tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/ujamaa-36690/articlesUjamaa – The Conversation2024-03-02T12:59:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2248862024-03-02T12:59:12Z2024-03-02T12:59:12ZAli Hassan Mwinyi: the Tanzanian former president who oversaw the transition to market economy<p>Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Tanzania’s second president <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/former-tanzania-president-ali-hassan-mwinyi-dies-at-98-4541336">who has died aged 98</a>, pushed through tough economic and political reforms that transformed the East Africa nation from socialism to an open economy and a multi-party democracy. He was president from 1985 to 1995.</p>
<p>He did all of this in the shadow of Julius Nyerere who had led Tanzania since independence in 1961 and turned the country into a one-party socialist state. Tanganyika joined together with Zanzibar in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Nyerere stepped down in 1985 but remained chairman of the party that had ruled Tanzania since independence.</p>
<p>Mwinyi’s presidency was always going to be a test, coming at a difficult period. The country was in a serious economic turmoil. Nyerere had admitted that the <a href="https://books.openedition.org/africae/713?lang=en">Ujamaa policy</a> – Tanzania’s socialist experience – had failed. Nyerere decided it was time the country tried another leader. He stepped aside in 1985. During that period, the country had experienced drought, the impacts of the oil shocks and the <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199791279/obo-9780199791279-0242.xml">Kagera War</a>, which Tanzania fought to oust Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=kxptJf0AAAAJ&hl=en">political science scholar</a>, I have studied the politics, political parties and democratisation of Tanzania and Zanzibar in the last 10 years. It is my view that it took Mwinyi’s careful balancing act to ward off Nyerere’s influence after taking the presidency. He had to take bold decision amid the shadow of Mwalimu Nyerere who remained as the chairman of the ruling party CCM.</p>
<p>Mwinyi will be remembered for steadying the economic ship and setting ground for <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-benjamin-william-mkapa-a-life-of-achievements-and-regrets-143422">President William Mkapa</a> to consolidate economic liberalisation. Although there are controversies as to whether he was truly a Zanzibari. This notwithstanding, his elevation as the first Zanzibari Union president somewhat helped to ease the Union tensions. In the postscript of his memoir, Mwinyi reflects on several issues and prided his legacy on the economic reforms he initiated. </p>
<h2>Early life</h2>
<p>A trained teacher, Mwinyi was born on 8 May 1925 in Mkuranga, Coast region, Tanzania Mainland. Between 1933 and 1942, he attended primary school at Mangapwani and Dole – Zanzibar. He studied for Diploma in Education from 1954 to 1956 at the University of Adult Education in Dublin, United Kingdom. He specialised in English and Arabic languages. He taught at Mangapwani and Bumbwini schools in Zanzibar. He later served as an ambassador, and minister in various government ministries before becoming president of Zanzibar.</p>
<p>A rank outsider, Mwinyi’s elevation to the presidency of Tanzania was rather fortuitous. Nyerere had other preferred successors. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aboud-Jumbe">Aboud Jumbe</a>, the man who Mwinyi succeeded as president of Zanzibar in 1984 was Nyerere’s preferred successor. Nyerere had always wished a Zanzibari to succeed him as a way of galvanising the Union which was formed in 1964. However, the tense political period between 1983 and 1984 culminated with Jumbe falling out of favour, and being <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/national/aboud-jumbe-he-dared-and-paid-the-price-2564240">kicked out</a> as the president of Zanzibar and as vice president of the Union government. By virtue of being president of Zanzibar and vice president of the Union, Mwinyi became Nyerere’s compromise successor. Nyerere had described Mwinyi as honest, humble, and a loyal socialist.</p>
<h2>The reforms</h2>
<p>Mwinyi was not a socialist. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45341629">At the time he was taking over as president</a> of Tanzania, Mwinyi compared himself to an anthill, succeeding the colossal socialist ideologue. He carefully negotiated and struck a balance between loyalty to Nyerere and driving the reforms. Chief among his reforms was re-initiating negotiations with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – two institutions Nyerere had fallen out with. These negotiations meant that Tanzania was transitioning to a liberal market-led economy. </p>
<p>During Mwinyi’s first term in office, he <a href="https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/book/9781557752321/ch003.xml">launched</a> the three-year Economic Recovery Program in 1986. The aim was to spur positive growth, reduce inflation and restore sustainable balance of payments. </p>
<p>With this programme, there was an <a href="https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781557752321/ch003.xml">upturn</a> in the country’s economy with the GDP growing at an average rate of 3.9% compared, to 1% during the 1980-1985 period. There was also a 4.8% increase in agricultural productivity, a 2.7% upsurge in manufacturing as well as a significant growth in external investment. The downside to these reforms was the rise in corruption and misappropriation of public funds. These economic reforms necessitated political reforms. President Mwinyi was able to rally the ruling CCM party, which was reluctant to accept International Monetary Fund and World Bank conditions. </p>
<p>In 1992, the Mwinyi administration acceded to constitutional amendments with a return to multiparty politics.</p>
<h2>Foreign policy</h2>
<p>Mwinyi also changed Tanzania’s foreign policy. Tanzania had modelled itself as a champion of <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzania-south-africa-deep-ties-evoke-africas-sacrifices-for-freedom-202448">pan-Africanism and African liberation</a>. This was the key pillar of the country’s post-independent foreign policy. </p>
<p>In line with Tanzania’s position regarding apartheid South Africa, Mwinyi called for tough sanctions as a means of defeating white minority rule. </p>
<p>The transition from Nyerere to Mwinyi in 1985 heralded a new foreign policy with major conflicts in the Great Lakes Region. As President Mwinyi was settling into his second term, conflicts in the Great Lakes began, with Tanzania feeling the need to act as a mediator. In the 1990s, Tanzania was the key facilitator in the Rwanda domestic crisis. The Rwanda Genocide of 1994 had immediate impact on Tanzania with massive inflows of refugees. </p>
<p>President Mwinyi admitted in his <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/mzee-rukhsa">autobiography</a> that the Rwanda Genocide was one of his greatest foreign policy challenges. He recalled the circumstances leading to the events of 6 April 1994, the start of the genocide. He had called for the meeting to discuss the peace and security in Burundi and Rwanda in Dar es Salaam. </p>
<p>After the meeting ended, Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira and Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana left in one plane which was shot down, sparking off the genocide in Rwanda. Tanzania received many refugees fleeing the killings. In 1995, Tanzania’s city of Arusha became host of the UN backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to investigate those charged with genocide. During Mwinyi’s second term in office, plans to revive the East African Community began with the signing of an agreement to establish the permanent commission for East African Cooperation in 1993. This process culminated with reformalisation of the East African Community in 2000.</p>
<p>But it is Mwinyi’s contribution to liberalisation that will be his enduring legacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224886/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicodemus Minde is affiliated with the Institute for Security Studies. </span></em></p>Ali Hassan Mwinyi successfully drove economic and political reforms in Tanzania, all in the shadow of his predecessor, Julius Nyerere.Nicodemus Minde, Adjunct Lecturer, United States International 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>
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<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>
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<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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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/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/1725162021-12-06T14:48:11Z2021-12-06T14:48:11ZTanzania put education high on the agenda at independence. Here are the results 60 years on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435587/original/file-20211203-13-1obsepm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The process of education should be empowering, participatory, transparent and accountable.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Soon after independence from Britain in 1961, Tanzania <a href="https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=c69b0536-0f9d-11b8-8d54-7412c9963b51&groupId=252038">declared war</a> on three main obstacles to its development goals – ignorance, disease and poverty. Well ahead of other African countries, Tanzania introduced a universal primary education programme in 1974 in keeping with its <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/70409/Mbogoma_Julius_2018.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">“education for self-reliance”</a> policy. </p>
<p>But this was an <a href="http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/7461/1/WeaverNE_ETD2011.pdf">uphill task</a> for Tanzania’s new government. It’s estimated that <a href="https://brighter-tz-fund.org/Blog/4668350">85%</a> of the population was illiterate and extremely poor. Hunger, widespread disease and a low average life expectancy of <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=TZ">just above 40 years</a>, were also major obstacles. Periodic droughts, food shortages and limited access to international aid further complicated matters.</p>
<p>By necessity, the rural population – which made up <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS?locations=TZ">90%</a> of the population – would be the driver of the new economy. Yet they were so scattered that it was difficult to extend the social services needed to improve their living conditions and agricultural productivity. </p>
<p>This was the reality in which the government, with the support of NGOs, sought to re-design the educational system to expand its literate work force. Adult education in the 1960s and 1970s emphasised self development and community development. These programmes taught literacy, numeracy, nutrition, hygiene and agricultural practices. </p>
<p>Provision of education was also <a href="https://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/tz00t___.html">guaranteed</a> in the constitution as a basic human right. Overall, there has been tremendous progress in the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.PRM.ENRR?locations=TZ">numbers of children enrolled</a> in schools over the last two decades. </p>
<p>In 2020, <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/tanzania/primary-education-pupils-wb-data.html">10.9 million pupils</a> – an increase of 39% – were enrolled in Grade 1 following the removal of school fees. But access to pre-primary education is very low. Infrastructural facilities are largely inadequate and there’s an acute shortage of qualified pre-primary school teachers in public schools across the country. The <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1272578.pdf">ratio</a> of pupils to qualified teachers at early grades is also significantly low in rural schools.</p>
<p>Recently, Tanzania instituted a <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/zanzibar-pushes-for-girls-school-re-entry-after-giving-birth-3348796">school re-entry policy</a>. It states that all students who drop out of school due to various reasons such as truancy, disciplinary issues or pregnancy should be allowed to return to school. </p>
<p>This initiative is part of an effort by the Tanzanian government to increase education rates among the population. It also aims to close the gender gap in education by addressing barriers to education.</p>
<h2>Completion rate</h2>
<p>Students who completed secondary school reported to be at 29.57% (of the relevant age group) <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/factsheet/2020/03/31/tanzania-secondary-education-quality-improvement-program-sequip">in 2018</a>. Despite the remarkable progress over the past few decades, challenges remain in reducing regional disparities and inequalities among secondary school-age students from different socio-economic backgrounds.</p>
<p>Progress has been aided in no small way by Tanzania’s decision to prioritise the use of Kiswahili as a language of instruction in schools. Research has proved time and again that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353339967_Lack_of_Familiarity_with_the_Language_of_Instruction_A_Main_Cause_of_Reading_Failure_by_Grades_1_and_2_Pupils_in_Zambia">lack of familiarity</a> with the language of instruction is a big barrier, especially in the early years of schooling.</p>
<h2>Education for self reliance</h2>
<p>The 1967 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Arusha-Declaration">Arusha Declaration</a> has had a telling effect on Tanzania’s educational policies since independence. It sought to reduce the income inequality among all citizens and shift development efforts towards rural areas. Its objective was to ensure equal access for all socio-economic groups. </p>
<p>To this end, the government took control of all private educational institutions previously owned by Christian missionaries and other religious organisations. The entire population was mobilised towards achieving universal literacy in a short period. This was done through media and by involving the ruling party and government leaders through public campaigns and volunteerism. Expansion of enrolment was immediate as over-age children seized this opportunity to enrol. </p>
<p>Nevertheless poverty remains an important factor in the provision of quality education. Economically <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/bu218e/bu218e.pdf">marginalised</a> Tanzanian families still resort to early marriages and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/11/14/working-robot/abuse-tanzanian-domestic-workers-oman-and-united-arab-emirates">child labour</a>. Poverty makes it less likely that children will complete their education. Many rural families also entirely depend on subsistence agriculture to meet their basic needs.</p>
<p>In addition, <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzania-is-still-failing-to-protect-its-children-who-live-with-albinism-53888">children with albinism</a> are vulnerable to attack, mutilation and murder. They will continue to be excluded from education unless their rights to freedom from <a href="https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/constitution.pdf">discrimination</a>, to an adequate standard of living and to meaningful education participation are guaranteed. </p>
<h2>What should be done?</h2>
<p>What Tanzania still needs to do in order to achieve quality and inclusive education is to prioritise disadvantaged and marginalised children in schools. They need support services and appropriate learning facilities. </p>
<p>The education budget also needs attention. Tanzania’s education sector accounts for <a href="https://www.unicef.org/tanzania/media/1236/file/UNICEF-Tanzania-2018-Education-Budget-Brief.pdf">15%</a> of the total budget. It’s <a href="https://www.unicef.org/tanzania/media/1236/file/UNICEF-Tanzania-2018-Education-Budget-Brief.pdf">3.9%</a> of the country’s gross domestic product. This falls short of the Global Partnership for Education <a href="https://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/partners-call-african-leaders-commit-20-their-budgets-education">target</a>, which encourages countries to commit at least 20% of the national budget to education. Education receives a <a href="https://www.mof.go.tz/mofdocs/msemaji/BUDGET%20SPEECH%202017_2018.pdf">lower proportion</a> of state funding compared to other sectors of the economy such as infrastructural development. </p>
<p>School feeding programmes are crucial to improve enrolment and attendance. But they are not in place across the country. Feeding programme costs should also be captured in the national budget to ensure all students get meals during school hours to address truancy and dropouts.</p>
<p>What’s needed is a human rights-based approach with commitment to recognising and respecting the rights of children while they are attending school. This includes respect for their identity, agency and integrity. This would help to increase retention rates and make the process of education empowering, participatory, transparent and accountable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172516/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Ngalomba 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>To achieve quality and inclusive education, Tanzania should prioritise disadvantaged and marginalised children in schools.Simon Ngalomba, Lecturer, University of Dar es SalaamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1681052021-11-22T15:29:53Z2021-11-22T15:29:53ZKiswahili books: the independent Tanzanian publisher who has championed the language<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431676/original/file-20211112-23-pv9hx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Walter Bgoya's passion for reading goes back to the 1950s. But his worldview was shaped in the 1960s.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A number of African countries boast notable independent publishing landscapes. These include South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. However, this fragile industry has long been characterised by a host of <a href="https://www.readafricanbooks.com/opinion/publishing-in-africa-where-are-we-now/">threats</a>.</p>
<p>Top of these is weak copyright law enforcement which undermines potential growth. Copyright infringements reduce earnings from legal sales. They also reduce the ability of independent publishers to break even and venture into issuing new titles. </p>
<p>For sure, school textbooks guarantee stable earnings for these publishers. But this tends to crowd out scholarly publishing and fiction. Another common problem is represented by underfunded and understaffed public libraries. This leads to failure to acquire new books and equipment, poor cataloguing and processing, and poor upkeep of existing books. This, combined with Africans’ dwindling purchasing powers, in turn causes decreased access to books and less interest in reading.</p>
<p>These challenges are well encapsulated by the trajectory of one independent Tanzanian publishing house: Mkuki na Nyota. I first encountered books by this publisher in 1996 as an undergraduate student of Swahili language and literature. But my <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/dreams-and-constraints-of-an-african-publisher-walter-bgoya-tanzania-publishing-house-and-mkuki-na-nyota-19722020/4CCDCBA8CE690DD61FE2CD2E6B983DAF">research</a> on the history of this publishing house only took shape in 2014 when I met Walter Bgoya, its managing director.</p>
<p>Bgoya’s passion for reading goes back to the 1950s. But his worldview was shaped in the 1960s. This was an exhilarating period of decolonisation, Pan-Africanism and – in his country – the ideals of President Julius Nyerere’s flagship ideology, <a href="http://pdfproc.lib.msu.edu/?file=/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/political%20science/volume8n1/ajps008001004.pdf">Ujamaa</a>, or African Socialism. </p>
<p>After a relatively brief but promising diplomatic career, Bgoya first joined the thriving parastatal Tanzania Publishing House in 1972. Soon afterwards he became its general manager.</p>
<p>Ground-breaking anti-imperialist books like Walter Rodney’s <em>How Europe Underdeveloped Africa</em> and Issa Shivji’s <em>Class Struggles in Tanzania</em> were released under his watch. Rodney was then <a href="https://roape.net/2020/08/31/walter-rodneys-legacy/">based</a> in Dar es Salaam.</p>
<p>But by the early 1980s, <em>Ujamaa</em> was in decline and the country was facing a serious <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Tanzania/Economy">economic crisis</a>. Amid government austerity measures <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23548555_Structural_Adjustment_Economic_Performance_and_Aid_Dependency_in_Tanzania">imposed</a> by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the publishing industry was not spared. Parastatals, the university press and independent companies faced under-capitalisation, escalating printing costs, and lack of basic materials like ink and paper. </p>
<p>This crisis was worsened by high taxes, weak distribution systems and the decline of public libraries. And so Bgoya slowly disentangled himself from the struggling state-owned publisher to establish Mkuki na Nyota.</p>
<p>What followed for Bgoya and his new business was a tumultuous journey through numerous financial, political and operational constraints. It is a testimony of his vision and tenacity that he eventually gained a footing by the 1990s, and went on to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/publisher/mkukinanyota">thrive</a>. </p>
<h2>The early days</h2>
<p>Bgoya’s focus in the early days was on Kiswahili fiction, art, scholarly and children’s books. Thanks to partnerships with western donors, he successfully launched a children’s book project which put out nearly 80 children’s books in five years, both in Kiswahili and English. However, the unstable local currency caused high printing costs and limited print runs. Resources to strengthen the distribution networks were scant from the onset.</p>
<p>By the mid-1990s Bgoya was able to capitalise on lower printing costs in India, and later China. While he chose to edit Kiswahili fiction personally, he had to outsource freelance external editors for his English titles. Though in conflict with his cherished ideology of self-reliance, these choices enabled the publication of higher quality and cheaper books.</p>
<p>The growing visibility and global distribution of his output were facilitated by the establishment of the <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/">African Book Collective</a>. This is a platform for African publishers funded primarily by the <a href="https://www.sida.se/en">Swedish</a> and the <a href="https://www.norad.no/en/front/">Norwegian</a> agencies which would only become self-financing in 2007. Foreign donors provided funding, facilitated regional training courses, and sponsored international book fairs, through which independent African publishers grew their networks and expanded their markets.</p>
<p>Accepting donor patronage did not, however, extinguish Bgoya’s progressive and anti-colonial intellectual project that drew him into publishing. He held the view that donors interfered with publishers’ final decisions and with the needs of local readers.</p>
<p>To support new publications and curb donors’ interventions, he sought new sources of revenue that would sustain publishing. These included freelance editing, commissioned writing, consultancies on media and book publishing, and allowances from his membership of various boards of directors.</p>
<h2>Millennium Declaration</h2>
<p>New challenges for independent publishers came in 2000. Donors suddenly withdrew after the adoption of the United Nations’ [Millennium Declaration](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/millennium-development-goals-(mdgs), which listed universal access to primary education among its eight development goals. The declaration excluded publishing, higher education and teacher training. This so-called poverty reduction strategy caused the decline of key platforms for networking and marketing African books such as the Zimbabwe International Book Fair.</p>
<p>Another potential blow came in 2014, with the restoration of state monopoly on the lucrative textbooks market in Tanzania. Since 1991, private sector publishers had replaced the state monopoly enjoyed between 1966 and 1985. The renewed monopoly represented a major setback for independent publishers who relied heavily on the income generated from school texts. However, Bgoya’s Mkuki na Nyota was able to overcome this challenge thanks to a diversification strategy.</p>
<p>On the list of innovations was his investment in a print-on-demand equipment. With this machine, he could produce commercially sustainable books and avoid the vicious circle of high printing costs, unsold books and warehousing costs. Still, importing spare parts was expensive and local personnel was not trained to operate the machine, which became inoperative for some time.</p>
<h2>Lessons for publishing</h2>
<p>Although Tanzanians do read for pleasure, books remain expensive in comparison to their disposable income. Authors tend to privilege English, the language of the learned minority, over Kiswahili, the language of the overwhelming majority. Thus English-language publications further shrink the already limited local reading public.</p>
<p>Despite a succession of different challenges, Bgoya’s approach has been consistent. Central to this is a commitment to progressive and quality books, participation in the publishing process through close interactions with authors, and the overall ability to keep producing what he set out to. The growing local and international prestige of his publishing house has afforded him new bargaining power through which he pursued his intellectual autonomy.</p>
<p>But the efforts of independent publishers should be accompanied by long-term practical interventions. Governments need to create conditions for writers to thrive. These include enforcing copyright laws, training of writers and publishers and streamlining language policies. </p>
<p>The funding of public libraries is vital too. It is the role of librarians and archivists to integrate print books with online services, e-books and multi-media activities. Well-stocked libraries have the potential to set a virtuous circle in motion: increased use of libraries can develop people’s appetite for reading. The result is more readers patronising and willing to read or buy books. </p>
<p>Notwithstanding the present challenges, independent publishing should maintain quality, innovation, and reasonable prices according to Bgoya. Books should influence public opinion, contribute to nationwide debates, stimulate an appreciation of reading and writing, and answer the needs of a liberating education and culture.</p>
<p>For more than thirty years, Bgoya has endeavoured to do just that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168105/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Suriano has previously received funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF).</span></em></p>Despite a succession of different challenges, Bgoya’s approach has been consistent.Maria Suriano, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed 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/1221432019-09-01T09:21:58Z2019-09-01T09:21:58ZWhy Tanzania’s attacks on free speech break with Nyerere’s legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289435/original/file-20190826-8868-1y4ynnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The statue of founding president Mwalimu Julius Nyerere in Tanzania's political capital Dodoma.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WikiCommons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I visited Tanzania recently for the first time in five years, and the first time since John Magufuli was elected President. I have been visiting the country regularly since 1976 – spending a year as a student in 1979 and three years as a diplomat in 1993-6. I have followed its fortunes through the decades with close interest, meeting all its Presidents (except the incumbent) at one time or another.</p>
<p>While I was there on this occasion, the journalist Erick Kabendera was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/30/arrest-of-tanzanian-journalist-sparks-fears-over-press-safety">picked up by police and kept incommunicado for several days</a> until he was suddenly re-appeared in court and improbably charged with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/aug/05/tanzanian-journalist-in-court-accused-of-money-laundering">economic crimes and tax evasion</a>. </p>
<p>This is not a lone incident: since 2015 it has become more frequent for independent journalists to face <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2018/03/15/i-had-to-flee-my-home-tanzania-for-doing-journalism-i-was-lucky/">harassment and even the threat of death</a>. Only a few weeks later another journalist, <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/news/africa/Tanzania-journalist-arrested-over--fake-news--released/1066-5248084-tvkd8pz/index.html">Joseph Gandye</a>, was arrested apparently for a story criticising police brutality. He was subsequently released. The government has also obstructed news or even the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tanzania-worldbank/tanzania-law-punishing-critics-of-statistics-deeply-concerning-world-bank-idUSKCN1MD17P">publication of standard national statistics</a> that it dislikes. </p>
<p>It is worth asking where this comes from. Since independence in 1961, Tanzania has been a beacon of the liberation struggle in Africa and of peaceful political stability. The country’s moral and political compass was set very firmly by its first president of 24 years, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. His successors have appealed to and pledged to uphold his legacy.</p>
<p>So what is that legacy? Nyerere was unusual among African leaders in leaving a substantial body of writings that set out his political thinking and which enable us to see its evolution. It is important to register that his thinking changed over time, adapted in the light of experience. </p>
<p>But some elements remained a bedrock: a powerful moral tone, an intolerance of corruption, a central role for the state, but with a real accountability to the people. Above all was the value of unity - at the national level, in the union with Zanzibar, and across Africa as a whole.</p>
<p>Kabendera has long been a critic of Tanzania’s government, helping expose <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/28/tanzania-cabinet-reshuffle-energy-scandal-jakaya-kikwete">an energy scandal</a> in 2015 in which $18 million was misappropriated. The scandal cost the then Minister of Energy his job. There was suspicion that a more recent article in The Economist probably caused the government’s ire. It was entitled “John Magufuli is bulldozing Tanzania’s freedom”.</p>
<p>Mwalimu would probably be angry as well but also sad to see his successors prefer a closed society to an open one and to look to the past rather than to the future. After all, Nyerere often argued that Tanzanians should not be afraid to challenge authority. He also spoke out strongly for <a href="https://www.juliusnyerere.org/resources/view/freedom_and_development">freedom of speech</a>. </p>
<h2>Nyerere’s legacy</h2>
<p>Nyerere started as an unabashed African Socialist. Capitalism and colonialism had gone hand-in-hand, and had <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/486390?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">destroyed</a> many of the traditional communal values of African society. These needed to be restored and built upon.</p>
<p>He justified the one party state as necessary for building national unity and avoiding fissiparous political divisions. He also advocated <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/abstract/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-172">“ujamaa”</a>, or villagisation, as a path to economic and social modernisation. But over time he came to see the drawbacks of both policies and began to adapt his own approach. </p>
<p>Nyerere was sometimes intolerant of criticism. But he tended to respond with argument rather than force. Although the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi had robust internal competition and accountability, any single party that remains in power continually tends to become politically complacent and financially corrupt. </p>
<p>The target tends to become climbing to the top of the party tree and reaping the benefits along the way, not serving the people. And villagisation and state production proved socially disruptive and financially disastrous. Economically, Nyerere’s prescription <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/160361?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">just did not work</a>.</p>
<p>In response, Nyerere did two things: he put in place succession arrangements that allowed him to step back from running the government, though retaining oversight as chairman of the party, and he allowed his successors <a href="https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft138nb0tj&chunk.id=d0e2247&toc.id=&brand=ucpress">to liberalise both politics and the economy</a>. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, multi-party politics was re-introduced, a number of loss-making parastatals that were draining the government’s resources were privatised, and the country began to encourage outside investors. Nyerere’s personal interventions became increasingly rare, limited largely to upholding the sanctity and importance of the political union with Zanzibar, and working for peace in neighbouring Burundi.</p>
<p>His genuine legacy, therefore, is to value unity but recognise diversity, not to overstay your welcome in power, and to be guided by principles but adapt your policies in the light of experience.</p>
<h2>Negation of legacy?</h2>
<p>Are the events of recent years the fulfilment or the negation of that legacy? Like his predecessors, President Magufuli puts great emphasis on respecting Nyerere’s legacy. </p>
<p>Selected at least in part for his well-known personal probity, he entered office breathing fire and fury against <a href="https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/24853/1/ACE-WorkingPaper001-TZ-AntiCorruption-171102_final%20revised.pdf">corruption</a> in the state machine, and his <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/12725/is-magufulis-economic-nationalism-working/">dramatic interventions</a> appeared to shake state utilities, including water and power, out of their torpor and corrupt practices to deliver to the public what they were supposed to. Basic infrastructure, including roads and energy, has been developed and delivered. All this was overdue.</p>
<p>But in other respects, the administration seems stuck in the early Nyerere-ite mode of suspicion – even hostility – to <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/12725/is-magufulis-economic-nationalism-working/">international capitalism and all its works</a>, and to open markets even within its region, preaching a narrow view of self-reliance similar to that which led the country into near bankruptcy in the early 1980s. </p>
<p>And in political terms, the president seems to adopt an intolerance of criticism and opposition that Nyerere in his later years had abandoned. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi itself seems increasingly frightened of fair competition, <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2015/10/02/tanzania-cannot-be-allowed-to-be-the-new-front-for-state-led-islamophobia/">fearful</a> that given a free choice and transparent information the people just might choose someone else. </p>
<p>Sadly, such transparency and freedom is the only thing that keeps democracies honest. To <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Magufuli-criticised-as-Tanzania-bans-rallies--/2558-3245376-124jyo5z/index.html">constrain the opposition</a> and <a href="https://cpj.org/2019/03/tanzania-citizen-7-day-publication-ban.php">harass the free press</a> will in the end destroy democracy and even the Chama Cha Mapinduzi itself.</p>
<p>We have seen elsewhere that some political leaders decide they should be the sole arbiter of political decisions, and stay on in charge long after their sell-by date, presiding over ever-more corrupt and incompetent governments and leading their countries to wrack and ruin. But in almost all cases, it does not end well. The same can apply to parties as to leaders.</p>
<p>Tanzania has benefited greatly from a regular political succession in its leadership. But it would be a betrayal, not a fulfilment, of Nyerere’s legacy to fail to allow the Tanzanian people a free and informed choice about the party and the policies they want.</p>
<p><em>The views expressed in this article are solely my own.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Westcott 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>While sometimes intolerant of criticism, Nyerere tended to respond with argument rather than force.Nicholas Westcott, Research Associate, Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD), SOAS, 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/888122017-12-10T11:27:10Z2017-12-10T11:27:10ZTanzania at 56: echoes of the best and worst of Nyerere under Magufuli<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198290/original/file-20171208-27677-lh0kxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Julius Nyerere (second right), his successor Ali Hassan Mwinyi (right) and Mwinyi's successor Benjamin Mkapa (left) host South Africa's Walter Sisulu in January 1990. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/File</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Tanzanian mainland is marking the 56th anniversary of independence from British rule. The mainland unified with Zanzibar in 1964 to create the current nation-state under Mwalimu Julius Nyerere who is often invoked as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tanzania-nyerere-factbox/factbox-facts-on-tanzanias-father-of-nation-nyerere-idUSL0245500920070302">“the father of the nation”</a>. </p>
<p>The new nation-state’s economic, social and political path was paved in 1967, when Nyerere proclaimed the <a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nyerere/1967/arusha-declaration.htm">Arusha Declaration</a>. This led to the nationalisation of key industries and the total reorganisation of rural life. Communal farming and forced resettlement were applied, justified on the basis of attempting to bring about self-reliance.</p>
<p>Referred to as <em>ujamaa</em>, the socialist-inspired policies dominated the politics, society, and economy of Tanzania until Nyerere’s retirement in 1985. </p>
<p>Ujamaa policies are much debated. Generally, they are seen as something of a <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/162030?casa_token=uQZJYRqt6XMAAAAA:duwdyhJrm6qORVJ-E4jX0hhqEHvHPR4Q0gF1qUbFwpXftproRXdG1SITpo-KgRlY4UxSdjCKv0NCYwDhJxHIjnQY7Aqu5H8MvXAsi7VQyI3Je3kp44NT">social success but as economically ruinous</a>. By emphasising <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/race-nation-and-citizenship-in-postcolonial-africa/5DC910F8042E6AC41BAD0726563A7409">Tanzanian citizenship</a>, ujamaa created a sense of unity and effectively <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/isbn/1555875300/">removed the kind of ethnic politics</a> that dominates Kenya, for example. But it short-circuited the economy and saw <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-7679.1975.tb00439.x/pdf">food production collapse</a>.</p>
<p>Nyerere’s handpicked successor Ali Hassan Mwinyi Tanzania practically reversed all the <a href="li%20Hassan%20Mwinyi%20Tanzania%20practically%20reversed%20all%20the%20earlier%20policies">earlier policies</a>. His government moved from one of the most influential and vehement defenders of African Socialism to one of the most neoliberal regimes on the continent. As Pitcher and Askew thoughtfully assert, this really put the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40026154?casa_token=Rvqwjbb0vegAAAAA:odeFh-CEYl9OC_sHgndal1IkKwjqmFDGLlf83aAOGVW3Y9g5n9E3vtmziLyPoDpZPBvKm7o7tTT62tKswbrVYbLCxSfHoiar1ziq0Ypu4bImIcZcj85L">“self” in “self-reliance”</a>.</p>
<p>This openness to investment and trade was further enhanced with the introduction of multipartyism in 1995. Under both Presidents Mkapa and Kikwete, the country generally remained economically liberal. It also remained investment friendly with significant levels of foreign investment when compared to the socialist period.</p>
<p>But sweeping change has come under the current President John Pombe Magufuli, who has just entered the third year of a five-year term. Magufuli has taken a different approach to that of his recent predecessors and is harking back to policies advocated by Nyerere. Comparisons between the two are commonplace, both <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2017/07/17/tanzania-magufulis-mining-reforms-are-a-masterclass-in-political-manoeuvring/">positive</a> and <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21730424-african-socialism-did-not-work-tanzania-last-time-either-john-magufuli">negative</a>. This is particularly so when it comes to natural resources.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most contentious area today is the mining sector and the role of the contemporary government in seeking better returns from mining companies. This move has the hallmarks of a policy of <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-africas-resource-nationalism-just-big-business-as-usual-41647">resource nationalism</a>. This is a sign of a shift in policy as well as rhetoric. </p>
<h2>Opening a closed economy</h2>
<p>Tanzania was close to bankrupt after the economic collapse of the 1970s and the conflict with Idi Amin’s Uganda in the late-1970s. The latter years of Nyerere’s presidency were marked by his <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056240500467054?journalCode=crea20">continual attempts to resist IMF assistance</a> which involved signing up to a structural adjustment package. This was mainly down to his concerns over dramatic cuts to social provision.</p>
<p>The first programme was finally <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/111081468778229178/pdf/multi0page.pdf">implemented in 1986</a> under Mwinyi whose presidency was marked by Tanzania’s economy opening up and dramatic reductions in social expenditure.</p>
<p>Multi partyism also arrived in Tanzania. The first multiparty elections in 1995 were won by Benjamin Mkapa who remained in power for the next 10 years. Another 10 years followed under Jakaya Kikwete until 2015.</p>
<p>During this period foreign investment has come in many sectors, but especially in tourism and mining. A significant part of the <a href="http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=806480">financial inflows came from post-apartheid South Africa</a>. </p>
<h2>“The Bulldozer” approach</h2>
<p>“The Bulldozer” Magufuli is Tanzania’s fifth president, and the fourth since multiparty elections. As he enters his third year,
there are strains of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-autocratic-rule-in-tanzania-from-nyerere-to-life-under-magufuli-73881">authoritarianism</a> in Magufuli’s approach which bear the hallmarks of Nyerere. For example, he seems to have centralised power within the executive branch of government.</p>
<p>At the same time, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/543426">he seems to be placing himself</a> more closely to the socialist era of Tanzanian politics than anything since Nyerere. </p>
<p>Both approaches seem politically acceptable to Tanzanians – as long as they generate results. Nevertheless, Magufuli’s approval <a href="https://www.twaweza.org/uploads/files/PeoplesPresident-EN-FINAL-A4.pdf">ratings fell to 71% in June</a> from a high of 96% last year.</p>
<p>It’s still unclear what effect his recent attempts to claw back revenues from multinational mining giants will have on his rating. </p>
<h2>New regime for mining</h2>
<p>In the Arusha Declaration, Nyerere describes natural resources as <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201710130100.html">owned by all citizens and held in trust for their descendants</a>. When the new mining laws were passed in July, <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-tanzania-mining/tanzanias-president-signs-new-mining-bills-into-law-idUSKBN19V23P">Magufuli said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We [Tanzanians] must benefit from our God given minerals and that is why we must safeguard our natural resource wealth to ensure we do not end up with empty mining pits.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The new laws raise royalties on tax for gold, copper, silver and platinum exports from 4% to 6%. This is a nominal increase perhaps but an indication of a different direction of travel. Expectations are that such changes will soon be introduced for <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201710230184.html">tanzanite and diamonds</a>.</p>
<p>Following the new laws the government agreed a 50-50 profit sharing arrangement with Barrack Gold as well as a minimum government of stake 16% in all mining activities. Gold generates around <a href="https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/tza/#Exports">a third of the country’s export revenues</a>.</p>
<p>The new mining laws aren’t <a href="http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/Govt--No-plan-to-nationalise-mines/1840340-4126130-8d98lw/index.html">akin to the nationalisation of 50 years ago</a>. But Magufuli has described the agreement with foreign investors as groundbreaking and a <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201710230183.html">model to be adopted elsewhere across the continent</a>.</p>
<p>The long term impact of mining reforms are yet to be felt. Claims from multinational corporations that the new laws <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tanzania-mining/investors-wary-as-tanzania-moves-to-assert-more-control-over-mines-idUSKCN1BZ066">threaten future investment</a> may well prove to be overblown. As might the opinion pieces in <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21730424-african-socialism-did-not-work-tanzania-last-time-either-john-magufuli">The Economist</a> suggesting Armageddon for the sector in Tanzania. But, certainly from some quarters, the view is that Magufuli <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2017/07/17/tanzania-magufulis-mining-reforms-are-a-masterclass-in-political-manoeuvring/">has managed the process well</a>.</p>
<p>On the other hand, his bulldozing style has seen his popularity decrease. It has also seen critics <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201712050224.html">express their views</a> over his presidency more forcefully. </p>
<p>A balance sheet of positives and negatives is perhaps the most striking similarity with the legacy of Nyerere as Tanzania marks yet another independence anniversary.</p>
<p><em>I would like to thank Alessia De Vito for her blog as part of our African Politics course at the University of East London. It certainly informed my ideas for this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88812/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>A balance sheet of positives and negatives for Tanzania’s president Magufuli is perhaps the most striking similarity with the legacy of Nyerere as the country marks another independence anniversary.Rob Ahearne, Senior Lecturer in International Development, University of East LondonLicensed 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.