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mwalimu nyerere
Nyerere and the Commonwealth
Chief Emeka Anyaoku with Annar Cassam
2009-10-13, Issue 452
cc WikimediaIn this interview with Annar Cassam on 29 September 2009 in London, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the former secretary-general of the Commonwealth Secretariat, reflects on Nyerere’s influence on international diplomacy. In “his many interventions and initiatives on behalf of Africa and the Third World in general and on behalf of the liberation struggle of South and Southern Africa in particular,” Anyaoku reflects with Cassam, Nyerere “came into serious conflict with the British government of the day, for the Commonwealth connection did not turn out to be the cosy network they had perhaps once imagined.”
Nyerere, the Organization of African Unity and liberation
Mohamed Sahnoun
2009-10-13, Issue 452
cc WikipediaIn this memoir, Ambassador Mohammed Sahnoun, first assistant secretary-general of the then Organization of African Unity (OAU), recalls Mwalimu Nyerere’s historical role in the creation of its Liberation Committee. Nyerere’s “lucidity and his strategic skills”, he reminisces, “were remarkable at all levels, as was his courage, bearing in mind that his own country was newly independent [1961] and that its state institutions were also at their formative stage.” When “conflicts occurred, as they inevitably did at the OAU and in the area of liberation politics, Nyerere, as the mwalimu that he was, used his gifts of analysis and reasoning to reach the right resolutions”. Sahnoun thus affirms, “It was a unique privilege to have worked with such a leader.”
But dear Mwalimu
Neema Ndunguru
2009-10-13, Issue 452
Kambarage Nyerere, How we wish you were here. Thank you for your patience and for making us persevere. But dear Mwalimu, why didn’t you tell us, expose and prepare us For the turmoil and struggles that have now engulfed us? Why didn’t we contin...
Racial and religious tolerance in Nyerere’s political thought and practice
Salma Maoulidi
2009-10-13, Issue 452
cc M A USalma Maoulidi unpacks Nyerere's legacy in the realm of racial and religious tolerance. “As Nyerere became more exposed to politics and other races,” she observes, “he attained the sophistication of tolerating mutual coexistence where acknowledging the humanity of others in lieu of settling scores informed a more encompassing political strategy.” However, despite all his efforts and those of the liberation struggles, prevailing racial and religious tensions continue to find expression in post-independence Tanzania. Salma concludes that “Tanzania’s inability to overcome the vestiges of racial and religious exclusion exposes the government’s and the ruling party’s inability (or unwillingness) to address racial and religious discrimination that continues to dominate Tanzania’s political culture in a forthright and objective manner.”
Mwalimu Nyerere: The artist
Vicensia Shule
2009-10-13, Issue 452
© Zanzibar HeritageFrom the perspective of a fellow artist, Vicensia Shule, Mwalimu Nyerere’s role in the promotion of art and the welfare of artists is reviewed in this article. “Mwalimu”, Vicensia observes, “produced various pieces of theatre works” and “in his mission to decolonized theatre” he translated Shakespeare plays into Kiswahili. She further notes that he was able to link his Ujamaa philosophy with fine arts, as the case of renaming the famous ‘Dimoongo’ Makonde sculpture ‘Ujamaa’ illustrates. However, Vicensia asserts, Mwalimu “was not lucky enough to nurture his fellow politicians especially in his party to appreciate art out of political propaganda.” She thus calls for the re-implementation of Mwalimu’s ideas on art.
Reading history backwards with Mwalimu
Seithy Chachage
2009-10-13, Issue 452
cc W WarbyWhenever Mwalimu Nyerere felt he did not understand something, Seithy Chachage writes in this week's Pambazuka News, he sought to "read history backwards". Experience has continually shown us that it is not poverty per se which is the real problem of the world, but rather "the division of mankind into rich and poor", a division which allows a small minority to persistently dominate all others. If attempts at poverty eradication are not to simply replicate seemingly timeless inequalities, Nyerere stressed, social and political development must go hand in hand with economic growth, or indeed even before. What are needed, Chachage concludes, are "historical forms of knowledge" to encourage Africans to intervene in response to their marginalisation and to break from a "life devoid of all forms of arbitrariness—whether class, gender, race [or] communal exclusivity".
Reflecting with Nyerere on people-centered leadership
Marjorie Mbilinyi
2009-10-13, Issue 452
cc NeilsDrawing from Mwalimu Nyerere’s thoughts on colonialism and post-colonialism, Marjorie Mbilinyi critiques the current state of leadership. “Corruption and the lack of patriotic leadership”, she observes, “has increased during the last 20 some years, but not in a vacuum.” This is so because an “enabling environment was created for corruption, individualism and compradorial tendencies by neo-liberal ideology and macroeconomic reforms which successfully took a dominant position in Tanzania – and much of the rest of Africa – in the mid-1980s.” To bring an end to this leader-centered group leadership, Marjorie calls for a people-centered leadership whereby “group-centered leaders … are grounded within their organizations or institutions, or movements; and the groups/organizations/movements they lead are identified not by a particular individual, but rather by the collectivity and its vision and mission.”
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere: An intellectual in power
Haroub Othman
2009-10-13, Issue 452
cc WikimediaPambazuka News brings to you the first Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Lecture delivered by Haroub Othman on 14 October 2005 at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Haroub reminisces on the glorious days of the ‘Dar es Salaam School’, the massive impact it had on the liberation of Africa and the role that Mwalimu Nyerere played in shaping its development away from a colonial and Western intellectual mould. On his last visits to the University of Dar es Salaam, Haroub recounts, Mwalimu made “one very important point, that Africa South of the Sahara was on its own” and as such we “have to rely on ourselves, and to cooperate among ourselves.” Taking a leaf from that spirit of Pan-Africanism, Haroub reminds us that “the Southern African-subcontinent is facing a deep crisis”, urging its “present intelligentsia to transform our societies and to give content to human dignity”.
The village in Mwalimu Nyerere's thought
Issa G Shivji
2009-10-13, Issue 452
cc QuarsanMwalimu Nyerere, writes Issa G. Shivji, “saw Tanzania essentially as a nation of village communities [that] was likely to be so for the foreseeable future.” He thus saw it as site of statist development and bureaucratic social service provision. Although there were “seeds of the conception of the village as a site of governance” in his thought, “there is no evidence that he advocated any consistent, political programme to evolve village governance.” Shivji thus calls on us take Mwalimu’s limited thought on the village one step further by placing the “restructuring of village governance on the centre stage” whereby it should be based on the rule of law and separation of power, not top-down administrative fiat. This will enable people’s development through a process of ‘accumulation from below’ in villages.
Nyerere’s vision of economic development
Faustin Kamuzora
2009-10-13, Issue 452
cc Neil J SFaustine Kamuzora’s article looks at the vision that guided Mwalimu Nyerere’s economic policies. “Since the majority of the citizenry lived in rural areas,” the article notes, “rural development was accorded high priority in economic policies.” These policies had mixed results whereby “while a number of indicators of human development indices improved appreciably, productivity in some sectors did not improve resulting into an economic growth decline.” “Nevertheless,” the article concludes, “the underlying philosophy of Nyerere’s economic policies of building an egalitarian society has enabled Tanzania to attain a stable nation status.”
Mwalimu in our popular imagination: The relevance of Nyerere today
Chambi Chachage
2009-10-13, Issue 452
cc WikimediaLooking back on Mwalimu Nyerere's tremendous intellectual influence, Chambi Chachage considers the enduring importance of the leader. Noting Nyerere's prescience in arguing against nations surrendering their "power of decision making" to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Chachage stresses that the leader's legacy is rooted in stimulating impassioned public debate around positive socio-economic change.
Mwalimu Nyerere and the challenge of human rights
Helen Kijo-Bisimba and Chris Maina Peter
2009-10-13, Issue 452
cc WikimediaHelen Kijo-Bisimba and Chris Maina Peter review the highly complex position that Mwalimu Nyerere had on human rights. On the one hand, they write, there “is Mwalimu the individual – a God fearing and religious family person who respects and champions rights of all people”. Yet on the other there is “Mwalimu – the President of the United Republic – signing a few death warrants, detaining people in custody without trial” and “deporting citizens of Tanzania from one part of the country to another”. This apparent complexity, they assert, had to do with his belief that “the community was far more important than the individual” and thus an “individual could be sacrificed but not the community.” Kijo-Bisimba and Peter thus conclude: “Whatever Mwalimu did that could be interpreted as violating human rights can always be explained in wider benefits to the community.”