>
<p>There is much for Tanzanians to be proud of 60 years after independence. But the country is yet to realise the founding father’s dream of a country in which self-reliance, mutual dignity, tolerance and inclusion underpin its sociopolitical fabric.</p>
<p>The political system has been a one-party state that morphed into a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02589001.2012.669566">dominant party system</a> in later years. The Tanzania Africa National Union was the ruling party until 1977. In that year it merged with the Afro-Shirazi Party to <a href="https://www.ccmtz.org/history-chama-cha-mapinduzi-party-tanzania/">form</a> Chama Chama Mapinduzi or the Party of the Revolution. The party remains in government, making it one of Africa’s longest-ruling parties.</p>
<p>Tanzania’s democracy <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/once-a-beacon-of-hope-tanzanians-now-resist-growing-authoritarianism/">report card</a> is, at best, chequered. On the surface, the country has had periodic elections and changes of leadership. But this has been achieved by <a href="https://www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/collord_tanzania_2020_election_2021.pdf">systematic shrinking</a> of the political space. </p>
<p>Forging ahead, the political class should seek greater accommodation so that disagreements don’t lead to imprisonment, harassment and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54484609">attempted assassinations</a>. For the country to achieve substantive progress, it must make a collective and diverse effort.</p>
<h2>What Africa can learn from Tanzania</h2>
<p>The African state has been cast as weak within the global political economy. Tanzania has rekindled the debate about state sovereignty – a nationalist ideal which underpinned the country’s ideological stance in the 1960s and 1970s.</p>
<p>In one recent instance, Tanzania asserted its state prerogative by forcing a <a href="https://cimsec.org/a-bump-in-the-belt-and-road-tanzania-pushes-back-against-chinese-port-project/">renegotiation of Chinese port contracts</a> seen as detrimental to the national interest.</p>
<p>In another, the country <a href="https://www.mining-technology.com/news/barrick-gold-tanzania-deal-acacia/">had its way</a> in a tax dispute with a major western mining conglomerate. This is on top of renegotiating the terms of long-standing mining contracts deemed unfavourable to the country. </p>
<p>This pushback would have made the country’s founding president proud. So would the rise of the country’s <a href="https://moguldom.com/239138/9-times-a-female-president-took-charge-of-an-african-country/">first woman president</a>, Samia Suluhu Hassan, following the sudden death of President John Magufuli in March 2021. In his celebrated essays and later in the 1967 <a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nyerere/1967/arusha-declaration.htm">Arusha Declaration</a> Nyerere lamented the lot of women and hoped for better:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is true that within our traditional society, ill-treatment and enforced subservience are the women’s lot. If we want our country to make full and quick progress, it is essential to enable our women to live on terms of full equality with their fellow citizens, who happen to be men.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The road ahead</h2>
<p>At 60 Tanzanians can look back with mixed emotions about how far they have come but equally wonder how far they could have travelled. The country has been spared the instability many in the region have experienced. </p>
<p>But peace on its own is not enough. The unfulfilled promise of prosperity and economic advancement is still a drag on the euphoria of self-governance and indigenous empowerment. </p>
<p>Harnessing all efforts towards economic prosperity and self-reliance should be the number one priority and therein lies the true essence of independence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172310/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David E Kiwuwa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Peace on its own is not enough to meet the unfulfilled promise of prosperity and economic advancement.David E Kiwuwa, Associate Professor of International Studies, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1597472021-06-27T08:43:19Z2021-06-27T08:43:19ZRethinking how we look at Africa’s relationship with China<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406800/original/file-20210616-21-oolbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The framing of Africa's relationship with China needs a rethink</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The topic of China-Africa relations presents an opportunity to rethink the territorial parameters of African studies. In particular, it can help shift attention away from the Atlantic world as the dominant focal point of connections between Africa and the wider world. </p>
<p>The problem is that current scholarship and public opinion have often drifted into old frameworks and colonial motifs.</p>
<p>To take one example, China’s ambitions have frequently been construed as part of a new ‘Scramble for Africa’ with African countries falling victim once more to an outside global power. Another example is the uncritical use of the Orientalist stereotype of ‘dragon’ to symbolise China and its perceived aggressiveness.</p>
<p>I explore these issues of framing, narration and analysis in a recent <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13696815.2020.1824770">article</a>. I argue that these approaches have created problematic misrepresentations that have resulted in different parts of the continent’s long history with China being ignored. </p>
<p>More specifically, the Cold War was a robust period of Afro-Asian networking and solidarity against Western neo-colonialism. Older still are local histories of Chinese immigrant communities on the continent in countries like South Africa. These experiences need to be better integrated into our understandings of China-Africa relations in the present. </p>
<h2>The uses of history</h2>
<p>History can be a useful reference for understanding what is happening today. But simply rehashing imperial narratives as a guiding framework can obscure local perspectives and alternative histories. </p>
<p>In the case of China-Africa relations, the repackaging of old paradigms can conceal a more layered set of foundations and archives. </p>
<p>One example of this more complex history is that of the Cold War. During this period China became a supporter and ally of African liberation movements and postcolonial states. Diplomatic meetings like the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/bandung-conf#:%7E:text=In%20April%2C%201955%2C%20representatives%20from,%2C%20economic%20development%2C%20and%20decolonization.">1955 Asian-African Conference</a> in Bandung, Indonesia, set the stage for these relationships. The conference triggered a long history of transnational interactions during the latter half of the twentieth century, reaching high points with <a href="https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ziliao_665539/3602_665543/3604_665547/t18001.shtml">Premier Zhou Enlai’s tour of ten African countries</a> in 1963 and 1964. </p>
<p>The best known example of China’s influence during this period was the popularity of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25663811">Maoism</a>, which gained traction as a revolutionary and development ideology. With its emphasis on the peasantry as a vanguard for political and economic change, Maoism resonated with African activists and intellectuals. They saw themselves as confronting a similar set of conditions across the continent. Julius Nyerere’s Maoist-influenced Tanzanian state and ujamaa program demonstrated how Chinese approaches to development could inspire African economic projects.</p>
<p>Yet it is also important to recognise the long-standing presence of Chinese communities on the continent. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1j7x628">Chinese immigration</a> to southern and eastern Africa began over a century ago. South African journalist Ufrieda Ho has addressed this history in her memoir, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1j7x628">Paper Sons and Daughters</a>. Her multi-generational account describes her family’s experience in South Africa before, during and after apartheid, capturing both the presence and marginality of Chinese South Africans, who have been left out of mainstream historical narratives. These social histories have also largely been absent from discussions of China-Africa relations.</p>
<h2>A new approach</h2>
<p>The invisibility of these local histories is partly due to prevailing academic definitions of ‘African’ identity. This identity remains deeply racialised with ‘Africanness’ and ‘Blackness’ seen as synonymous.</p>
<p>However, the problem with this type of race-territory correspondence becomes clear when ‘European’ identity, for example, is always assumed to be ‘white’. Indeed, this logic betrays a lingering colonial worldview and taxonomy that fixed race and place together. </p>
<p>A more expansive, decolonized understanding of ‘African’ identity could remedy these engrained habits of perception. A number of communities that have deep histories on the continent, whether Chinese South Africans, Indian communities in East and southern Africa, or Lebanese communities in West Africa, point to other racial and cultural ways of being ‘African’. </p>
<p>Specific to China and Africa today, this rethinking of ‘Africanness’ can provide a way of repositioning China-African relations beyond the diplomatic rhetoric of trade and development to emphasize instead local histories of African-Chinese communities that long precede our global present. </p>
<p>Returning to the Cold War, the idea of ‘Afro-Asianism’, which first surfaced during the mid-1950s as a result of the Bandung conference, offers another usable past that can contribute to this new orientation.</p>
<p>Afro-Asianism was sustained in different ways by the <a href="https://www.aapsorg.org/en/">Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organisation</a> founded in Cairo in 1957, the <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/the-afro-asian-writers-association-and-soviet-engagement-with-africa/">Afro-Asian Writers Association</a> established in Tashkent in 1958, and the <a href="https://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and-regimes/non-aligned-movement-nam/"> Non-Aligned Movement </a>that started in Belgrade in 1961. As an ideology, it promoted self-determination and the moral ideals of liberation struggles, including racial and gender equality, human rights, and economic justice. </p>
<p>Reviving this idea could open the door to a new form solidarity against the exploitation and abuses witnessed on both sides of the ‘China-Africa’ equation. These problems can be seen in land agreements by African governments that do not benefit pre-existing residents. It can also be seen in anti-Black racism in China. </p>
<p>A refurbished ethos of Afro-Asianism could provide an antidote to such problems and foster new forms of community and internationalism. Furthermore, redefining African identity to include the historical presence of Chinese communities could encourage and sustain more meaningful understandings of transnational connections over a longer period of time.</p>
<p>To rethink how we look at Africa’s relationship with China requires that we move beyond historical cliches, with African countries always falling victim to outside powers. Fortunately, there are multiple histories of substantive networking and cosmopolitan conviviality between Africa and China to make this possibility happen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher J. Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>African identity needs a revision to move beyond current understanding of its relationship with ChinaChristopher J. Lee, Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies, Lafayette College Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1464082021-06-17T15:10:07Z2021-06-17T15:10:07ZKenneth Kaunda: the last giant of African nationalism and benign autocrat left a mixed legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358636/original/file-20200917-24-1xzswgv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda at the inauguration of former South African president Thabo Mbeki in 2004.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/dr-kenneth-kaunda-former-president-zambia-born">Kenneth Kaunda</a>, the former president of Zambia, who has <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/former-president-kenneth-kaunda-passes-away-aged-97/">died in hospital in the capital, Lusaka</a>, at the age of 97, was the last of the giants of 20th century African nationalism. He was also one of the few to depart with his reputation still intact. But perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, the standing of the man who ruled over Zambia for 27 years is clouded with ambiguity.</p>
<p>The charismatic president who won accolades for bowing out peacefully after losing an election was also the authoritarian who introduced a one-party state. The pioneer of “African socialism” was the man who cut a supply-side deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The nationalist leader known for personal probity planned to give huge tracts of farmland to an Indian guru. The revolutionary who gave sanctuary to liberation movements was also a friend of US presidents.</p>
<p>I met him in 1989 when I helped organise a delegation of 120 white South African notables for a conference with the then-banned and exiled <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/brief-history-anc">African National Congress</a>, which was fighting for the liberation of black South Africans, in Lusaka. “KK”, as he was known, shed tears as he welcomed guests, who included the <a href="https://hsf.org.za/about/about-the-helen-suzman-foundation">liberal MP Helen Suzman</a>, known for her defiant opposition to the apartheid government.</p>
<p>By then, he’d been president for a quarter of a century and seemed a permanent fixture at the apex of southern African politics. And yet, as it turned out, he was on his final lap.</p>
<p>He exuded an image of the benign monarch, a much-loved father to his people, known for his endearing quirks – safari suits, waving white handkerchiefs, ballroom dancing, singing his own songs while cycling, and crying in public. And yet there was also a hard edge to the politics and persona of the man, whose powerful personality helped make Zambia a major player in Africa and the world for three decades.</p>
<h2>The early years</h2>
<p>Kenneth David Kaunda was born in Chinsali, Northern Zambia, on October 24 1924. Like so many of his generation of African liberation leaders, he came from a family of the mission-educated middle class. He was the baby among eight children. His father was a Presbyterian missionary-teacher and his mother was the first qualified African woman teacher in the country.</p>
<p>He followed his parents’ profession, first in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), where he became a head teacher before his 21st birthday. He also taught in then Tanganyika (Tanzania), where he became a lifelong admirer of future president Julius Nyerere, whose “Ujamaa” brand of African socialism he tried to follow.</p>
<p>After returning home, Kaunda campaigned against the British plan for a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230270916_12">federation</a> of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which would increase the powers of white settlers. He took up politics full-time, learning the ropes through working for the liberal Legislative Council member <a href="https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-33474">Sir Stewart Gore-Browne</a>. Soon after, as secretary general of the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress, he was jailed for two months with hard labour for distributing <a href="https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/zambians-campaign-independence-1944-1964">“subversive literature”</a>.</p>
<p>After his release he clashed with his organisation’s president, Harry Nkumbula, who took a more conciliatory approach to colonial rule. Kaunda led the breakaway Zambian African National Congress, which was promptly banned. He was <a href="https://biography.yourdictionary.com/kenneth-david-kaunda">jailed for nine months</a>, further boosting his status.</p>
<p>A new movement, the United National Independence Party <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172067">(UNIP)</a>), chose Kaunda as its leader after his release. He travelled to America and <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/kenneth-kaunda-the-united-states-and-southern-africa/introduction-kenneth-kaunda-and-zambia-united-states-relations-before-1975">met Martin Luther King</a>. Inspired by King and Mahatma Gandhi, he launched the <a href="https://cdn.website-editor.net/74225855d7734800bb2b5c38f2c1cf16/files/uploaded/chachacha.pdf">“Cha-cha-cha” civil disobedience campaign</a>.</p>
<p>In 1962, encouraged by Kaunda’s moves to pacify the white settlers, the British acceded to self-rule, followed by full independence two years later. He emerged as the first Zambian president after <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/25/newsid_2658000/2658325.stm">UNIP won the election</a>.</p>
<h2>The challenges of independence</h2>
<p>One challenge for the newly independent Zambia related to the colonial education system. There were no universities and fewer than half a percent of pupils had completed primary school. Kaunda introduced a policy of free books and low fees. In 1966 he became the first chancellor of the new <a href="https://www.unza.zm/international/?p=history">University of Zambia</a>. Several other universities and tertiary education facilities followed.</p>
<p>Long after he was ousted as president, Kaunda continued to be warmly received in African capitals because of his role in allowing liberation movements to have bases in Lusaka. This came at considerable economic cost to his country, which also endured military raids from the South Africans and Rhodesians.</p>
<p>At the same time, he joined apartheid South Africa’s hard-line prime minister <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/balthazar-johannes-vorster">BJ Vorster</a> in mediating a failed bid for an internal settlement in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1975. He attempted the same in South West Africa (Namibia), which was then administered by South Africa. But <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/pieter-willem-botha">President PW Botha</a>, who succeeded Vorster after his death, showed no interest.</p>
<p>Kaunda helped lead the <a href="https://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and-regimes/non-aligned-movement-nam/">Non-Aligned Movement</a>, which brought together states that did not align with either the Soviets or the Americans during the Cold War. He broke bread with anyone who showed an interest in Zambia, including Romania’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolae-Ceausescu">Nicolai Ceausescu</a> and Iraq’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/saddam-hussein-how-a-deadly-purge-of-opponents-set-up-his-ruthless-dictatorship-120748">Saddam Hussein</a>, while also cultivating successive American presidents (having more success with <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/james-carter/">Jimmy Carter</a> than <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/ronald-reagan/">Ronald Reagan</a>). He invited China to help build the <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0330/033064.html">Tazara Railway</a> and bought 16 MIG-21 fighter jets from the Soviet Union <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0205/020532.html">in 1980</a>.</p>
<h2>African humanism</h2>
<p>Kaunda’s economic policy was framed by his belief in what he called “African humanism” but also by necessity. He inherited an economy under foreign control and moved to remedy this. For example, the mines owned by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/British-South-Africa-Company">British South African Company</a> (founded by <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a>) were acquired as a result of colonial conquest in 1890. Kaunda’s threats to nationalise without compensation prompted major concessions from BSAC.</p>
<p>He promoted a planned economy, leading to “development plans” that involved the state’s Industrial Development Corporation acquiring 51% equity in major foreign-owned companies. The policy was undermined by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/mar/03/1970s-oil-price-shock">1973 spike in the oil price</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/04/archives/as-copper-goes-so-goes-zambia.html">fall in the price of copper</a>, which made up 95% of Zambia’s exports.</p>
<p>The consequent balance of payments crisis led to Zambia having the world’s second highest debt relative to GDP, <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11985187.pdf">prompting IMF intervention</a>. Kaunda at first resisted but by 1989 was forced to bow to its demands. Parastatals were partially privatised, spending was slashed, food subsidies ended, prices rocketed and Kaunda’s support plummeted. </p>
<p>Like many anti-colonial leaders, he’d come to view multi-party democracy as a western concept that fomented conflict and tribalism. This view was encouraged by the 1964 uprising of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/13/archives/rhodesia-holds-leader-of-cult-kaunda-says-alice-lenshina-calls-for.html">Lumpa religious sect</a>. He banned all parties other than UNIP in 1968 and Zambia officially became a one-party state four years later.</p>
<p>His government became increasingly autocratic and intolerant of dissent, centred on his personality cult. But Kaunda will go down in history as a relatively benign autocrat who avoided the levels of repression and corruption of so many other one-party rulers.</p>
<p>Julius Nyerere, who retired in 1985, tried to persuade his friend to follow suit, but Kaunda pressed on. After surviving a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/01/world/failed-zambia-coup-weakens-leader.html">coup attempt in 1990</a> and following food riots, he reluctantly acceded to the demand for a multi-party election in 1991. </p>
<p>His popularity could not survive the chaos prompted by price rises and was not helped by the revelation that he’d planned to grant <a href="http://www.minet.org/TM-EX/Fall-91">more than a quarter of Zambia’s land</a> to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who promised to create a “heaven on earth”). The trade union leader Frederick Chiluba won in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/02/world/zambian-voters-defeat-kaunda-sole-leader-since-independence.html">landslide victory in 1991</a>.</p>
<h2>The last years</h2>
<p>Kaunda <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4283286.stm">won kudos abroad</a> for what was considered to be his gracious response to electoral defeat, but the new government was less magnanimous. It placed him under house arrest after alleging a coup attempt; then <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/01/world/founder-of-zambia-is-declared-stateless-in-high-court-ruling.html">declared him stateless</a> when he planned to run in the 1996 election (on the grounds that his father was born in Malawi), which he successfully challenged in court. He survived an <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/shot-kaunda-claims-attempt-on-life-1.99800">assassination attempt in 1997</a>, getting grazed by a bullet. One of his sons, Wezi, was shot dead outside their home in 1999.</p>
<p>The 1986 AIDS death of another son, Masuzgo, inspired him to campaign around HIV issues far earlier than most, and he stepped this up over the next two decades. After Chiluba’s departure, he returned to favour and became a <a href="https://thenews-chronicle.com/a-life-that-defies-expectations-a-tribute-to-kenneth-kaunda-at-96/">roving ambassador for Zambia</a>. He reduced his public role following the <a href="https://www.lusakatimes.com/2012/09/19/mama-betty-kaunda-dies/">2012 death</a> of his wife of 66 years, Betty.</p>
<p>Kaunda will be remembered as a giant of 20th century African nationalism – a leader who, at great cost, gave refuge to revolutionary movements, a relatively benign autocrat who reluctantly introduced democracy to his country and an international diplomat who punched well above his weight in world affairs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kaunda will be remembered as a giant of 20th century African nationalism – a leader who gave refuge to revolutionary movements, a relatively benign autocrat and an international diplomat.Gavin Evans, Lecturer, Culture and Media department, Birkbeck, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1579732021-03-27T10:13:02Z2021-03-27T10:13:02ZTanzania’s new president faces a tough ‘to do’ list<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391896/original/file-20210326-21-qszajf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Samia Suluhu Hassan attends the funeral of her predecessor president John Magufuli on March 26, 2021 in Chato, Tanzania. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Luke Dray/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>A major political transition is under way in Tanzania after the laying to rest of former president John Pombe Magufuli. The East African nation’s new leader Samia Suluhu Hassan is the country’s sixth president and currently the only woman running a country on the continent. We asked Rob Ahearne, who has been doing research in Tanzania for more than a decade, to set out the political context and Hassan’s immediate challenges.</em></p>
<h2>What political environment has the new president stepped into?</h2>
<p>Magufuli’s anti-corruption agenda, emphasis on hard work, fractious relations with multinational mining giants and significant investments in major public works, won praise from some quarters. But it went hand in hand with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-autocratic-rule-in-tanzania-from-nyerere-to-life-under-magufuli-73881">severe narrowing of political space</a> (both in public and online) and an increasing authoritarianism. Deep <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanian-election-leaves-a-highly-polarised-society-with-an-uncertain-future-149191">political divisions</a> have been exacerbated by a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2021/03/20/africa-in-the-news-africas-economic-outlook-tanzanian-president-magufulis-passing-and-cars-election/">heavily disputed</a>, possibly fraudulent, election late last year. Magufuli won with a <a href="https://www.ifri.org/en/publications/editoriaux-de-lifri/tanzanias-2020-general-elections-between-repression-and">scarcely believable vote share</a> of 84%.</p>
<p>It is this political turmoil and sharp division that Samia Sululu Hassan, affectionally known as Mama Samia, inherits as leader for the next four-and-a-half years. </p>
<p>As Vice President for more than five years she has always been a loyal supporter of the government agenda, though in 2016 she didn’t deny <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/19/tanzanias-hassan-quiet-achiever-who-wants-to-get-things-done">rumoured tensions</a> in their relationship. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, she often acted as Magufuli’s main overseas representative during her tenure as Vice President. Thus she was cast in a more consensus-driven and diplomatic role that may be replicated as President. Despite arguments that she was principally selected because of the need for a woman to serve as vice president after Magufuli defeated <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-samia-hassan-has-the-chance-to-heal-a-polarised-nation-157523">two women</a> to the presidential nomination, she managed to carve out a significant role and level of responsibility.</p>
<p>Two of the leading opposition figures, <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/73392/tanzania-suluhu-may-be-the-lady-president-who-delivers-a-new-constitution-tundu-lissu/">Tundu Lissu</a> (currently exiled in Belgium owing to safety fears) and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/17/africa/john-magufuli-tanzania-death-intl/index.html">Zitto Kabwe</a> have expressed hope that the government will change course under Hassan’s leadership. Noted as a calmer and less outspoken than her predecessor, some hope that her government <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-56444575">will dampen</a> the populist rhetoric, opposition crackdowns and increasing authoritarianism. This may prove difficult in the short term, as she will need to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/19/tanzania-swears-in-samia-suluhu-hassan-as-first-female-president">build a political base</a> within the ruling party before any major policy shifts.</p>
<h2>What are the key social and economic challenges she faces?</h2>
<p>Tanzania’s <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/35204/Tanzania-Economic-Update-Raising-the-Bar-Achieving-Tanzania-s-Development-Vision.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">economic growth</a> over the past two decades has averaged around an impressive 7%. But this fell more dramatically from 5.8% in 2019 to 2% in 2020. There have been job losses in the formal sector, while hundreds of thousands of people are likely to have been pushed below the national poverty line.</p>
<p>Magufuli’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been accurately described as <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00362-7/fulltext">‘distressing’ and ‘baffling’</a>. </p>
<p>One decision was not to impose severe lockdown measures to manage the spread of COVID-19. He <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-56441421">lauded</a> his economy-first approach by saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have had a number of viral diseases, including Aids and measles. Our economy must come first. Countries [elsewhere] in Africa will be coming here to buy food in the years to come… they will be suffering because of shutting down their economies.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many now acknowledge that COVID-19 has spread far and wide <a href="https://www.voanews.com/africa/covid-19-cases-increase-tanzania-despite-government-denial">within Tanzania</a>. The real <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/35204/Tanzania-Economic-Update-Raising-the-Bar-Achieving-Tanzania-s-Development-Vision.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">economic impact</a> of the pandemic will likely be felt more deeply in 2021 and 2022 as firms take precautionary measures against the spread of the virus. There are also likely to be steep declines in production, consumption and exports. </p>
<h2>What calls for the new president’s immediate attention?</h2>
<p>A big issue is what she will do about the country’s stance towards COVID-19.</p>
<p>Magufuli <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/62785/tanzania-doctors-urge-magufulis-government-to-take-covid-seriously/">declared Tanzania ‘virus free’</a> in May of 2020 and failed to take it seriously after initially doing so. He then claimed that COVID-19 had returned with Tanzanians travelling abroad in search of vaccines.</p>
<p>It took until February this year for government officials to finally encourage <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/27/tanzania-covid-uturn-good-move-but-good-enough">mask wearing</a>. And there has been <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/11/africa/tanzania-covid-cases-surge-intl/index.html">no attempt yet made to procure vaccines</a>, despite widespread examples of severe respiratory illness.</p>
<p>The denialism of Magufuli and his regime has clearly had a material impact on public health and preparedness for any rollout of vaccinations.</p>
<p>Hassan’s first priority must, therefore, be to procure vaccines and then to address the uphill task of persuading a potentially sceptical public that they are not <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-56441421">‘guinea pigs’</a>, as Magufuli asserted.</p>
<h2>What sets Tanzania apart from its neighbours?</h2>
<p>Tanzania is often seen as a <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Rwanda-among-least-peaceful-countries-Tanzania-high/2558-1891216-view-printVersion-14piq48/index.html">beacon of peace and stability</a> in East Africa. It is not exposed to the same political tensions and civil unrest that have beset many neighbouring countries, for example the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda. Building a sense of national unity was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tanzania-nyerere-factbox/factbox-facts-on-tanzanias-father-of-nation-nyerere-idUSL0245500920070302">central to the project undertaken soon after independence</a> by ‘father of the nation’ Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who famously <a href="https://www.juliusnyerere.org/resources/quotes">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In Tanzania, it was more than one hundred tribal units which lost their freedom; it was one nation that regained it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The attempt to build a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/162030?casa_token=uQZJYRqt6XMAAAAA%3AduwdyhJrm6qORVJ-E4jX0hhqEHvHPR4Q0gF1qUbFwpXftproRXdG1SITpo-KgRlY4UxSdjCKv0NCYwDhJxHIjnQY7Aqu5H8MvXAsi7VQyI3Je3kp44NT&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">unified nation</a> is reflected in the creation of non-ethnic political institutions and civil service. It is seen in the marginalisation of chiefly power, and spreading Kiswahili as a unifying non-colonial national language. </p>
<p>It’s true the project may not have been perfect. The <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201201120789.html">1964 revolution in Zanzibar</a>, which gave rise to the republic unifying mainland Tanzania with the islands, was a bloody affair. Also the relationship between the semi-autonomous archipelago and the mainland is <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821418512_intro.pdf">often-fraught</a> while <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/extras/9780821418512_intro.pdf">ethnic tensions</a> simmer from time to time. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the narrative of a stable united Tanzania retains a certain logic.</p>
<p>Multi-partyism was <a href="https://gsdrc.org/document-library/multiparty-democracy-in-tanzania/">implemented</a> in 1995, but the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, retained its dominance for at least a decade. The status quo didn’t change until the 2015 elections. John Magufuli – the little-known minister of works at the time – received the lowest vote share (58%) of any Chama Cha Mapinduzi presidential candidate even with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/29/tanzania-announces-election-winner-amid-claims-of-vote-rigging">veracity of the ballot</a> questioned. </p>
<p>This is a story replicated in the 2020 election and shows the extent of division within the country. Time will tell, but Mama Samia may prove to be the right sort of politician to usher in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-samia-hassan-has-the-chance-to-heal-a-polarised-nation-157523">new era of bipartisan politics</a> that is less populist, less authoritarian and more collegial in approach.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Ahearne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hassan may prove the right sort of politician to usher in a new era of bipartisan politics, less populist and authoritarian and more collegial.Rob Ahearne, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1516802021-01-28T14:11:29Z2021-01-28T14:11:29ZHip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373944/original/file-20201209-19-4bf5nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zambia-born, Botswana-raised hip hop artist Sampa the Great.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marc Grimwade/WireImage</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hip hop is many things. Most recently is has become more of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2019/02/06/goldman-sachs-bets-on-hip-hop-and-millennials-for-music-revival/?sh=2b3ab2a46f17">commodity</a>, a commercial venture, but it has always been and remains a global culture that represents local realities. It speaks about where one is from – through rap lyrics, DJing, graffiti or breakdancing – by incorporating local slang, references, neighbourhood tales, sounds and styles.</p>
<p>Hip hop <a href="https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/how-the-burning-of-the-bronx-led-to-the-birth-of-hip-hop/">emerged</a> in the 1970s in the South Bronx, in New York City in the US, among young, working class African Americans as well as Caribbean and Latino immigrants. </p>
<p>Hip hop culture’s connection to African musical and social traditions would be well <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739193297/Hip-Hop-and-Social-Change-in-Africa-Ni-Wakati">documented</a>, including in my <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Hip-Hop+in+Africa">book</a> <em>Hip Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers</em>. </p>
<p>In its roots and manifestations, I argue, hip hop has also proven to be a powerful vehicle for spreading and shaping Pan Africanism.</p>
<h2>Moving beyond borders</h2>
<p>Pan Africanism is an acknowledgement of the social, cultural and historical bonds that unite people of African descent. It’s an understanding of shared struggles and, as a result, shared destinies. It’s also an understanding of the importance of dismantling the divisions among African people in order to work towards greater social, cultural and political solidarity. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-77030-7_134-1">work</a> has focused on hip hop as a soundtrack for the transnationalisation – the spreading beyond national borders – of African communities and identities. </p>
<p>This includes the increased and diversified migration of Africans to countries around the world. Today, an increasing number of Africans have lived in more than two countries. There have also been increased migrations to Africa from the African diaspora – people of African descent who are spread across the world. Some of these diaspora migrants are also Africans migrating to countries in Africa other than their own. </p>
<p>One artist whose work is both an articulation of these transnational trends and of an advancing Pan Africanism is Ghanaian-born, New York-based hip hop star <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/11/27/247481464/blitz-the-ambassador-fighting-against-invisibility">Blitz the Ambassador</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man plays African drums and sings into a microphone, behind him a row of trumpeters and saxophonists." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blitz the Ambassador in New York in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We see this throughout his entire catalogue, from songs like <em><a href="https://blitzemmetstill.bandcamp.com">Emmet Still</a></em> and <em>Sankofa</em> on his 2005 album <em>Double Consciousness</em> to <em><a href="https://youtu.be/zyQNUGMBhLY">Hello Africa</a></em> on his 2016 release <a href="https://jakartarecords-label.bandcamp.com/album/diasporadical"><em>Diasporadical</em></a>. </p>
<p>In <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmqvguxPvu4">Hello Africa</a></em> he raps: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just touched down, Ecowas passport. Internationally known, I give ’em what they ask for. From Accra city all the way outta Marrakech…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He proceeds to take us on a journey across Africa in a way that acknowledges his identity as an African belonging to the continent, and also his transnational relationship with the continent. He throws in different languages – Arabic, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Wolof – as he moves through different cities.</p>
<h2>The new Pan Africanism</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pan-africanism">Pan Africanism</a> is not a new idea, or movement. Its roots are pre-colonial. There continues to be serious investment in a Pan African agenda set by intellectuals like <a href="https://www.lincoln.edu/departments/langston-hughes-memorial-library/kwame-nkrumah-digital-information-site">Kwame Nkrumah</a> of Ghana, <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/nyerere-nationalism-and-pan-africanism">Julius Nyerere</a> of Tanzania, <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/biograph.htm">C.L.R. James</a> of Trinidad and <a href="https://www.naacp.org/naacp-history-w-e-b-dubois/">W.E.B. DuBois</a> of the US.</p>
<p>While we see growth in hip hop’s Pan African voice through artists like Blitz the Ambassador, we do also see movement away from a United States of Africa under a socialist state as a primary goal of Pan Africanists. What then are some of the primary objectives of Pan Africanism today? African music, especially hip hop, has always given us clues.</p>
<p>Hip hop is an important <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Hip-Hop+in+Africa">catalyst</a> for Pan Africanism today. We are seeing a major cultural shift through collaborations between African and African diaspora artists, as well as the inclusion of Pan African elements in their music. </p>
<p>Some of these songs are significant in bringing together artists known for making social statements, such as <em>Opps</em> (2018) with Vince Staples (US) and Yugen Blakrok (South Africa) for the <em>Black Panther</em> <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/a-guide-to-black-panther-soundtracks-south-african-artists.html">soundtrack</a>. There are many more, like the remix to <em><a href="https://sampathegreat.bandcamp.com/album/time-s-up-remix-feat-junglepussy-3">Times Up</a></em> (2020) with Sampa the Great and Junglepussy.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H2lvgKDpiSA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Sampa the Great’s work embodies Pan Africanism today.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Zambia-born, Botswana-raised hip hop artist Sampa The Great spends her time between Australia and Botswana. Her album <em><a href="https://sampathegreat.bandcamp.com/album/the-return">The Return</a></em> (2019) was an important work that received much <a href="https://www.metacritic.com/music/the-return/sampa-the-great">praise</a>. From it, the songs <em><a href="https://youtu.be/H2lvgKDpiSA">Final Form</a></em> and <em><a href="https://youtu.be/dDubhAKSeB0">Energy</a></em> are representations of hip hop’s Pan African voice. </p>
<p>In the songs’ music videos, for example, we see dance styles found in diaspora and African communities. We see facial paint designs like those seen in South Africa and masks like those found in Mali. In <a href="http://pilerats.com/music/rap/sampa-the-great-energy/"><em>Energy</em></a> she features British-Sierra Leonean artist <a href="https://www.radicalartreview.org/post/black-visual-frequency-interview-with-nadeem-din-gabisi">Nadeem Din-Gabisi</a> performing poetry in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-west-africas-pidgins-deserve-full-recognition-as-official-languages-101844">Pidgin English</a>.</p>
<h2>Collaborations</h2>
<p>We’ve seen important collaborations between hip hop artists across Africa and in the diaspora that go back to the early 1990s. But we see an increase after 2010. When African artists started using social media and file sharing they were able to increase their collaborations. </p>
<p>In 2011, Senegalese hip hop pioneer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/feb/15/worldmusic.urban">Didier Awadi</a> released the major collaborative project, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1fWlrQsVTwZo9avHCeZDzF?autoplay=true">Présidents d'Afrique</a> (Presidents of Africa) featuring collaborations with artists from Burkina Faso, DRC, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, France and the US. It also sampled speeches from past leaders like Aimé Césaire, Nyerere, Nkrumah, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.</p>
<p>And the growing presence of Africans in important positions in the US entertainment industry has meant these collaborations are beginning to happen in more mainstream platforms. </p>
<p>Two big budget projects that have attracted significant attention are the US film <em>Black Panther</em> (2018) and US pop star Beyoncé’s <em>Black is King</em> visual album (2020). </p>
<p>There are many important <a href="https://culture-review.co.za/black-america-is-king?fbclid=IwAR2aBSKryCvXuX1blBwJz7sFhViOestuSHNLtexPM6Npyzs4EQ6b6v3WTgU">criticisms</a> of these projects. Major labels prefer proven (profitable) formulas over artist innovation. There is a tendency towards a homogenisation – a lumping together – of Africa and a marginalisation of African artists’ voices. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nLm8MMmkqeQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Beyoncé is criticised for her representations of Africa.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But we also need to understand that both projects are products of the transnationalisation of African communities and identities. They exist in part because of the increased mobility of African communities around the world. We also must recognise their impact on helping to cultivate Pan African identities. </p>
<p>In <em>Black is King</em>, we see the prominent influence of West African culture. The project was the product of the creative vision of Beyoncé, Ghanaian creative director <a href="https://www.essence.com/entertainment/only-essence/black-is-king-director-kwasi-fordjour/">Kwasi Fordjour</a> and Ghanaian creatives Blitz Bazawule (Blitz the Ambassador) and <a href="https://www.emmanueladjei.com">Emmanuel Adjei</a>. Also on the project were Nigerian creative directors <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/ibra-ake-mission-show-african-creatives-value-ownership-childish-gambino/">Ibra Ake</a> and <a href="https://100women.okayafrica.com/editorial/jennnkiru">Jenn Nkiru</a>. </p>
<h2>Pan Africanism is hip hop</h2>
<p>There will be more of these projects produced. There will also continue to be these projects produced on smaller budgets. But imagine if Sampa the Great’s <em>Final Form</em> had a <em>Black is King</em> budget? Would there be criticism of this artist if she incorrectly used a particular African symbol?</p>
<p>Songs like <em>Final Form</em> and <em>Hello Africa</em> are celebrations of Blackness, in global spaces. This Pan Africanism is recognition that African peoples are transnational and multicultural. It is an understanding that African peoples must stand together. It is also a call to understand and respect the differences in our struggles and to resist the temptation of imposing “universal” models of liberation. Pan Africanism is also feminist, anti-homophobic and anti-imperialist. </p>
<p>The importance of African music and hip hop is that it also clues us in on what is going on with Pan Africanism. Pan Africanism is not a movement that faded away or only lives on among a small minority. It is dynamic, and has adjusted to new realities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Msia Kibona Clark does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The increased migration of Africans and the global growth of hip hop culture has seen a dynamic new generation of Pan Africanism emerge.Msia Kibona Clark, Associate professor, Howard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1464902020-09-22T14:50:08Z2020-09-22T14:50:08ZA contested legacy: Julius Nyerere and the 2020 Tanzanian election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358840/original/file-20200918-22-zar446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Julius Nyerere's ideas and legacy remain objects of debate in contemporary politics, especially in an election year.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tanzanians will head to the polls on 28 October in which the incumbent, John Magufuli, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c0repynkl22t/john-magufuli">faces</a> a determined opposition. Elected to a first term in 2015, Magufuli’s time in office has lived up to his nickname <em>tinga tinga</em>, Kiswahili for “the bulldozer”. He has been applauded by some for advancing a series of <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/news/President-Magufuli-out-to-leave-mega-projects-legacy/1840340-4838814-dbnbu0z/index.html">major developmental projects</a>. Others have denounced him for his arguably <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/oct/29/tanzania-president-magufuli-condemned-for-authoritarian-stance">more autocratic, repressive rule</a> </p>
<p>Magufuli leads <a href="https://www.ccmtz.org/history-chama-cha-mapinduzi-party-tanzania/">Chama Cha Mapinduzi</a>, one of the longest serving ruling parties in Africa. It is also the party of Tanzania’s socialist founding father, <a href="https://www.juliusnyerere.org/about">Julius Nyerere</a>, who looms large over the country’s politics more than 20 years after his death.</p>
<p>As the French anthropologist Marie-Aude Fouéré has <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/julius-nyerere-ujamaa-and-political-morality-in-contemporary-tanzania/E3E68E60A9DE29197F82B230E8EA3CEB">noted</a>, Nyerere remains </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a political metaphor for debating and acting upon the present. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Magufuli has repeatedly <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13510347.2020.1779223">played up</a> the similarities between himself and Nyerere. His supporters cite his attacks on corruption among the ruling political class and his enthusiasm for completing infrastructural projects as evidence that he is the <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/news/1840340-5303282-9raarh/index.html">“Nyerere of our time”</a>.</p>
<p>Others are less reverent. They include Tundu Lissu, the presidential candidate for the main opposition party, Chadema. His family was forcibly relocated under Nyerere’s <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-7679.1975.tb00439.x">villagisation scheme</a> of the 1970s. He brands Nyerere an autocrat who built an <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/the-standard-insider/article/2001386054/magufuli-vs-lissu-what-it-takes-to-stop-a-political-bulldozer">“imperial presidency”</a>. </p>
<p>There is ample evidence of the ruling party’s tightening grip on power under Magufuli. In the lead up to the 2020 election, opposition rallies have been <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/magufuli-criticised-as-tanzania-bans-rallies--1351138">blocked</a>. The press has been <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-tanzanias-media-law-muzzles-free-speech/a-54532521">muzzled</a>, and prominent opposition politicians have been violently <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/tanzania-opposition-cries-foul-over-attacks-on-leaders-as-election-looms/a-53764518">attacked</a>. </p>
<p>In August, the Magufuli-controlled National Electoral Commission’s registration of candidates was marked by <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2020/08/26/tanzania-elections-opposition-report-widespread-nomination-interference/">irregularities</a>. Many opposition politicians were disqualified from contesting in October. </p>
<p>Lissu himself only <a href="https://theconversation.com/at-the-edge-of-democracy-what-the-upcoming-general-election-holds-in-store-for-tanzania-144601">returned from exile in July</a> after surviving an assassination attempt in 2017. For him, Magufuli’s brand of authoritarianism has its <a href="https://www.voazimbabwe.com/a/former-tanzania-mp-magufuli-and-nyerere-era/5118744.html">roots</a> in the Nyerere era.</p>
<p>As these contrasting depictions of Nyerere attest, his ideas and legacy remain objects of debate in contemporary politics, especially in an election year.</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2020.1799158?forwardService=showFullText&tokenAccess=T6GPRITEAJQZSX8FQJIP&tokenDomain=eprints&target=10.1080%2F03057070.2020.1799158&doi=10.1080%2F03057070.2020.1799158&doi=10.1080%2F03057070.2020.1799158&doi=10.1080%2F03057070.2020.1799158&journalCode=cjss20">research</a>, I explore the political history of the Nyerere era. I examine his socialist project through the prism of Tanzania’s first and most prestigious national university, the <a href="https://www.udsm.ac.tz/">University of Dar es Salaam</a>.</p>
<p>Charting the rise and fall of leftist student activism at the university throughout the 1970s and 1980s allows us to better understand the aspirations of Nyerere’s socialist project and its ultimate limits and legacy.</p>
<h2>The Arusha Declaration</h2>
<p>African universities were <a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-student-movements-history-sheds-light-on-modern-activism-111003">key</a> to processes of decolonising and developing post-colonial states at independence. The young nations relied on them to produce new professional classes and state bureaucrats. Given their national importance, African presidents were commonly appointed as chancellors. </p>
<p>As both president and chancellor of the university, Nyerere’s idea was that it should produce “servants” committed to building the Tanzanian nation. As he put it, its <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4187669?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">role</a> was not to </p>
<blockquote>
<p>build sky-scrapers here at the university so that a few very fortunate individuals can develop their own minds and live in comfort. We tax the people to build these places only so that young men and women may become efficient servants to them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was partly for this reason that he was deeply <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4187669?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">disappointed</a> by the student protests of late 1966. In October of that year, students marched on the streets of Dar es Salaam against mandatory induction into the government-run National Service scheme. They were expected to spend their first two years after graduation working in nation-building programmes on 40% of their normal stipend. </p>
<p>Worried that the university was producing a generation of self-centred elitists, Nyerere decided to take dramatic measures. All the protesters were expelled from the university. To demonstrate the value of personal sacrifice for the Tanzanian nation, he cut his own salary by 20%.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of these protests, in February 1967, Nyerere released the <a href="http://library.fes.de/fulltext/bibliothek/2-tanzania-s0019634.pdf">Arusha Declaration</a>. This explicitly committed his government to socialist policies, including nationalisation and rural collectivisation. </p>
<p>Soon after, he vowed to transform the university into a socialist institution. The ruling party created a youth wing branch on campus. A general course on the political economy of development was made mandatory for all students.</p>
<p>These reforms and the Arusha Declaration inspired the emergence of a small, but vocal group of leftist students on campus. These notably included the Yoweri Museveni-led University Students’ African Revolutionary Front. It started a student journal, organised public lectures and teach-ins, and raised money for African liberation movements.</p>
<p>But, over time, the government became increasingly concerned by the prominence and independence of these leftist student groups. In the 1970s and 1980s, student politics came to be marked by an unmistakable irony: in the years following the supposed socialist transformation, leftist student activism at the university actually declined.</p>
<p>This is largely because the government exercised increasing control over university activities. Ruling party loyalists were appointed to high-ranking positions in the university administration. Following public displays of student dissent in 1970 and 1978, independent student bodies were dissolved. </p>
<p>Slowly, but surely, the university was brought more squarely under the control of the ruling party.</p>
<h2>Political order over independence</h2>
<p>This approach to public dissent was the rule rather the exception in Nyerere’s Tanzania. Trade unions, rural development collectives and party youth organisations were banned or brought under party control if they displayed too much independence. Faced with increasing <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2011/12/21/tanzania-at-50-does-nyerere-deserve-the-blame-and-praise-for-the-countrys-economic-failure-and-political-success/">economic challenges</a>, Nyerere regularly felt the need to prioritise political order and obedience over desires for mass-driven socialist transformation.</p>
<p>But to label Nyerere as merely an authoritarian, as Lissu suggests, is to gloss over the complexity of his years in power. As chancellor, he distinguished himself from the vast majority of his African counterparts. All too often, he sought to win students over through argument, rather than coercion.</p>
<p>His legitimacy among the student community did not rest on patronage or intimidation. Rather, many were committed to his socialist ideology, which he called <em>ujamaa</em>. It emphasised equality, self-reliance, national unity, and African liberation.</p>
<p>They respected the fact that Nyerere consistently communicated these ideas to them directly. His frequent visits and candid exchanges with students on campus helped maintain his popularity among them.</p>
<p>This legitimacy is reflected in the fact that on the rare occasions when students took to the streets to protest post-1966, it was never against Nyerere’s socialist project. Rather, it was to rail over its perceived betrayal by the political elite.</p>
<p>Examining Nyerere’s legacy through this prism, therefore, complicates characterisations of his domestic legacy as singularly autocratic. It is true that his regime did stifle leftist student activism. But many students believed in and were inspired by his socialist ideals and his sense of political morality.</p>
<p>Nyerere’s legacy still looms large over the country’s politics, and not just within Chama Cha Mapinduzi. The upstart opposition party, Alliance for Change and Transparency has <a href="https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/economic-justice-and-african-socialism-interview-zitto-kabwe">declared</a> its desire to revive and update the Arusha Declaration if elected to power in October. They explicitly <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/zitto-kabwe-chadema-act-julius-nyerere">commit</a> themselves to </p>
<blockquote>
<p>building a socialist society with equality as its basic principle. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The resonance of this message with young Tanzanians suggests Nyerere’s legacy is far more complex than either Magufuli or Lissu recognise.</p>
<p>For all his shortcomings, Nyerere’s ideas continue to inspire Tanzanians fighting for a more equal and democratic future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Melchiorre received funding from International Development Research Council (IDRC) for this project.</span></em></p>For all of the shortcomings of Nyerere’s regime, his ideas continue to inspire Tanzanians fighting for a more equal and democratic future, over 20 years after his death.Luke Melchiorre, Assistant Professor, Political Science, Universidad de los Andes Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1434642020-07-29T10:53:40Z2020-07-29T10:53:40ZTanzania’s Benjamin Mkapa: the peace maker, true East African and Pan-Africanist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349574/original/file-20200727-37-1198ai3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Benjamin Mkapa at the end of his tenure in December 2005.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mwanzo Millinga/AFP via Getty Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The former Tanzanian president Benjamin William Mkapa, who died on July 24, was the country’s third president. He was in office from 1995 to 2005. </p>
<p>Born in 1938 in Masasi south-eastern Tanzania, Mkapa was a staunch supporter of the Tanzania African National Union, which won independence from Britain in 1961 under Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. His star rose steadily under Nyerere’s <a href="https://www.juliusnyerere.org/about">long reign</a> – from 1961 to 1985 – as leader of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Tanzania/Local-government#ref419167">renamed</a> party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi.</p>
<p>In addition to being editor of the party newspaper and establishing the national news agency Shihata, he served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Information and Culture and Science, Technology and Education.</p>
<p>Mkapa was thus an experienced communicator, politician and administrator when he entered the presidency.</p>
<p>Mkapa’s presidency is particularly significant since it represents the first phase of Tanzanian multi-party democracy. It was Nyerere who in 1991 opened debate on a multi-party democratic system for Tanzania. He saw it coming in the wake of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4187014?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents">developments in neighbouring Kenya</a>, where multi-party democracy was promoted at an early stage by church leaders, civil society and the population at large.</p>
<p>His reported response in Kiswahili loosely translates to, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you see your neighbour being shaved, you’re best advised to wet
your beard otherwise you will have a rough shave.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nyerere was a firm supporter of Mkapa and was instrumental in Mkapa’s party nomination to stand for the first multi-party election in 1995.</p>
<p>Mkapa’s government initially faced a gloomy economic position. This was partly based on global economic stagnation. It was also partly due to the previous government’s lack of economic and institutional discipline. His predecessor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ali-Hassan-Mwinyi">Ali Hassan Mwinyi (1985-1995)</a> had lost the trust of the international financial institutions which provided substantial assistance and loans.</p>
<p>The first main challenge for Mkapa was to enhance the discipline in state finances and stabilise the economy. The second was restoring confidence among donors by pursuing western-backed neo-liberal market policies. Having agreed to implement <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4501280?seq=4#metadata_info_tab_contents">proposals</a> endorsed by donors, Mkapa quickly won international trust. </p>
<h2>Growth amid old challenges</h2>
<p>The resumption of external development assistance was not enough to immediately spur the economy. During the 1990s the average annual real per capita GDP <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2005/wp0535.pdf">shrank</a> slightly.</p>
<p>But during his second term it grew markedly. The main drivers included gold and gemstones, tourism and construction. </p>
<p>Mkapa also oversaw a period in which poverty levels <a href="http://www.chronicpoverty.org/uploads/publication_files/WP207%20Mashindano%20Maro.pdf">declined</a>, however slightly. Hunger statistics from 2005 showed that rural people were worse off than those of the urban population. His attention to rural areas, so important for Nyerere, grew only towards the end of his presidency. </p>
<p>However, instead of strengthening village and women land rights which the land laws of 1999 tried to do, he went for a top-down formalisation of individual land rights <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20455012?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">championed</a> by the Peruvian economist deSoto.</p>
<p>Mkapa came to see <a href="https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-126393367/title-deeds-could-unlock-trapped-wealth-millions">“property and business formalisation”</a> as a major priority of his government well aligned to international financiers who supported his government handsomely. </p>
<p>These transitions were unable, for the time being, to challenge village and smallholder production and land management systems. But they did create an opening for future administrations to attract foreign investors pushing large scale mechanised agriculture which demand land (mostly village) but provide limited employment. </p>
<p>Coupled with a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/L2C_WP22_Wangwe-et-al-1.pdf">decline in manufacturing</a>, a <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/can-tanzania-afford-100-million-citizens-in-2035">rapidly growing rural population</a> was left with limited exit options. </p>
<p>Thus, at the end of Mkapa’s term the challenge of a structural transformation of the economy that could redistribute growth and create sustainable production systems that could absorb labour and importantly rural youth, remained unresolved.</p>
<h2>Anti-corruption crusade</h2>
<p>At an early stage, Mkapa sought to enhance the legitimacy of his government both domestically and externally by fighting corruption. His anti-corruption strategy – laid out by the <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/documents/report-on-the-presidential-commission-on-corruption-1996-tanzania/">Warioba Report</a> – started in 1996. </p>
<p>But his crusade didn’t result in significant change. Petty corruption linked to foreign business and investment appeared to decline. But graft linked to household service delivery such as health and water did not. In fact, the <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajps/article/view/27322">evidence</a> is that corruption showed an increase during his second presidential term and beyond.</p>
<p>One area where Mkapa’s term saw important institutional, policy and legal development was the forestry sector. This is saw 8 000 registered villages and community groups managing 70-80 % of the national land on behalf of the state.
Policies such as this opened a space for rural and village involvement. </p>
<p>Thus people could use existing institutions from below for the purpose of managing community and joint forest management for villagers’ own benefits. In a significant way, this was Mkapa trying to instil a democratic and participatory spirit in Tanzania.</p>
<h2>Legacy</h2>
<p>After his presidency Mkapa was much sought after for his spirit of cooperation, participation and peace. He became an important mediator in conflicts across Africa and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235410628_Forty_Days_and_Nights_of_Peacemaking_in_Kenya">including the Kenyan post-election conflict</a> in 2007 and the 2011 referendum in South-Sudan.</p>
<p>The graduate of Makerere and Columbia is rightly <a href="https://africa.cgtn.com/2020/07/24/mkapa-played-pivotal-role-in-ending-kenyas-2008-post-election-chaos-kenyatta/">hailed</a> by Kenyan and others as a peace maker and true East African and Pan Africanist. </p>
<p>For his people in south eastern and coastal Tanzania he will most certainly be remembered as the president who made real their desire for better transport, communication and cooperation in their part of the country. In 2003 the construction of the long awaited bridge – the Mkapa Bridge - across the Rufiji river – was finalised. </p>
<p>For Tanzanians – maybe as a whole – he will also be remembered as a president who continued and secured the path of peace and cooperation between – and for – his peoples. He was 81.</p>
<p><em>Kjell Havnevik and Aida Isinika jointly edited <strong>Tanzania in transition - from Nyerere to Mkapa</strong>. Published in 2010 by the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala and Mkuki na Nyota, Dar es Salaam.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kjell Johannes Havnevik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mkapa’s presidency is particularly significant since it represents the first phase of Tanzanian multi-party democracy.Kjell Johannes Havnevik, Professor Emeritus, University of AgderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1215962019-09-06T09:08:13Z2019-09-06T09:08:13ZRobert Gabriel Mugabe: a man whose list of failures is legion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287334/original/file-20190808-144862-11u42pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Robert Mugabe, former President of Zimbabwe, addressing media in Harare, in July 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Yeshiel Panchia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One wishes one could say “rest in peace”. One can only say, “may there be more peace for Zimbabwe’s people, now that <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/robert-mugabe">Robert Gabriel Mugabe</a> has retired permanently”. Zimbabwe’s former president <a href="https://theconversation.com/robert-mugabe-as-divisive-in-death-as-he-was-in-life-108103">has died</a>, aged 95.</p>
<p>His failures are legion. They might start with the 1980s Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland and the Midlands, with perhaps <a href="https://www.sithatha.com/books">20 000 people killed</a>. Next, too much welfare spending <a href="http://weaverpresszimbabwe.com/reviews/59-becoming-zimbabwe?start=10">in the 1980s</a>. Then crudely implemented <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289336044_The_Economic_Structural_Adjustment_Programme_The_Case_of_Zimbabwe_1990-1995">structural adjustment programmes</a> in the 1990s, laying the ground for angry war veterans and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a strong labour union and civil society based opposition party.</p>
<p>In 1997 Mugabe handed out unbudgeted pensions to the war-vets and promised to really start the “fast track land reform” that got going <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287199114_The_impact_of_land_reform_in_Zimbabwe_on_the_conservation_of_cheetahs_and_other_large_carnivores">in 2000</a>, when the MDC threatened to defeat Zanu (PF) at the polls. That abrogation of property rights started the slide in the Zimbabwean dollar’s value.</p>
<p>From 1998 to 2003 Zimbabwe’s participation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s second war cost US$1 million a day, creating a military cabal used to getting money fast. Speedy money printing presses led to <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/file%20uploads%20/hany_besada_zimbabwe_picking_up_the_piecesbook4you.pdf">unfathomable hyperinflation</a> and the end of Zimbabwe’s sovereign currency, still the albatross around the country’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48757080">neck</a>. </p>
<p>In 2008, the MDC’s electoral victory was reversed with a presidential run-off when at least 170 opposition supporters were murdered. Hundreds more were beaten and <a href="http://archive.kubatana.net/docs/elec/rau_critique_zec_elec_report_090612.pdf">chased from their homes</a>. Even Mugabe’s regional support base could not stand for that, so he was forced to accept a <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2013/07/15/review-the-hard-road-to-reform-the-politics-of-zimbabwes-global-political-agreement-reviewed-by-timothy-scarnecchia/">transitional inclusive government</a> with the MDC.</p>
<p>Over the next decade, Mugabe was unable to stop his party’s increasing faction fighting. His years of playing one group off against the other to favour himself <a href="https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f05aec20-6d98-425a-8d82-56688ea93246/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=State%2Bintelligence%2Band%2Bthe%2Bpolitics%2Bof%2BZimbabwe%2527s%2Bpresidential%2Bsuccession.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article">finally wore too thin</a>. When in early November 2017, at his wife Grace’s instigation, he fired his long-time lapdog Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the generals with whom he’d colluded for decades turned on him. A <em>coup petit</em> ensued and returned Mnangagwa from exile, soon to be elevated to the presidency and heavily indebted to his comrades.</p>
<p>Where did Mugabe gain his proclivity for factionalism? And how did he learn to speak the language all wanted to hear – only to make them realise they had been deluded in the end? </p>
<h2>The beginning</h2>
<p>Mugabe and many other Zimbabwean nationalists were jailed in 1964. Ian Smith was preparing for the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, and the first nationalist party had split into Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union and Ndabaningi Sithole’s Zanu. Mugabe had been Nkomo’s Publicity Secretary. </p>
<p>As far back as 1962, Mugabe was registering on the global scales: Salisbury’s resident British diplomat <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9781137543448#aboutAuthors">thought Mugabe was</a> “a sinister figure” heading up a youthful “Zimbabwean Liberation Army … the more extreme wing of Zapu”. </p>
<p>But almost as soon as Mugabe was imprisoned, a man in her majesty’s employ travelled down from his advisory post in newly free Zambia to visit the prisoner. Dennis Grennan returned to Lusaka having <a href="http://archive.kubatana.net/html/archive/opin/080120dm.asp?sector=OPIN&year=2008&range_start=571">promised</a> to look after Mugabe’s wife Sarah, known as “Sally”. Grennan and people like Julius Nyerere’s British friend and assistant <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3518465.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4d7659d7e9f1b2a3dd3124c9a249a47c">Joan Wicken</a> played an important role in Mugabe’s rise. </p>
<p>The Zimbabwean nationalists emerged from Salisbury’s prisons late in 1974, as Portugal’s coup led to Angola and Mozambique emerging from colonialism into the Soviet orbit. The fifties generation of Zimbabwean nationalists were to participate in the Zambian and South African inspired détente <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1975/03/25/archives/mr-vorsters-detente.html">exercise</a>. This inspired much competition for Zanu’s leadership: Mugabe arrived in Lusaka after ousting Ndabaningi Sithole, Zanu’s first leader. </p>
<p>Samora Machel, freshly in Mozambique’s top office, wondered if Mugabe’s quick rise was due to a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40201256.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A1d1f7a14b762adff6a6007321af29132">“coup in prison”</a>. Herbert Chitepo’s March 1975 <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3557400.pdf">assassination </a> (which got many of Zanu’s leaders arrested and its army kicked out of Zambia) was only one marker of the many fissures in the fractious party that by 1980 would rule Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>In late 1975 the <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/Vashandi_"><em>vashandi</em></a> group emerged within the Zimbabwean People’s Army. Based in Mozambique’s guerrilla camps, they tried to forge unity between Zimbabwe’s two main nationalist armies and push a left-wing agenda. They were profoundly unsure of Mugabe’s suitability for <a href="https://nehandaradio.com/2016/08/08/heroes-day-review-dzino-memories-freedom-fighter/">leadership</a>.</p>
<p>When Mugabe found his way to Mozambique also in late 1975, Machel put him under house arrest in Quelimane, far from the guerrilla camps. In January Grennan helped him to London to visit a hospitalised Sally. He made contacts around Europe and with a few <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03057078008708020">London-based Maoists</a>.</p>
<p>Soon after Mugabe’s return the young American congressman Stephen Solarz and the Deputy Head of the American embassy in Maputo, Johnnie Carson, wended their way to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2014.956499">Quelimane</a>. Mugabe wowed them.</p>
<p>Solarz and Carson reported back that Mugabe was “an impressive, articulate and extremely confident individual” with a “philosophical approach to problems and … well reasoned arguments”. He claimed to control the “people’s army”. Yet by January 1977, he persuaded Samora Machel to imprison the young advocates of unity with Zapu. His many reasons included their initial refusal to support him at a late 1976 conference in Geneva organised by the British, helped immeasurably by Henry Kissinger, the American Secretary of State. </p>
<p>At a hastily called congress in March 1977 to consecrate his ascension, Mugabe uttered his leitmotif: those appearing to attempt a change to the party’s leadership by “maliciously planting contradictions within our ranks” would be struck by the <a href="http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuzn197707">“the Zanu axe”</a>.</p>
<p>This was Mugabe’s strategy, embedded at an early stage: tell foreign emissaries what they wanted to hear, use young radicals (or older allies) until their usefulness subsided, and then get rid of them. All the while he would balance the other forces contending for power in the party amid a general climate of fear, distrust, and paranoia. </p>
<h2>Dealing with dissent</h2>
<p>It is not certain if Margaret Thatcher knew about this side of Mugabe when they met less than a month after his April 1980 inauguration. He seemed most worried about how Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu – which he had dumped from the erstwhile “Patriotic Front”, and the violence against which had put Zimbabwe’s election in some doubt – was making life difficult for the new rulers. He <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2016.1214116">warned</a> that he might have “to act against them soon”.</p>
<p>In as much as Zapu was linked with the South African ANC and Thatcher and her colleagues tended to think the ANC was controlled by the South African Communist Party, Zapu intelligence chief <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tribute-to-zimbabwean-liberation-hero-dumiso-dabengwa-117986">Dumiso Dabengwa’s</a> perspective might be more than conspiracy theory. Perhaps Thatcher’s wink and nudge was a green light for the anti-Soviet contingent to eliminate a regional threat. Gukurahundi <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2017.1309561">followed</a>. It was certainly the biggest blot on Mugabe’s career and created the biggest scar over Zimbabwe. The scar is still there, given the lack of any effort at reconcialitation, truth, or justice.</p>
<p>Four years later the ruling party’s first real congress since 1963 reviewed its history. Mugabe tore the Zipa/Vashandi group that had annoyed him eight years before to shreds. “Treacherous … counter-revolutionary … arms caching … dubbed us all <em>zvigananda</em> or bourgeois”. Thus it “became imperative for us to firmly act against them in defending the Party and the Revolution… We had all the trouble-makers detained”. </p>
<p>The great helmsman recounted the youthful dissenters’ arrest and repeated the axe phraseology. </p>
<p>But few saw these sides of Mugabe’s character soon enough; those who did were summarily shut up. </p>
<h2>The end</h2>
<p>After he’d been ousted, Mugabe could only look on in seeming despair over the ruination he had created. Sanctimonious as ever he wondered how his successor, current President Emmerson Mnangagwa, had become such an ogre. At his 95th birthday, February 21 2019, a few weeks after Mnangagwa’s troops had killed 17 demonstrators, raped as many women, and beaten hundreds more in the wake of his beleaguered finance minister’s methods to create <a href="https://theconversation.com/fantasy-that-mnangagwa-would-fix-zimbabwe-now-fully-exposed-110197">“prosperity from austerity”</a>, Mugabe <a href="https://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-156949.html">mused to his absent successor</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We condemn the violence on civilians by soldiers … You can’t do without seeing dead bodies? What kind of a person are you? You feed on death? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He only had to look into his own history to see what kind of people he helped create.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David B. Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Robert Mugabe’s years of playing one group off against the other to favour himself finally wore too thin in 2017.David B. Moore, Professor of Development Studies, University of Johannesburg, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1081032019-09-06T05:39:36Z2019-09-06T05:39:36ZRobert Mugabe: as divisive in death as he was in life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291235/original/file-20190906-175663-u64qs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Robert Mugabe during his swearing-in ceremony in Harare, 2008. The former Zimbabwean president has died aged 95.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Robert Mugabe, the former president of Zimbabwe, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/06/377714687/robert-mugabe-veteran-president-of-zimbabwe-dead-at-95">has died</a>. Mugabe was 95, and had been struggling with ill health for some time. The country’s current President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced Mugabe’s death on Twitter on September 6:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1169839308406054912"}"></div></p>
<p>The responses to Mnangagwa’s announcement were immediate and widely varied. Some hailed Mugabe as a liberation hero. Others dismissed him as a “monster”. This suggests that Mugabe will be as divisive a figure in death as he was in life.</p>
<p>The official mantra of the Zimbabwe government and its Zimbabwe African National Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) will emphasise his leadership of the struggle to overthrow <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ian-Smith">Ian Smith’s</a> racist settler regime in what was then Rhodesia. It will also extol his subsequent championing of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00358530500082916">seizure of white-owned farms</a> and the return of land into African hands.</p>
<p>In contrast, critics will highlight how – after initially <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hd4n.7?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">preaching racial reconciliation</a> after the liberation war in <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Rhodesian_Bush_War">December 1979 </a> – Mugabe threw away the promise of the early independence years. He did this in several ways, among them a <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zi-tWekXbD8C&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22the+early+rain+which+washes+away+the+chaff+before+the+spring+rains%22&source=bl&ots=dWX2SIUj7r&sig=0aDLpmmQfN93e_RNJuKcBmGGEYI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioi-joj6LWAhWE7hoKHRF_C7wQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20early%20rain%20which%20washes%20away%20the%20chaff%20before%20the%20spring%20rains%22&f=false">brutal clampdown</a> on political opposition in <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zi-tWekXbD8C&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22the+early+rain+which+washes+away+the+chaff+before+the+spring+rains%22&source=bl&ots=dWX2SIUj7r&sig=0aDLpmmQfN93e_RNJuKcBmGGEYI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioi-joj6LWAhWE7hoKHRF_C7wQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20early%20rain%20which%20washes%20away%20the%20chaff%20before%20the%20spring%20rains%22&f=false">Matabeleland in the 1980s</a>, and Zanu-PF’s systematic <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-are-elections-really-rigged-mr-trump-consult-robert-mugabe-68440">rigging of elections</a> to keep he and his cronies in power. </p>
<p>They’ll also mention the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321704136_The_Curse_Of_Corruption_In_Zimbabwe">massive corruption</a> over which he presided, and the <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/publication/costs-and-causes-zimbabwes-crisis">economy’s disastrous downward plunge</a> during his presidency.</p>
<p>Inevitably, the focus will primarily be on his domestic record. Yet many of those who will sing his praises as a <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201709220815.html">hero of African nationalism</a> will be from elsewhere on the continent. So where should we place Mugabe among the pantheon of African nationalists who led their countries to independence?</p>
<h2>Slide into despotism</h2>
<p>Most African countries have been independent of colonial rule for <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/august-2010/weighing-half-century-independence">half a century or more</a>.</p>
<p>The early African nationalist leaders were often regarded as gods at independence. Yet they very quickly came to be perceived as having feet of very heavy clay.</p>
<p>Nationalist leaders symbolised African freedom and liberation. But few were to prove genuinely tolerant of democracy and diversity. One party rule, nominally in the name of “the people”, became widespread. In some cases, it was linked to interesting experiments in one-party democracy, as seen in Tanzania under Julius Nyerere and Zambia under Kenneth Kaunda. </p>
<p>Even in these cases, intolerance and authoritarianism <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/doorenspleet/opd/">eventually encroached</a>.
Often, party rule was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/159875?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">succeeded by military coups</a>.</p>
<p>In Zimbabwe’s case, Mugabe proved unable to shift the country, as he had wished, to one-partyism. However, this did not prevent Zanu-PF becoming increasingly intolerant over the years in response to both economic crisis and rising opposition. Successive elections were shamelessly perverted. </p>
<p>When, despite this, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2012-08-10-00-zim-2008-election-taken-by-a-gun-not-a-pen">Zanu-PF lost control of parliament</a> in 2008, it responded by rigging the presidential election in a campaign of unforgivable brutality. Under Mugabe, the potential for democracy was snuffed out by a brutal despotism.</p>
<h2>A wasted inheritance</h2>
<p>Whether the economic policies they pursued were ostensibly capitalist or socialist, the early African nationalist leaders presided over <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/poldev/78">rapid economic decline</a>, following an initial period of relative prosperity after independence. </p>
<p>In retrospect, it’s widely recognised that the challenges they faced were immense. Most post-colonial economies were underdeveloped and depended upon the export of a small number of agricultural or mineral commodities. From the 1970s, growth was crowded out by the International Monetary Fund demanding that mounting debts be surmounted through the pursuit of <a href="https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/glossary/structural-adjustment/">structural adjustment programmes</a>. This hindered spending on infrastructure as well as <a href="http://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-of-poverty">social services and education</a> and swelled political discontent.</p>
<p>In contrast, Mugabe inherited a viable, relatively broad-based economy that included substantial industrial and prosperous commercial agricultural sectors. Even though these were largely white controlled, there was far greater potential for development than in most other post-colonial African countries. </p>
<p>But, through massive corruption and mismanagement, his government threw that potential away. He also presided over a disastrous downward spiral of the economy, which saw both industry and <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/a-seized-zimbabwe-farm-is-returned-but-uncertainty-reigns-20180301">commercial agriculture collapse</a>. The economy has never recovered and remains in a state of acute and persistent crisis today.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-economy-is-collapsing-why-mnangagwa-doesnt-have-the-answers-104960">Zimbabwe's economy is collapsing: why Mnangagwa doesn't have the answers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Reputation</h2>
<p>On the political front, the rule of some leaders – like <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/milton-obotes-lasting-legacy-to-uganda/a-19191275">Milton Obote in Uganda</a> and <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/somalia-fall-of-siad-barre-civil-war/">Siad Barre in Somalia</a> – created so much conflict that coups and crises drove their countries into civil war. Zimbabwe under Mugabe was spared this fate – but perhaps only because the political opposition in Matabeleland in the 1980s was so brutalised after up to <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-policy-towards-zimbabwe-during-matabeleland-massacre-licence-to-kill-81574">30 000 people were killed</a>, that they shrank from more conflict. Peace, then, was merely the absence of outright war.</p>
<p>Some leaders, notably Ghana’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kwame-Nkrumah">Kwame Nkrumah</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/former-tanzanian-president-julius-nyerere-dies">Julius Nyerere</a> in Tanzania, are still revered for their commitments to national independence and African unity. This is despite the fact that, domestically, their records were marked by failure. By 1966, when Nkrumah was <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2018/2/23/february-24-1966-dr-kwame-nkrumah-overthrown-as-president-of-the-republic-of-ghana">displaced by a military coup</a>, his one-party rule had become politically corrupt and repressive. </p>
<p>Despite this, Nyerere always retained his reputation for personal integrity and commitment to African development. Both Nkrumah’s and Nyerere’s ideas continue to inspire younger generations of political activists, while other post-independence leaders’ names are largely forgotten.</p>
<p>Will Mugabe be similarly feted by later generations? Will the enormous flaws of his rule be forgotten amid celebrations of his unique role in the liberation of southern Africa as a whole? </p>
<h2>A Greek tragedy</h2>
<p>The problem for pan-Africanist historians who rush to praise Mugabe is that they will need to repudiate the contrary view of the millions of Zimbabweans who have suffered under his rule or have fled the country to escape it. He contributed no political ideas that have lasted. He inherited the benefits as well as the costs of settler rule but reduced his country to penury. He destroyed the best of its institutional inheritance, notably an efficient civil service, which could have been put to good use for all.</p>
<p>The cynics would say that the reputation of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/patrice-emery-lumumba">Patrice Lumumba</a>, as an African revolutionary and fighter for Congolese unity has lasted because he was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/17/patrice-lumumba-50th-anniversary-assassination">assassinated in 1961</a>. In other words, he had the historical good fortune to die young, without the burden of having made major and grievous mistakes.</p>
<p>In contrast, there are many who would say that Mugabe simply lived too long, and his life was one of Greek tragedy: his early promise and virtue marked him out as popular hero, but he died a monster whom history will condemn.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall receives funding from the National Research Foundation </span></em></p>Where should we place Mugabe among the pantheon of African nationalists who led their countries to independence?Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1205072019-07-18T10:25:37Z2019-07-18T10:25:37ZArchive documents reveal the US and UK’s role in the dying days of apartheid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284693/original/file-20190718-116552-s0eiey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Newly elected South African president Nelson Mandela and deputy president Frederik De Klerk in May 1994.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is a quarter of a century since the end of apartheid in South Africa. But it’s easy to forget how complex, difficult and violent the birth of full democracy really was. This was particularly true in KwaZulu-Natal, where battles between the African National Congress (ANC) and the mainly Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) <a href="https://csvr.org.za/docs/policeviolence/justicedenied.pdf">claimed the lives of as many as 20,000</a> in the decade between 1984 and 1994. </p>
<p>In the three months before the first elections in April 1994 an estimated 1 000 people <a href="https://csvr.org.za/docs/policeviolence/justicedenied.pdf">were killed</a>. The British and Americans were becoming increasingly concerned. The conflict between Inkatha and the ANC was just one crisis: another was developing with far right white extremists, who were threatening to resort to violence.</p>
<p>The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported that there was an:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>eight in 10 chance that violence will surge immediately before and during the election, when emotions are at their highest.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The agency also warned of the threat of a right wing coup, although it considered this “unlikely”. (This CIA report is available in hard copy only.)</p>
<p>As the situation grew increasingly tense, Britain’s Prime Minister John Major and the US’s President Bill Clinton became personally involved. Their interventions are shown in documents just released by <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/">the UK National Archives</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284690/original/file-20190718-116539-n8y2tv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284690/original/file-20190718-116539-n8y2tv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284690/original/file-20190718-116539-n8y2tv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284690/original/file-20190718-116539-n8y2tv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284690/original/file-20190718-116539-n8y2tv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284690/original/file-20190718-116539-n8y2tv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284690/original/file-20190718-116539-n8y2tv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cover page of the CIA document.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The documents reveal just what a close-run thing the first truly democratic election was, and how much time and effort Britain and the USA spent ensuring that the voting went ahead. </p>
<h2>Desperate times</h2>
<p>Prime Minister Major took a phone call from Nelson Mandela on 22 February, in which the ANC leader described the situation as “very difficult.” Major briefed Mandela on a meeting between the British ambassador and the Inkatha leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi. He gave Mandela a full account of the conversation, which he warmly welcomed. </p>
<p>On 24 February there is the first indication of a joint Anglo-American mediation effort to resolve the crisis. This <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/15736.htm">arose</a> during planning for a visit to Washington by Major three days later.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our starting point is that the situation has now deteriorated to the point where it seems very unlikely that left to themselves the South Africans will reach an agreement that will enable to participate in the elections. The consequences are likely to be very serious. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The British suggested that Major and Clinton might “offer their joint help to the transition process”.</p>
<p>The following day – having held discussions with Mandela, Buthelezi and President Frederik de Klerk – the British ambassador in Pretoria, Sir Anthony Reeve, was able to report that all three were prepared to go along with the Anglo-American initiative, although with some reservations. The ambassador concluded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These responses do, I think, give us the green light to consult the Americans in detail on our thinking.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The proposal was discussed between Mandela and Buthelezi at a meeting on March 1 and both leaders agreed to “explore” the possibility of international mediation. Lord Carrington, who had negotiated the end of Rhodesia and its transition to Zimbabwe in 1980, was on a lecture tour of South Africa. He was approached by the ANC’s Thabo Mbeki who asked whether he might act as one of a panel of mediators. </p>
<p>Others suggested were US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Tanzanian head of state Julius Nyerere. </p>
<p>There followed intensive discussions between London and Washington, over how such mediation might work; indeed, Carrington and Kissinger travelled to South Africa. In the end a failure to agree on the terms of reference for the mediators, and South African government fears that the elections might be delayed, put paid to the plan. </p>
<p>It has been claimed the crisis – the most immediate was that Buthelezi was threatening to boycott the poll – was resolved by surprising last minute mediation by Kenyan Professor, <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000222622/renowned-kenyan-scholar-washington-jalang-o-okumu-is-dead">Washington Okumu</a>. Other Commonwealth envoys who had excellent contacts with both the ANC leadership and Buthelezi, including the late Ghanaian diplomat Moses Anafu, doubt this, arguing that forces that led Buthelezi into the election were much bigger.</p>
<p>Indeed, Buthelezi’s brinkmanship had ensured key constitutional concessions. Okumu’s intervention seems then a face-saving device for the IFP leader. A joint statement was agreed between Mandela, Buthelezi and de Klerk on 19 April, which <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Govern_Political/ANC_18598.html">allowed the election to take place</a> just a week later (April 26-28).</p>
<h2>Close-run thing</h2>
<p>It had been a close-run thing and South Africa’s first truly democratic election almost came to grief. But there were two more potential obstacles. </p>
<p>In the tense run-up to polling day, a <a href="http://hurisa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Goldstone-Booklet.pdf">report</a> on the role of the apartheid state in stoking internal tension and violence was published. The Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation, led by Justice Richard Goldstone had been established in 1991: its report was published on 21 April 1994. Judge Goldstone’s investigations revealed that sections of the South African Police had armed Inkatha, and pointed to attempts by senior police officers to <a href="http://sabctrc.saha.org.za/reports/volume2/chapter7/subsection2.htm">subvert the work of his enquiry</a>.</p>
<p>The charges were explosive and for a while the judge and his family were clearly at risk from white extremists. With de Klerk’s support and the knowledge of Mandela, Goldstone, his wife and a “key witness” (a former South African police officer) asked whether they might come to Britain. John Major agreed, and they were given temporary asylum and a safe house.</p>
<p>The second obstacle was the South African government’s clandestine chemical and biological weapons programme, known as <a href="http://www.unidir.org/files/publications/pdfs/project-coast-apartheid-s-chemical-and-biological-warfare-programme-296.pdf">“Project Coast.”</a> The British Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, contacted Washington about the possibility of issuing a formal public protest unless President de Klerk publicly admitted his government’s involvement in the use of these weapons against ANC and Namibian prisoners. </p>
<p>The British had apparently intervened to prevent the <a href="https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CSDS/Books/therollbackofsoafricachembio2.pdf">proliferation</a> of these weapons to other rogue states or terrorist groups. On April 11 the US and British ambassadors delivered their protest to President de Klerk – which apparently did the trick. There was an agreement that all the chemical and biological systems would be destroyed and one of the key South African experts, Wouter Basson, who had travelled to Libya on several occasions, was <a href="https://trialinternational.org/latest-post/wouter-basson/">subsequently prosecuted</a>.</p>
<h2>Political triumph</h2>
<p>The April 1994 election proved to be a watershed for South Africa. In technical terms, the election was a fiasco, but it was a political triumph, according to the Commonwealth’s leading election official, <a href="https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/6121/1/Carl_Dundas_Transcript.pdf">Carl Dundass</a>. Inkatha’s surprising victory in Natal-KwaZulu strongly suggest Natal “horsetrading” involved overturning an actual ANC victory to manage anticipated post-election violence.</p>
<p>Despite all the violence, tension and drama the election ended apartheid and allowed Major to phone Mandela with his congratulations – a highly satisfactory conclusion to an intense period of international diplomacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sue Onslow is Deputy Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Plaut is affiliated with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London</span></em></p>The April 1994 election proved to be a watershed for South Africa.Sue Onslow, Reader, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of LondonMartin Plaut, Senior Research Fellow, Horn of Africa and Southern Africa, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/925972018-03-12T14:57:23Z2018-03-12T14:57:23ZSurvey of young people in east Africa shows their values mirror those of adults<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209681/original/file-20180309-30975-1wi2rvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Young people are the mirror image of the adult world around them.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With an estimated median age of about 17 years, East Africa is one of the youngest regions in the world. By <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/22036">comparison</a>, the median is about 40 in Europe, 38 in North America and 29 in Asia. According recent national census data for Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda, about 80% of the population is below 35 years. </p>
<p>The identities, norms and values of this majority generation provide important clues for understanding the future; the world’s collective moral and ethical character. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://data.eadialogueseries.org/">study</a> commissioned by the East Africa Institute of the Aga Khan University, 7,000 18 to 35-year-olds in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda were interviewed between 2014 and 2015. The object was to understand how they thought about themselves and what values and attitudes they held. </p>
<p>About 40% of the respondents saw themselves first and foremost as young people while 34% saw themselves first as citizens of their countries. Only 11% identified themselves by their faith first and 6% identified as members of their family first. Only 3.5% reported their tribe or ethnicity as the first dimension of their identity.</p>
<p>Identifying as young people is consistent with policy and legal categorisations that establish them as a socially distinct category. This distinct identity enhances a sense of esprit de corps and a sense of belonging. This in turn confers a sense of social entitlement as well as shared grievance. </p>
<p>The findings suggest that young people’s identities, values, norms and attitudes are shaped by their families, their communities and by wider society. Our findings are consistent with previous work by sociologists and behavioural and moral economists. </p>
<p>Young people are the mirror image of the adult world around them. This means that any if countries want to change the attitudes and values of young people they need to start the adults – from the family to community to the national level. </p>
<h2>Country differences</h2>
<p>While the study revealed numerous parallels, there were also striking differences. In Kenya for example, the proportion of young people who identified by ethnicity was 4% between ages 18 and 20. But the number nearly doubled to 7.8% between the ages of 21 and 35. The converse was true in Tanzania where ethnicity as a dimension of identity had remained relatively stable (2.3% and 2.9%) from between the ages of 21 and 35 years. </p>
<p>This can be partly explained by the fact that since independence Tanzania, unlike Kenya, has focused on reducing the issue of ethnic identity. Tanzania’s ruling party elite has consistently <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/nyerere-nationalism-and-pan-africanism">supported the ethos of Ujamaa</a> - equitable economic production and distribution of public resources to drive social cohesion and economic progress.</p>
<p>About 80% of the young people involved in the survey valued faith first. About half valued work and family first while 37% valued wealth first and a quarter freedom first. </p>
<p>But about 60% admired those who used get-rich-quick schemes. And more than half believed it didn’t matter how one makes money while 53% said they would do anything to get money. The survey found 37% would take or give a bribe and 35% believed there is nothing wrong with corruption. </p>
<p>An outliner was Rwanda where most said they wouldn’t take or give a bribe and were unambiguous about the fact that corruption was wrong.</p>
<p>From the survey results it’s clear that corruption has been normalised in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Bribery is viewed simply as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Its-Our-Turn-Eat-Whistle-Blower/dp/0061346594">“eating”</a> and isn’t seen as an ethical aberration. </p>
<h2>How society affects attitudes</h2>
<p>The view of young Rwandans is clearly affected by what they experience on a day to day basis. For example, there were <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/rwanda-fires-200-police-officers-accused-of-corruption-20170206">reports</a> of policemen accused of corruption being fired in 2017 while reports of civilians accused of bribing policemen arrested are not uncommon. In addition, the Ombudsman <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/rwanda/News/Rwanda-names-corruption-offenders/1433218-3935184-fcmd05z/index.html">regularly publishes</a> the list of individuals convicted of corruption related offences.</p>
<p>It is possible therefore that young Rwandans engage in a cost benefit analysis. This could inform the ultimate decision about taking or giving a bribe or a belief that there was nothing wrong with corruption.</p>
<p>Rwanda’s example offers hope. It demonstrates the importance strong leadership and an unequivocal commitment to integrity and public accountability in shaping the attitudes and perceptions of youth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Awiti is the Director of the East Africa Institute of Aga Khan University and has received funding from IDRC, Aga Khan Foundation and Ford Foundation</span></em></p>Some young East Africans believe that there is nothing wrong with corruption – except in Rwanda.Alex Awiti, Director, East African Institute, Ecosystems Ecologist and sustainable development, Aga Khan University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/896662018-02-20T11:20:01Z2018-02-20T11:20:01ZJoining the dots: why education is key to preserving the planet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205912/original/file-20180212-58335-1nlhnl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Education empowers young people like Sarah Nasira, a Kenyan pupil leading a class.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Thomas Mukoya</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The evidence is clear: education changes lives, in ways that are often not fully understood.</p>
<p>For instance, quality education can help you live a longer, healthier life. This is because education equips you to approach health on a rational, informed basis stripped of superstition. Your own education can benefit others’ health, too: research from Malawi has showed that having educated people as close neighbours enhances your health. </p>
<p>Evidence from Indonesia, meanwhile, points to education being <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4144011/">a particularly strong predictor</a> of who survived the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. Cuba copes with hurricanes far better than Haiti in part because <a href="https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol18/iss3/art31/">its citizens are more educated</a>. </p>
<p>Wolfgang Lutz and Reiner Klingholz recently completed a book, in German, on education’s role in resolving pressing current problems of inequality and sustainability, drawing extensively from history and recent scientific research. In 2017 it was translated into English with the title <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=IC0zDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false"><em>Education First! From Martin Luther to Sustainable Development</em></a>. </p>
<p>Lutz is a <a href="http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/researchPrograms/WorldPopulation/Staff/Wolfgang-Lutz.en.html">world authority</a> on population trends and climate change. Klingholz is a biologist and demographer. The pair worked on the book in South Africa, while based at the <a href="http://stias.ac.za/">Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study</a> in 2015.</p>
<h2>Education as a driver of history</h2>
<p>Lutz and Klingholz explore how mass literacy became a revolution that changed the course of Europe’s and, via colonialism, the world’s history.</p>
<p>Up to around 500 years ago, a defining feature of world inequality was that in those parts of the world where writing existed only around 1% had access to the schooling and texts that made literacy possible. Virtually all of this tiny minority were men. In Europe, the Muslim world and China, 99% of people were illiterate. </p>
<p>Martin Luther, in rebelling against Europe’s Catholic order, insisted that literacy should be universal. It was a view which would have appeared fanatical at a time when no one – probably including Luther – imagined just how much economic benefit would flow from literacy and education more broadly.</p>
<p>The impact of the Reformation on literacy was not immediate, but the genie had been let out of the bottle. By 1800 around half of Protestant Europe was literate. By 1900 literacy was near universal. Japan, eager to modernise, replicated many aspects of the German education system, starting in the 1870s. </p>
<p>Britain’s and, much later, Japan’s empires proved efficient in their brutality largely thanks to an exceptionally educated population at home. The rise of the United States can be attributed to the fact that this champion of private enterprise also pioneered the mass public funding of secondary schooling. </p>
<p>It is argued that Germany became susceptible to the lies of the tiny Nazi party because its secondary schooling had fallen behind its counterparts across the world. </p>
<h2>Enablers and disenablers</h2>
<p>Modern technologies are undoubtedly education enablers. Their absence has also played a big role in how education has – or hasn’t – evolved. One sobering case of technology suppression happened in 1485 when the Ottoman sultan <a href="http://opencommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1256&context=econ_wpapers">imposed a ban on printing</a>. It lasted for two centuries, throttling the technology that Luther’s revolution relied on. This partly explains why the Islamic Golden Age, with its scientists and thinkers, was unable to evolve into a mass education movement.</p>
<p>Communism, for all its failings on the economic policy front, was generally an excellent promoter of education. Inspired by Marx, himself originally a first-generation Lutheran, Mao laid the foundations for mass quality schooling in China, which made an astounding economic takeoff possible several decades later. </p>
<p>Julius Nyerere and Robert Mugabe were in some respects similar education pioneers in Africa.</p>
<p>Education already serves as a bulwark against existential threats. It helps communities to understand each other, weakens rampant nationalism, assists in population control and widens the talent pool from which innovation must come. But parts of the world need much more of it. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205665/original/file-20180209-51703-1in2425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205665/original/file-20180209-51703-1in2425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205665/original/file-20180209-51703-1in2425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205665/original/file-20180209-51703-1in2425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205665/original/file-20180209-51703-1in2425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205665/original/file-20180209-51703-1in2425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205665/original/file-20180209-51703-1in2425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205665/original/file-20180209-51703-1in2425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.africansunmedia.co.za/Sun-e-Shop/Product-Details/tabid/78/ProductID/485/Default.aspx">African Sun Media</a></span>
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<h2>Africa’s story</h2>
<p>Africa has made important strides: today around 80% of African children attend primary school and around 50% secondary schooling. But some countries are doing much better than others. Take Nigeria, for example. The oil-rich country should be an education leader in Africa, but is in fact a laggard. African countries with far worse resource endowments have performed much better educationally. </p>
<p>At the other end of the spectrum is Mauritius, which took a decision to massify quality education in the 1960s. The impact is still being felt today. It stands out as the only African country (other than tiny Seychelles) to have <a href="http://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/9gchp/parallel-session-16-anil-gayan-eng.pdf">virtually eradicated poverty</a>. </p>
<p>The island’s post-independence leadership in the 1960s was neither communist nor Lutheran. It simply understood the value of education.</p>
<p>Ethiopia, the only non-Muslim sub-Saharan African country with a long history of literacy – albeit limited to a tiny minority – benefited from good leaders in the 1980s. They refused to follow instructions from the International Monetary Fund to cut education funding. This stubbornness, also seen in Ghana and Mozambique, bore fruits in the form of Ethiopia’s recent economic growth, and reduced fertility rates. In Addis Ababa they are as low as in Switzerland. Nigeria, which essentially gave in to the IMF, has paid a high price for this.</p>
<p>Elite capture in places such as Malawi have held education back. 68% of public spending on education goes to the richest 10% of the population, partially because spending is heavily skewed towards one university.</p>
<h2>The role of foreign donors</h2>
<p>International development funding debates display a short-sighted lack of appreciation for education’s long-term benefits. The evidence suggests that a significant portion of the funding being made available for climate change adaptation is best spent on education. </p>
<p>UNESCO’s estimate of the annual cost of plugging the financing gap to bring schooling, up to the lower secondary level, to all the world’s children equals less than 1% of what the United States spent on its war in Iraq, or a tenth of what Qatar has committed to the 2022 World Cup.</p>
<p>The world moves fast. In the three years since the book was first published in German, much has changed. Then, US participation in global climate agreements still seemed assured. Now its English title can clearly be read as a sideswipe at the Trump administration and its insistence on “America First”. One wonders how the authors would have dealt with a newly emerging risk: a tragic mix of a high level of education, as in the US, with an <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/populism-and-polarisation-threaten-science-nobel-laureates-say">anti-science populism</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89666/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Gustafsson works for Stellenbosch University. He receives funding from the South African government (Department of Basic Education), Stellenbosch University, and UNICEF, amongst others, in the course of his work. He is affiliated with Research on Socio-Economic Policy (ReSEP), based at Stellenbosch University. </span></em></p>Authors Lutz and Klingholz explore how mass literacy became a revolution that changed the world.Martin Gustafsson, Education economist, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/799482017-07-03T14:53:47Z2017-07-03T14:53:47ZWhy Malawi and Tanzania should stick to mediation to settle lake boundary dispute<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176051/original/file-20170628-7299-69ewqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A fisherman prepares his boat on Lake Malawi about 100 kilometres east of the capital Lilongwe.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tensions about rights to the lake that lies between Tanzania and Malawi have been brought to boiling point yet again. Known to Tanzanians as Lake Nyasa but as Lake Malawi to those across the border, the lake is at the centre of a <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201209150192.html">boundary dispute</a> that has simmered for decades. In the latest exchanges, the foreign minister of Malawi has threatened to <a href="http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-africa-byo-110592.html">escalate</a> the dispute to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. </p>
<p>The Malawi–Tanzania dispute is a quintessential African boundary dispute with its origins mired in colonial history.</p>
<p>Malawi’s position is that the boundary simply follows the shoreline of the lake as established in clear terms by the 1890 <a href="http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=782">Anglo-German Treaty</a>. Malawi says its position is also backed by the 1964 <a href="https://www.au.int/web/sites/default/files/decisions/9514-1964_ahg_res_1-24_i_e.pdf">Cairo Resolution</a> to freeze African territories along the borders inherited at independence from colonial powers to cement African unity. The international court itself upheld this view in the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oZKzCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=1964+OAU+%5BCairo+Resolution%5D+significance+for+boundaries&source=bl&ots=hxyUqnkY0v&sig=9UddfsbKj44qURv6eixQYsVOl5M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs9Lbl8uLUAhWqI8AKHQ9aBmIQ6AEIRjAF#v=onepage&q=1964%20OAU%20%5BCairo%20Resolution%5D%20significance%20for%20boundaries&f=false">Frontier Dispute case</a> between Burkina Faso and Mali. </p>
<p>Tanzania disagrees and relies on the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EG4IPBW-23EC&pg=PA145&dq=median+line+as+boundary+in+international+waters&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj72LLoiuPUAhXCBcAKHbYFCXgQ6AEIWTAJ#v=onepage&q=lake&f=false">tradition</a> within international law that a median position on the lake is the boundary giving both states large parts of the lake. Examples of these include Lake Geneva’s median line between France and Switzerland, the Great Lakes shared between Canada and the US and Lake Chad on the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.</p>
<p>The Malawi-Tanzania case therefore presents two apparently irreconcilable positions on the delimitation of Africa’s third largest lake. Unique to this dispute is the way it turns on the question of treaty law versus customary international <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PQxpC4hd2CEC&pg=PA249&lpg=PA249&dq=shoreline+boundary+and+international+law&source=bl&ots=cZhXLlkCX_&sig=UUr4bKN9HNylYxlP03Kx2Yo6jtA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi56Kzdz-HUAhVQa1AKHSUTCjAQ6AEIUTAI#v=onepage&q=shoreline%20boundary%20and%20international%20law&f=false">law governing</a> the delimitation of fluvial bodies. </p>
<p>The dispute is no small matter for Malawi as the lake’s geographical space represents about a third of its entire territory. Malawi argues that its economic life, culture, folklore, and sentiment as a nation are inextricably linked to the lake. </p>
<p>Tanzania derives considerable value from the lake too. It supports a large number of artisanal fishermen and there are shoreline communities that have ancestral burial places that now lie under the lake. </p>
<p>The dream outcome would be an amicable solution allowing joint use of the lake for irrigation, transportation and extraction of mineral resources. Collaboration would mitigate costs and risks and increase the well-being of the people living on the shores of the lake.</p>
<p>But the positions could hardly be more starkly different. Longstanding negotiations have failed. The real question is can there be a mutually agreed way forward in such cases outside of the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1ySxkfcma-EC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=use+of+war+in+resolving+territorial+disputes&source=bl&ots=-GQLdEpPf8&sig=vB_i0AbGGLkRssyBbCPa741PJjw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKqq_A9uHUAhVkBsAKHfJLB6o4ChDoAQgqMAE#v=onepage&q=use%20of%20war%20in%20resolving%20territorial%20disputes&f=false">drumbeats of war</a> or the bitterness of a court case?</p>
<h2>A clash of equities</h2>
<p>Malawi crucially points to a series of public statements by senior Tanzanian political leaders between 1959 and <a href="http://www.worldlakes.org/shownews.asp?newsid=1345">1962</a> to support its case. This includes a statement by the country’s founding president Julius Nyerere in 1960, in which he <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/International-Law-Boundary-Disputes-Africa-Routledge-Research/0415838924">emphasized</a> that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is now no doubt at all about the boundary. We know that not a drop of water of the Lake Nyasa belongs to Tanganyika…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Malawi insists that the delimitation of a shoreline boundary was not a mistake. It asserts that this favourable position in relation to the lake was accorded to the country in recognition of Tanzania’s considerable geographical advantages. Malawi presents itself as a small landlocked and densely populated country.</p>
<p>The preferred argument in Dar es Salaam is that the lake is a natural gift which logically cannot be claimed by one party. It argues that the 1890 treaty is inconclusive because of a provision in it that says parties should hold meetings and correct the treaty in the future. </p>
<p>The truth is that most African states and boundaries were carelessly carved out as compromises between European colonial powers rather than reflections of the realities of African ethnography or politics. This is so despite <a href="https://academic.oup.com/chinesejil/article-abstract/16/1/77/3848884/Legal-and-Evidential-Implications-of-Emerging?redirectedFrom=fulltext">overwhelming evidence</a> of precise boundary features and markers separating precolonial African cities, states and political groups. </p>
<p>The effects of colonialism linger and produce consequences which include this particular border dispute.</p>
<h2>Why mediation is the best option</h2>
<p>Malawi and Tanzania have a common interest in the form of a massive reservoir of the most valuable natural resource – freshwater. There is talk of hydrocarbon deposits but at the very least it is filled with fish. The peaceful resolution of the dispute is therefore, imperative. </p>
<p>The two countries decided to seek the support of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) after previous bilateral efforts to find a solution failed. This paved the way for mediation by a team of former heads of state and government led by Mozambique’s Joaquim Chissano in 2012. Since its inception the mediators have interacted with both parties with the aim of deepening their knowledge and understanding the dispute. Progress has been modest. </p>
<p>To disentangle the legal arguments, the mediation panel relies on a multi-disciplinary team of experts. They include Abdul Koroma, a former judge at the International Court of Justice. </p>
<p>Among the issues they face is the relevance of the 1890 treaty and illustrative maps which are now contested by both countries in true legal tradition. Experts have <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PQxpC4hd2CEC&pg=PA249&lpg=PA249&dq=shoreline+boundary+and+international+law&source=bl&ots=cZhXLlkCX_&sig=UUr4bKN9HNylYxlP03Kx2Yo6jtA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi56Kzdz-HUAhVQa1AKHSUTCjAQ6AEIUTAI#v=onepage&q=shoreline%20boundary%20and%20international%20law&f=false">pointed out</a> that maps are not titles to territory. At best they only represent what is contained in the title. </p>
<p>So could the title only come from what is found in the Treaty of 1890 as argued by Malawi? </p>
<p>There are hidden dangers in pursuing strict legal rights. While many experts <a href="http://www.academia.edu/7554074/Lake_Malawi_Nyasa_International_Delimitation_Analysis_of_Claims_-_Malawi_vs_Tanzania">argue</a> that Malawi’s opinion aligns with recent International Court of Justice judgments, there’s always the possibility it could lose all its claims if a court rules against it. </p>
<p>At this stage mediation is therefore the more attractive option. </p>
<p>But the mediation panel has betrayed some of its limitation. The body is not a court. It will therefore be less legalistic and formalistic. The parties have resorted to mediation to draw on the experience, expertise and wisdom of its members. Whatever the limitations of mediation – even a painfully slow one – Malawi stands to gain more from a consensual resolution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79948/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gbenga Oduntan was engaged as one of the five member Legal and Other Experts (LOE) team to assist the High Level Mediation Team (HLMT) led by H. E. Joaquim Chissano, former President of Mozambique and comprised also H.E Festus Mogae, former President of Botswana and H.E. Thabo Mbeki, former President of South Africa.</span></em></p>Whatever the limitations of mediation – even a painfully slow one – Malawi stands to gain more from a consensual resolution in the boundary dispute with Tanzania.Gbenga Oduntan, Reader (Associate Professor) in International Commercial Law, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/780042017-06-01T14:02:14Z2017-06-01T14:02:14ZIdi Amin and Donald Trump - strong men with unlikely parallels<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171611/original/file-20170531-25704-18r3x0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US President Donald Trump and African dictator Idi Amin - different, but the same.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA and Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>US President Donald Trump’s norm-breaking campaign and early reign has been <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/can-history-prepare-us-for-the-trump-presidency-214676">compared</a> to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/american-authoritarianism-under-donald-trump/495263/">several</a> other divisive historical figures, especially previous American presidents.</p>
<p>But when it comes to the style in which he communicates, there’s an uncanny resemblance to a notorious African dictator from the 1970s. For those that lived during Idi Amin’s vicious reign in Uganda between 1971 and 1979, there are clear echoes four decades later in Trump’s speeches and press conferences, or when he fires off his notorious tweets.</p>
<p>Let me say up front, Trump, who was democratically elected, can in no way be compared to Amin when it comes to how the so-called “Butcher of Uganda” came to power or the brutal way he dealt with dissent during his eight-year regime. One of the most barbaric military dictators in post-independence Africa, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/aug/18/guardianobituaries">the death toll of his own citizens</a> under his rule, is put at 500,000.</p>
<p>The comparison I am looking at is the similarity of styles and tone of communication. Even though Trump and Amin are from completely different eras with different modes of communication, there are clear parallels between the two telegenic men.</p>
<h2>Decrees with flourish</h2>
<p>Amin’s numerous decrees were announced on radio and television and carried in newspapers with flourish. One such decree was the expulsion of the Asian/Indian community from Uganda.</p>
<p>In front of international television cameras and newspaper journalists Amin accused the Indians of being “smugglers who carried five passports”. He blamed Britain for bringing them to Uganda during the colonial rule. Amin <a href="http://www.itnsource.com/en/specials/compilation/S18021001/">claimed</a> that the expulsion decision was taken in the national economic interests of Uganda:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I took this decision for the economy of Uganda and I must make sure that every Ugandan gets the fruit of independence. I want to see the whole Kampala street is not full of Indians.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fast forward 44 years. At a campaign rally Trump promised to deport illegal immigrants from Mexico, some of whom he <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/31/politics/donald-trump-mexico-statements/">called</a> “rapists”. Trump also <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trumps-border-wall-an-annotated-timeline_us_58b5f363e4b02f3f81e44d7b">announced</a> that he was going to build a wall barring them from entry into the United States which Mexico was going to pay for.</p>
<p>“Mark my words,” he said. Afterwards he proclaimed that he “loved Hispanics”. </p>
<p>In similar style Amin said “it’s not my responsibility to offer them (expelled British Asians) transit camps! The British High Commissioner is here and it is his responsibility”. Remarking afterwards that the British “are my great friends”.</p>
<p>For Amin’s Uganda, it was a devastating decision. The expelled Asians/Indians were the entrepreneurs, bankers, professional class who had formed the country’s middle class since colonial times. Six months after their departure the country’s hitherto promising African economy spiralled into recession.</p>
<p>Trump’s America may not suffer the expulsion of unwanted foreigners but its regional entrepreneurs such as potato and vegetable growers will suffer from the absence of cheap available labour from across the border in Mexico. </p>
<h2>Impulsive use of technology</h2>
<p>The two presidents have similarities in their impulsive use of quick communication technology. Trump is a compulsive tweeter while Amin loved dispatching telegrams.</p>
<p>Amin telegraphed disgraced American President Richard Nixon wishing him a “quick recovery from Watergate” and to Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, his erstwhile foe, a peculiar message in lieu of peace talks at the height of a war between the true countries:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you were a woman I would have married you … although your head is full of grey hairs. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There were even more <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/world/idi-amin-murderous-and-erratic-ruler-of-uganda-in-the-70-s-dies-in-exile.html">bizarre ones</a> to the Queen of England, saying he expected her to send him “her 25-year-old knickers” in celebration of the silver anniversary of her coronation. There was an offer of assistance to Edward Heath, the British Prime Minister to save the British economy, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you would let me know the exact position of the mess. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A Trump <a href="http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/blog/2015/oct/23/trump-insults-iowa-voters-takes-monsanto-immediately-caves-big-ag-farm-lobby">tweet</a> to Iowa voters who voted against him in the primaries had similar condescending tones:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Too much Monsanto in the corn creates issues in the brain?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was later <a href="http://time.com/4084000/trump-iowa-corn/">deleted</a>.</p>
<p>There was another <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/859601184285491201?lang=en">tweet</a> about James Comey, the FBI Director he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html?_r=0">fired</a>:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"859601184285491201"}"></div></p>
<p>And then there’s this tweet about a topic that has often occupied his mind, namely his predecessor Barack Obama’s legacy:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"853942936337350656"}"></div></p>
<h2>Being fired on television</h2>
<p>Amin loved <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Nakasero-WodOkello-Lawoko-ebook/dp/B00GFSQBQI">firing his officials</a> on radio and television. A minister of culture, Yekosofat Engur, attended a public function as guest of honour not knowing that his junior had just been appointed in his place on Uganda’s broadcast media.</p>
<p>Former FBI chief Comey learned in a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/10/james-comey-fired-ousted-fbi-director-learned-was-fired-from-tv.html">similar fashion</a> of his fate. He learned of his firing while addressing agents at a field office in Los Angeles – breaking news flashes on television of Trump sacking him, was the first Comey heard of it. </p>
<p>There are also parallels in their sabre rattling. Amin threatened to invade Israel, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul6uvAwuLIg&t=512s">not holding back</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If am to prepare the war against Israel completely, I don’t want very many Army, Air force and Navy, just very few and strike inside… </p>
</blockquote>
<p>“I love war,” Trump <a href="http://www.expressnews.com/news/news_columnists/brian_chasnoff/article/Trump-I-love-war-6630963.php">declared</a> his passion for violence during a campaign speech in Iowa in late 2015. He added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m good at war. I’ve had a lot of wars of my own. I’m really good at war. I love war in a certain way, but only when we win.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Low opinion</h2>
<p>The two presidents both have a low opinion of women and not shy to express that. Amin remarked that he was a “good marksman” (with women) while showing off his numerous children. He had four wives and more than 30 children.</p>
<p>Trump has had a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/us/politics/donald-trump-women.html">long trial of sexist comments</a> such as this one:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What the two share most is their sense of self importance. </p>
<p>In 1977, after Britain broke diplomatic relations with his regime, Amin <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/aug/18/guardianobituaries">declared</a> he had beaten the British. He titled himself “Conqueror of the British Empire”, short for, “His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE”. He said he would be happy to accept the Scots “secret wish” to have him as their monarch, hence the Hollywood movie title “The Last King of Scotland”.</p>
<p>Amin also wrenched a Doctorate of Law from Uganda’s Makerere University and henceforth considered himself in the same league with medical doctors.</p>
<p>As Salon <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/01/30/im-like-a-smart-person-forget-inauguration-size-and-business-success-trumps-biggest-lie-is-about-his-intelligence_partner/">wrote</a>, the only two words former reality show host Trump has uttered more frequently than “you’re fired” are “I’m smart”. He said about Wharton, the University of Pennsylvania’s business school:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Look, I went to the best school, I was a good student and all of this stuff. I mean, I’m a smart person.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They both share a passion for control and love to be loved. The New Yorker’s Jeff Seshol <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-kind-of-loyalty-does-a-president-need">reckons</a> that Trump’s chief complaint about his own yes-men seems to be that they don’t say yes energetically enough. </p>
<p>It’s easier when you’re a dictator. Amin <a href="http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1227873/amin-talked-ministers-pupils">was clear</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As minister, governor, high-ranking people and the people of the country, they must love their leader. This is the point number one.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Turning into Amin</h2>
<p>Respected East African commentator Charles Onyango Obbo <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/434750-3940282-view-printVersion-bc1se6z/index.html">believes</a> that, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The genius of Trump is that he understands what adept guerrilla leaders figured out ages ago – do that which the opponent thinks is impossible or so unthinkable, they have not planned how to defend it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The same went for Amin who for a long time was considered a comic buffoon while he terrorised a whole country and fanned international terrorism. </p>
<p>Some may think it’s alarmist, but Onyango Obbo has warned that with all the similarities,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Trump – or indeed any leader in an “advanced” democracy – can turn into an Idi Amin.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Ssenoga does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some may say it’s far fetched to compare a 1970s African dictator with the President of the United States. But the similarities between Idi Amin and Donald Trump are quite startling.Geoffrey Ssenoga, Lecturer of Mass Communications, Uganda Christian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/738812017-03-12T10:18:48Z2017-03-12T10:18:48ZThe legacy of autocratic rule in Tanzania - from Nyerere to life under Magufuli<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159965/original/image-20170308-24182-1whteph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tanzania's President John Magufuli is praised by some for his "no nonsense" attitude.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Thomas Mukoya</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Arusha Declaration of <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199679966.001.0001/acprof-9780199679966-chapter-20">1967</a> is a defining document in Tanzania’s and Africa’s post colonial history. It began a process of nationalisation and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Tanzania/Economy">rural collectivisation</a> which was then replicated in other parts of the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02533950008458699?journalCode=rsdy20">continent</a>.</p>
<p>As one of the few countries in East Africa not beset by internecine conflicts, Tanzania is often seen as a <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Rwanda-among-least-peaceful-countries-Tanzania-high/2558-1891216-view-printVersion-14piq48/index.html">beacon of hope</a>. But the country’s history hasn’t been entirely peaceful. </p>
<p>For example, the creation of the <a href="http://www.sadc.int/member-states/tanzania/">United Republic</a> in 1964 was the outcome of a <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201201120789.html">bloody revolution</a> in Zanzibar. And the forced resettlement of the rural population in the 1970s was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/101/405/509/52353/Almost-an-Oxfam-in-itself-Oxfam-Ujamaa-and">often brutal</a>. The supposedly backward south of the country was most affected by this <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40984999?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">social engineering</a>. </p>
<p>Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s first post-independence leader, might be rightly revered across Africa for the role his government played in various <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/tanzania-and-its-support-southern-african-liberation-movements">liberation struggles</a>. But his domestic agenda isn’t recalled with the same fondness, especially in the south.</p>
<p>Multiparty democracy came to Tanzania in <a href="http://www.gsdrc.org/document-library/multiparty-democracy-in-tanzania/">1995</a>. Yet the autocratic and paternalistic tendencies remain, as reflected in the extremely heavy-handed nature of the response to <a href="http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/national/Why-Mtwara--violence-is-beyond-gas-pipeline/1840392-1861170-u5mncc/index.html">unrest in Mtwara in 2013</a>.</p>
<p>This is also echoed by the actions and rhetoric of current President <a href="http://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/east-africa/2017/01/03/tanzanias-president-john-magufuli-the-bulldozer/">John “the bulldozer” Magufuli</a>. While some celebrate his “no nonsense” attitude when it comes to tackling corruption and excessive government spending, others express major concerns over his ban on opposition <a href="http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/Enough-politicking--JPM-tells-Opposition/-/1840340/3264682/-/15iu05dz/-/index.html">political rallies</a> until the 2020 general election. He’s also drawn ire for the failure of his government to implement court <a href="http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/Implement-our-rulings--rights-court-tells-TZ-govt/1840340-3833490-t71ylhz/index.html">rulings on human rights</a>.</p>
<p>And the country has witnessed major protests at the management of newly discovered <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22652809">reserves of natural gas</a> in the south.</p>
<p>As a result there’s a widespread view across southern Tanzania that for half a century the central government has pursued a deliberate process of mistreatment and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Making_of_a_Periphery.html?id=mcabzHC8N70C&redir_esc=y">marginalisation</a>.</p>
<p>Rural collectivisation is a significant milestone in such claims, a process that was kick-started by the Arusha Declaration. The document’s 50th anniversary is a prescient moment to reflect on its impact and the legacy of autocratic rule in Tanzania. </p>
<h2>Tumultuous times</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2016.26">fieldwork</a> over many years in southern Tanzania has revealed widespread scepticism about the value of independence to the inhabitants. <em>Uhuru</em> – or independence – from Britain in 1961 is seen to be a less significant moment in the lives of many rural Tanzanians than the Arusha Declaration. </p>
<p>As a 90-year old farmer told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tanganyika became Tanzania and our flag changed, (Queen) Elizabeth left and (President) Nyerere arrived. The leaders knew about these changes but nothing changed for me… Change came after Nyerere’s speech in Arusha, he told us about ujamaa and we were forced to move from our villages.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many Tanzanians living in the southern parts of the country feel the same way. This isn’t surprising given that the declaration triggered rural collectivisation (villagisation) which brought about tangible changes to people’s lives. It also cemented the language of <a href="http://pdfproc.lib.msu.edu/?file=/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/political%20science/volume8n1/ajps008001004.pdf"><em>ujamaa</em></a> or “African Socialism”. </p>
<p>Villagisation was guided by the belief that communal farming could improve agricultural productivity and guarantee long-term food security and self-sufficiency. </p>
<p>At the outset Nyerere declared that migration to ujamaa villages would happen voluntarily. Forcing people to move wouldn’t be countenanced by the state.</p>
<p>But when only 15% of the total population chose to resettle between 1969 and 1973 the governing Tanganyika Africa National Union <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/2787373.pdf">decreed</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>to live in villages is an order. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nyerere’s increasing sense of urgency is reflected both in his famous phrase <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/78ABA581AA13EDCC6C964A4AF3AC75E1/S0022278X0300421Xa.pdf/we-must-run-while-others-walk-popular-participation-and-development-crisis-in-tanzania-1961-9.pdf">“we must run while others walk”</a> and in the decision to rapidly transform voluntary migration into mass resettlement. Many people that I interviewed recalled this as a brutal process. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>People were moved by force, the soldiers came, they came to worry the people, and they were taken, all of their things <a href="http://roar.uel.ac.uk/4950/">were destroyed or put in a truck</a>. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not all recollections of this process were universally negative. But first hand experiences of villagisation had a profound and lasting impact on many people. </p>
<p>These were tumultuous times in the country, also reflected in increased authoritarianism in Tanzania from the late 1960s onward. Renowned Ugandan academic <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/mesaas/faculty/directory/mamdani.html">Mahmood Mamdani</a> describes the events as <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5839.html">“decentralized despotism”</a> – a paternalistic urban elite making decisions for the “backward” rural poor. This, he argued, bore many of the hallmarks of colonial modes of rule within post colonial power structures. </p>
<p>There have been other critiques of the <em>ujamaa</em> villages project. It not only affected people on the ground but also precipitated a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-7679.1975.tb00439.x/pdf">national food crisis</a>.</p>
<p>One of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2016.26">my interviewees</a> blamed Nyerere directly for </p>
<blockquote>
<p>destroy[ing] our farms and houses to build something that he called the nation.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Why caution is required</h2>
<p>Magufuli’s sky high national <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201609160870.html">approval ratings</a> show no signs of abating. This adds further fuel to the <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2016/10/whatwouldnyereredo/">comparison</a> that is made with Julius “father of the nation” Nyerere.</p>
<p>The autocratic nature of Nyerere’s rule, informed by a clear <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/div-classtitlecolonial-legacies-and-postcolonial-authoritarianism-in-tanzania-connects-and-disconnectsdiv/CAB95D655FDF2C003FE2A9CE128CDF28">sense of paternalism</a> towards the rural majority, mirrors the colonial model and is reflected in contemporary political leadership in Tanzania.</p>
<p>I believe that there’s merit in the argument that the forcible resettlement of the rural majority under Nyerere partially mirrored colonial modes of rule. The worrying thing is that further continuities are evident in the enactment of the Arusha Declaration and the authoritarianism of today.</p>
<p>This should be food for thought for those heaping praise on the new regime in Tanzania.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Ahearne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Multiparty democracy came to Tanzania in 1995 but the autocratic rule under the country’s first post-independence leader
Julius Nyerere, seems to be echoed by current President John Magufuli.Rob Ahearne, Senior Lecturer in International Development, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/737852017-02-28T14:52:25Z2017-02-28T14:52:25ZThabo Mbeki calls for a ‘rebirth’. Is South Africa up to the task?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158725/original/image-20170228-29924-hwysw7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thabo Mbeki during his inauguration as Chancellor at UNISA.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deaan Vivier/Netwerk24</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The appointment of former South African president <a href="http://www.mbeki.org/profile-of-former-president-thabo-mbeki/">Thabo Mbeki</a> as Chancellor of one of the country’s largest tertiary institutions, the University of South Africa (UNISA), comes at a unique moment in the country.</p>
<p>Universities are struggling to cope with student movements’ revolutionary demands for relevant, decolonised and free education. In his <a href="http://www.enca.com/south-africa/catch-it-live-thabo-mbeki-inaugurated-as-chancellor-of-unisa">inaugural speech</a>, Mbeki raised a number of issues, two of which I’d like to analyse here. He explored the idea of “the university” and its role, and also outlined his understanding of the role that knowledge plays in society.</p>
<p>The speech stretched far back into Africa’s history. It also looked ahead to how universities might free themselves of racism, tribalism, regionalism, sexism, patriarchy and xenophobia. This is a mammoth task which calls for what Mbeki described as “a rebirth”. </p>
<p>The million dollar question is whether South Africa’s current intellectuals and academia are up to the task?</p>
<h2>What universities should be</h2>
<p>Mbeki drew on several sources to explain his views on what a university should be.</p>
<p>The first was <a href="http://www.wsu.ac.za/campuslife/indaba/documents/challenges%20facing%20the%20Higher%20Education%20Sector.pdf">a document</a> drafted during his presidency. It was complied by a working group he convened, and dealt with the biggest issues facing higher education in South Africa. </p>
<p>These included changing the way government funded universities; increasing access for disadvantaged black students to higher education; redressing the racial and gender demographic profile of teaching staff; and Africanising and decolonising the curriculum. This working group and its output were designed to help institutions of higher learning to position themselves as agents of transformation in society. </p>
<p>The information gathered by this working group contributed to how Mbeki thinks today of “the university” and its role. But he was also shaped by the more distant past, taking the audience back to 1963. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/oct/15/guardianobituaries">Julius Nyerere</a> was inaugurated that year as the first black Chancellor of the University of East Africa (today the universities of Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and Makerere). The 1960s were dominated by African nationalists’ demand for African universities that were supportive of the nation-building projects and national development plans. </p>
<p>Mbeki also drew from a more modern national development plan. It was drafted in South Africa just a few years ago and is intended as a blueprint for the country going <a href="http://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030">towards 2030</a>. The national development plan describes universities as key institutions in a developing nation. Their task is to produce the necessary skilled labour and relevant knowledge for South Africa. They must also advance a social justice agenda in a country emerging from apartheid colonialism.</p>
<p>Mbeki also described universities as, ideally, institutions that respond to local as well as global imperatives. They should also work consistently against all forms of prejudice. They ought to be, he said, perpetually in search of the “elusive thing: truth”.</p>
<p>But South Africa in 2017 has a problem: it is perpetually in a frustrating moment of “waithood”. Commissions of inquiry take months, even years, to “inquire” into what’s already known about social ills. Right now, the country is waiting for the findings of <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/commissions/FeesHET/docs.html">a commission</a> into higher education and training, specifically around the issue of fees. It completed its work some months ago. Now South Africans wait for answers.</p>
<p>Mbeki alluded to this lack of haste and urgency by <a href="http://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/UniversityofDaresSalaam.pdf">quoting Nyerere</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Yet it […] must be realised that we are in a hurry. We cannot just think, and debate endlessly the pros and cons of any decision. We must act; we have to tackle our problems now.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This, then, is how Mbeki thinks of “the university” and its role. What of decolonisation and the role of knowledge in Africa?</p>
<h2>African Renaissance and identity</h2>
<p>Mbeki has repeatedly called for the “renaissance of Africa”, most famously during his “I am an African” speech in 1996.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r7VX83JXnbo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Thabo Mbeki’s 1996 “I am an African” speech.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During his speech at UNISA, Mbeki explained what this “renaissance” would entail: eradicating the legacy of centuries of slavery, imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism. These processes, he said, produced “a demeaning European perception of Africa and Africans”.</p>
<p>The key challenge is how universities help to achieve this renaissance and radically create a new view of South Africa, Africa and Africans while they themselves are stuck in the recycling of Eurocentric knowledge. </p>
<p>And these institutions were themselves imagined and constructed on the logic of a paradigm of difference. They emerged with racial, regional, patriarchal, xenophobic and hierarchical mentalities – all designed by colonialism. Surely it’s a mammoth task to expect them to play a meaningful role in social change and the transformation of knowledge while they are discursively entrapped in racism, tribalism, regionalism, sexism, patriarchy, and xenophobia. </p>
<p>This does not mean they should not try. Mbeki is correct: we desperately need a “rebirth”. He ended his speech with a reference to the Ghanaian novelist and thinker Ayi Kwei Armah who called on Africa to wake up from the spell of Eurocentrism. This awakening, Armah – and Mbeki – argued – is an essential prerequisite for intellectual rebirth and remaking the Africa society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73785/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s no doubt South African universities need to undergo a real shift. But are the country’s current intellectual and academic forces up to the task?Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Director of Scholarship at Change Management Unit at the Vice Chancellors' office; Professor and Head of Archie Mafeje Research Institute, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/730752017-02-21T20:09:22Z2017-02-21T20:09:22ZIn tribute to Peter Abrahams: a champion of pan Africanism and anti-colonialism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157486/original/image-20170220-15931-4pqoql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Peter Abrahams.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">South African History Online</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African literary icon and Pan-Africanist, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/peter-henry-abrahams">Peter Henry Abrahams</a>, died in his adopted home of Jamaica on January 18 2017. He was 97. The author of some 12 novels, Abrahams was also a stalwart in the anti-colonial struggles dating back to the 1940s. Until the end he remained an acerbic and incisive commentator on global and Pan-African affairs.</p>
<p>He was born to an Ethiopian father and a mixed race South African mother in Vrededorp, a suburb in Johannesburg, South Africa. As a 20-year-old, Abrahams left his birthplace in 1939 after running into trouble with racist police and authorities in his deprived settlement. After an eventful journey by ship, troubled by hostilities during World War 2, he eventually arrived and settled in London, England. There he began a career of activism as a left wing journalist and Pan-Africanist in the 1940s.</p>
<p>Peter, with a natural storytelling talent, had learned writing skills from his mother and from religious mentors who rescued him from further trouble as a militant youth in Vrededorp. These skills and talents were to serve him well during his exile in London and later in Jamaica, where he settled in 1956 with his second wife Daphne.</p>
<h2>First novel</h2>
<p>While in London during his early literary pursuits his first novel, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40238962?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">“Dark Testament”</a>, was published in 1942. His second book <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3819636?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">“Song of the City”</a>, published three years later, confirmed him as being among the first successful black South African writers being published in Europe and the West. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157482/original/image-20170220-15882-1skaguk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157482/original/image-20170220-15882-1skaguk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157482/original/image-20170220-15882-1skaguk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157482/original/image-20170220-15882-1skaguk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157482/original/image-20170220-15882-1skaguk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157482/original/image-20170220-15882-1skaguk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157482/original/image-20170220-15882-1skaguk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cover of ‘Mine Boy’.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His already prolific writing career next saw the publication of the semi-autobiographical and seminal book <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20109544?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">“Mine Boy”</a> in 1946. It charted the travails of a country youth seeking to survive in the frightening and oppressive environs of big city Johannesburg.</p>
<p>With “Mine Boy” Abrahams became the first author to bring the horrific reality of South Africa’s apartheid system of racial discrimination to international attention. Published two years before Alan Paton’s acclaimed <a href="http://paton.ukzn.ac.za/Collections/Crythebelovedcountry.aspx">“Cry, The Beloved Country”</a>, which also exposed the tragedy of apartheid, “Mine Boy” was also significant because it made Abrahams one of the first black South African authors to become financially successful. With over a dozen books and countless newspaper and magazine articles published, Abrahams has since become established as an authority on the problems of race not only in South Africa, but in the world.</p>
<p>Several other novels were to follow in London, even as Abrahams became more and more engaged in the anti-colonial struggles of the time. He interacted with other political activists such as <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jomo-kenyatta">Jomo Kenyatta</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/president-seretse-khama">Seretse Khama</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/dr-kenneth-kaunda-former-president-zambia-born">Kenneth Kaunda</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/former-tanzanian-president-julius-nyerere-dies">Julius Nyerere</a> and <a href="http://www.blackhistoryheroes.com/2010/09/kwame-nkrumah.html">Kwame Nkrumah</a>. Those names now resonate as leaders of the legendary generation of anti-colonial, Pan-African activists who led their respective African countries to political independence. </p>
<p>At this time, his South African compatriots under the leadership of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/nelson-rolihlahla-mandela">Nelson Mandela</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/oliver-reginald-kaizana-tambo">Oliver Tambo</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/walter-ulyate-sisulu">Walter Sisulu</a> and others persevered politically (and in some cases militarily) in the struggle against apartheid. For his part, Abrahams waged a war by wielding a mighty pen. He brought the unfolding racist atrocities in South Africa to the attention of the wider world. This he did through an ever-expanding body of compelling political and literary works, as well as through his intellectual activism.</p>
<p>He played an important role, alongside journalist and Pan Africanist <a href="http://silvertorch.com/about-padmore.html">George Padmore</a> of Trinidad and Tobago, American intellectual and activist <a href="https://donate.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history-w.e.b.-dubois">WEB Du Bois</a> and others, in <a href="http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/padmore/1947/pan-african-congress/index.htm">organising</a> the <a href="http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/30/058.html">Fifth Pan-African Congress</a>. Held in Manchester, England in October 1945, the congress was regarded as a unifying event in the multifaceted, disparate, colonial struggle of the time. Abrahams was among the representatives of the African National Congress (ANC). He was elected as chairperson of the movement’s publicity committee, alongside a young Nkrumah.</p>
<h2>Jamaican independence</h2>
<p>By 1956, he accepted an invitation from <a href="http://jis.gov.jm/heroes/norman-washington-manley/">Norman Manley</a>, Premier of Jamaica and leader of the Jamaican independence movement, to provide advice and editorial services in Jamaica and the Caribbean. He soon acquired a hilltop property overlooking the city of Kingston, a home he called Coyaba.</p>
<p>Abrahams became prominent as journalist and radio commentator in Jamaica. He also continued his career as a novelist. Acclaimed books penned in Jamaica were released globally. These included such widely respected works as <a href="http://caribbean-beat.com/issue-61/view-coyaba">“The View from Coyaba”</a> (1985) and his <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/994599.The_Coyaba_Chronicles">memoir</a> “The Coyaba Chronicles: Reflections on the Black Experience in the 20th Century” (2000).</p>
<p>Abrahams was to serve Manley’s younger son, Prime Minister <a href="http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Michael-Manley---the-visionary-who-will-never-be">Michael Manley</a>, in the historic social restructuring of the 1970s. This included the engagement of Abrahams as the principal advisor in the government takeover and reform of Jamaica’s leading radio network, Radio Jamaica, from the British Rediffusion Group.</p>
<p>Responding to question I posed to Abrahams in a July 2004 <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02560046.2011.639959">interview</a>, he defended a new model of media ownership he had developed. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>He (Michael Manley) wasn’t quite sure what the model was but he knew it had to be ‘people-based’. So he called me and we had a long session. What the Re-diffusion was saying to him was, ‘all right, you take it over but give us a management contract and so much per annum’. So they would be getting their money anyway. I said to him I don’t think you need to give them a management contract. I am convinced that there are enough Jamaicans who can run this thing without a management contract.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His model succeeded and is among the seminal achievements in Jamaica of this 5ft 6in (1.52m) <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-278276715/an-interview-with-peter-abrahams-custodian-and-conscience">giant</a> of an intellectual, activist and author. </p>
<p>His passing cannot erase the phenomenal contributions he made to the anti-colonial struggles in Africa and the Caribbean, his scholarly eminence and his seminal leadership of media reform and commentary in Jamaica.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73075/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hopeton Dunn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South African-Jamaican intellectual, activist and author Peter Abrahams died in January 2017. He will be revered for his contributions to the anti-colonial struggles in Africa and the Caribbean.Hopeton Dunn, Professor of Communications Policy and Digital Media, University of the West Indies, Mona CampusLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.