 |
| Kofi Annan, Former UN Secretary General |
By
Duke Tagoe
Kofi
Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations comes across as a very
interesting character. He has expressed deep concern at the military mutinies
that have rocked Ivory Coast recently arguing that “they are a setback not only
for the country’s economic development and reputation but also for Africa’s
democratic progress.”
Mr
Annan seem to have suddenly come to the realization that, “resorting to arms
and holding the country [Ivory Coast] to ransom is not an acceptable way to
seek redress.”
Interestingly,
what Kofi Annan does not say is that these soldiers he refers to were once
rebels, who were hired in the French backed operation Unicorn that kidnapped
and ousted the constitutionally and democratically elected government of
President Laurent Gbagbo.
These
mutinies- the recent one occurring on the 6th of January 2017-come
as a result of the failure of the Government of Alassane Quattara, to meet its
promise to pay the former rebels $19,000 (nineteen thousand dollars) each adding
up to several hundreds of millions of dollars for their role in the coup d’état
against the Gbagbo government.
Kofi
Annan’s principles of democracy are applied only when the sitting head of state
and government is a darling boy and a sweet heart of the imperial power-France.
So
what did Kofi Annan really meant in his recent statement when he said that:” we
as Africans must ensure that our countries’ destinies are determined by
democratically-elected leaders reflecting the will of the people, and not by
the force of arms?”
 |
| President Laurent Gbagbo |
Ousted
President Gbagbo was a principal figure in the opposition to the neo-colonial
regime in Ivory Coast. He spent many years of his life as a teacher and worked
with ordinary Ivorians and the trade’s union movement that suffered poverty as
a result of the harsh conditions imposed by the French colonists for several
decades. He fought for the liberation of the Ivorian people, was imprisoned and
forced into exile under the regime of the first French-allied President Felix
Houphouet-Boigny.
About
7 years ago, Mr Annan believed then that it cannot be an exercise of democracy
when the Constitutional Council declared Gbagbo, leader of the Ivorian Popular
Front, the winner in the 2010 elections after it found massive fraud in nine provinces
by the opposition then led by Alassane Quattara.
It
must defy the imagination of every African, not the likes of Kofi Annan, that
none of the self-confessed rebels who’re demanding $19,000 dollars today, for
the murder of thousands of Ivorians and the destruction of entire villages and
the rebel leader himself-Allassane Quattara are standing trial, but rather the
sitting President was arrested and transported to the Netherlands to be tried
at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
We
are left without a doubt that Kofi Annan’s democracy left for Africa on the eve
of the departure of the colonial master has moved the African people away from
their Government. They are only invited to partake in governance by casting a
ballot to elect one of the candidates presented by the colonial master now nick
named development partner.
Allassane
Quattara was imposed on the Ivorian people in broad day light under the barrel
of the gun, as their elected leader was forcefully whisked away into a faraway
country to be taught important lessons for defying the orders of France.
Editorial
WHAT IS QUATARA UP
TO?
The
President of La Cote d’ivoire is playing very dangerous games with the people
of Ghana.
He
comes to Accra as a special Guest of Honour at the inauguration of President
Akufo-Addo pretending to be a friend when in reality he is busily scheming to
take a chunk of Ghana’s resources.
La
Cote d’ivoire is claiming part of Ghana’s oil fields and the matter is currently
being determined at an international arbitration.
If
indeed, President Quattara was such a good friend of Ghana, he would have
proposed the establishment of a West African Corporation to exploit the oil
resources of the Sub-region for the benefit of all West Africans.
President
Quattara cannot be up to any good. He just wants to have resources which belong
to Ghana and he must be watched very closely.
GHANA FIXES COTE
D’IVOIRE
 |
| Ghana Lawyers at ITLOS |
By Eugenia
Tenkorang
Ghana
has called on the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), not to
be swayed by Ivory Coast’s argument in the ongoing
maritime boundary dispute between the two countries, in its final submission.
The
Attorney General and leader of Ghana’s delegation to the ITLOS, Gloria Akuffo,
told the Special Chamber that Ivory Coast was trying to move the boundary to
the east to benefit from Ghana’s oil reserves, saying, “they simply cannot
escape from years of mutual practice, however hard they try, in implementation
of and reinforced by their own official maps, laws and decrees”.
“It was easy to lose count of the different
ways in which they tried to portray the coast. Arrows went one way and then the
other, coastal directions twisting and turning; land was added; land was
removed, depending on what point they wanted to make at any particular moment”,
she added.
Both
countries are at the ITLOS over their maritime boundary after several
bilateral talks failed.
Ghana
in its first round of oral argument earlier this month, told the Special
Chamber that the two countries had already agreed on their maritime boundary
per their domestic laws, a claim Ivory Coast disputed.
Ending
their oral submissions on Tuesday, Madam Akuffo insisted on the country’s
earlier argument, and prayed the Special Chamber to determine the maritime
boundary for both countries if it did not agree with Ghana’s argument.
She
told the Special Chamber that, “There is, despite Côte d’Ivoire’s protestations
to the contrary, an existing boundary, and it is based on equidistant. If,
contrary to our view, there is no boundary, then the law dictates that you
should not resort to another method of delimitation unless it is unfeasible to
construct an equidistant line, and since both parties have easily done so, that
surely puts an end to this notion of bisector, an argument which should never
have been made, and which appears concocted, unfortunately, only to increase
the so-called “area in dispute””.
 |
| Alhassan Ouattara, Presidential Claimant of Ivory Coast |
She
added, “in this context, we ask you to examine carefully how both parties’
concessions followed the customary boundary; to look at the many Ivorian
government maps, which clearly mark that boundary; to weigh up the vast range
of evidence which shows where the line was long agreed to lie”.
Ghana
is therefore urging the Chamber to summarily to “reject Côte d’Ivoire’s
attempts to argue that an oil field built up and developed over decades should
have been abandoned overnight in 2009 when Côte d’Ivoire decided that a different
boundary would suit it better”.
The
Attorney General further urged the Special Chamber to adjudge and declare,
among others, that Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire have mutually recognized, agreed,
and applied an equidistant-based maritime boundary in the territorial sea,
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf within 200 Miles.
She
also prayed the Chamber to reject “Côte d’Ivoire’s claim alleging violation of
article 83 of The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and
Côte d’Ivoire’s sovereign rights”, reiterating the country’s confidence in the
Chamber to deliver a principled ruling.
The
hearing was presided over by Judge Boualem Bouguetaia, President of the Special
Chamber constituted to deal with the dispute.
Ivory
Coast will start the second round of its oral argument tomorrow, Thursday,
February 16, 2017.
Che, Cuban citizen
by birth
 |
| Ernesto Che Guevarra |
By
Pedro Antonio García
The
morning of February 10, 1959, newspaper hawkers on the streets shouted at the
top of their lungs, "Che, Cuban citizen!" They were referring to a
press release printed on the front page of that Tuesday's edition of the
newspaper Revolución, announcing the Foundational Law approved by the
Revolutionary Government, in a session which began on February 7 and ended
during the dawn hours the following day.
This
law was essentially based on the Constitution of 1940, although it incorporated
clearly revolutionary articles in consonance with the times Cuba was living.
Appendix 12 specified, "… foreigners who have served the struggle against
the dictatorship defeated on December 31, 1958, in the ranks of the Rebel Army
for two years or more, and who have achieved the rank of Comandante for at
least one year… are Cubans by birth."
Luis
Buch, secretary of the Revolutionary Government's Council of Ministers from
January 1959 through March of 1962, reported that once this article and others
in the Foundational Law were approved during early February 8, he gave
instructions that Che be located and asked to make an immediate visit to Buch's
office.
Upon
hearing what the Council of Ministers had decided, Che responded that the
recognition was undeserved. Buch would relate years later, "According to
him, he had only struggled in Cuba as he would have in any other part of the
world, for the freedom of a people."
Buch
argued, "An honor of such magnitude cannot be refused; that would be an
affront to the Cuban people and the Revolutionary Government."
Che
was moved and embraced Buch. Together they entered the hall where the Council
of Ministers was still meeting and Che accepted the congratulations of those
present.
There
was some one who asked him to say a few words, but he declined, Buch told a
reporter years later, "He was just that modest and unassuming."
The
Council of Ministers' decision was published in a special edition of the
Official Gazette, dated February 7, 1959, but the information did not reach the
press until Monday the 9th, the date which is taken as a reference.
Since
1959, the Cuban people have considered Che one of their own, and the heroic
guerilla responded in kind.
In
his farewell letter of October 1965, he wrote to Fidel, "I believe I have
fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban Revolution in its
territory, and I bid farewell to you, the compañeros, and your people, which is
now mine. I formalize my resignation from leadership responsibilities in the
party, from my position as minister, my rank as a Comandante, and my condition
as Cuban. Nothing legal binds me to Cuba, only ties of another sort that cannot
be broken like appointments… I again state that I free Cuba of any
responsibility whatsoever, except that which emanates from its example. If the
definitive hour reaches me under other skies, my last thoughts will be for this
people and especially for you."
UK ‘very pleased’ about
Gambia’s Commonwealth Return
 |
| Adama Barrow, the puppet Gambian President with Boris Johnson |
Foreign
Secretary Boris Johnson, who was in The Gambia, said he is “very pleased” the
West African state intends to rejoin the Commonwealth.
His
visit, the first to The Gambia by a British foreign secretary, comes weeks
after long-time ruler Yahya Jammeh went into exile after a rigged elections.
Mr
Jammeh took The Gambia out of the Commonwealth in 2013, calling it a
neo-colonial institution.
New
President Adama Barrow had promised a return to the 52-nation grouping.
Before
leaving for Banjul, Mr Johnson said: “We will ensure this happens in the coming
months.
“The
strength of our partnerships show that Global Britain is growing in influence
and activity around the world.”
The
Commonwealth secretariat said it welcomed the news, saying the formal process
of rejoining would have to be agreed by the 52 heads of government.
“When
The Gambia left the Commonwealth in 2013, the heads of government… noted its
decision with regret. We looked forward to the country’s eventual return
because it was part of our very close knit family and our doors have always
remained open,” a spokesman said.
Last
week, the European Union promised The Gambia an aid package of nearly £65m
($81m) – almost three years after freezing its assistance to the West African
nation.
Mr
Barrow, who was sworn in last month, has also said The Gambia will reverse its
move to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In
a statement on Monday, the government said it had written to UN chief Antonio
Guterres to inform him of its decision “to discontinue the withdrawal notice”.
A
former Gambian information minister had referred to the court last year as “an
International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of
colour, especially Africans”.
The
move is a blow to Africa’s anti-ICC lobby – which includes South Africa,
Namibia and Burundi.
At
the annual African Union summit held this month, leaders called for a mass
walk-out from the ICC, but faced opposition from other countries, including
Nigeria, Senegal and The Gambia.
‘Return
from 22 years in exile’
The
Foreign Office said as well as holding talks with Mr Barrow, Mr Johnson visited the UK-funded Medical Research
Council and spoke to Chevening scholars and workers and employers in the
tourism industry.
The
West African state is a popular holiday destination for Britons. Thousands had
to be evacuated last month because of security concerns when Mr Jammeh was
refusing to hand over power after a rigged election in December.
Mr
Barrow, whose swearing-in was held in neighbouring Senegal, was inaugurated as
president in a ceremony at the national stadium on Saturday.
A
few heads of state attended. Mr Jammeh, who took power in coup in 1994, is now
in exile in Equatorial Guinea after West African leaders deployed troops to The
Gambia to ensure he left power.
Mr
Johnson went on to Ghana for talks with President Nana Akufo-Addo.
Referring
to him and Mr Barrow, Mr Johnson said: “Their elections highlight the
continuing strengthening of democracy in West Africa.”
THE CONTINENTAL FREE
TRADE AREA AGREEMENT- BRINGING RELIEF IN AFRICA’S TRADE
 |
| Alan Kyeremanteng, Minister of Trade |
By
Dora Addy
‘In
Africa today, we recognize that trade and investment, and not aid, are pillars
of development’- Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda.
On
meeting at the 28th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU)
this year, Heads of States and Governments have unanimously agreed to the
Continental Free Trade Area agreement (CFTA).
The
Continental Free Trade Area agreement was proposed by Uhuru Kenyatta, at an AU
Summit in Rwanda, where he said that boosting commodity exchange in Africa
would speed up integration, develop larger markets and facilitate competition.
Once
again, Africa is partnering for trade; a vibrant reminder of the many strides
ahead that would eventually culminate in the continent’s success when treaded
well.
Advancing
towards the cause of sustainable development in Africa, while forging necessary
trade partnerships and African solidarity, it is also detrimental, considering
the plight of the ‘dark continent’ to usher in some of these creative
development initiatives to better align the African continent towards modern
economic sustainable growth.
On
many levels, the continent’s partnerships have bordered on trade and industry;
agreements which are in keeping with the laws and conventions within the
African Union conglomerate. Not overlooking what the regional network (Africa
Union) has forged for many countries within its fold, including honoring many
African citizens on the continent with much needed political calm and restoring
civilian dignity, trade has also played a unique position on the course of the
AU’s journey.
JUST ONE OF THOSE
TRADE ARRANGEMENTS?
There
already exists to some trade arrangements to facilitate the flow of goods and
services. One such example is the Economic Community of West African States’
(ECOWAS) Trade Liberalization Scheme, Interstate Road Transit Procedures for
those landlocked African nations and the Common External Tariff.
Not
to say that other African trade measures have not helped much, and even have
been superfluous, the Continental Free Trade Area agreement (CFTA) is not just
another trade partnership, coined to pad the African trade reputation, but
rather, adding on to what other trade partnerships have not included;
broadening the scope of doing business between African countries, for the
better, and enhancing African integration through trade.
Observing
that intra-trade relations between African countries would not only improve African
integration, African development and economic boost is what the CFTA seeks to bring to Africa. Making notes on
the oil market for example, oil-producing Nigeria and Angola have recently
received some shocks in the decline of oil prices.
The
African economy, for example, whose major imports and exports lies with the
European Union, and other developed nations have a burgeoning population of
about 1.2 billion people, but their business partnerships at the Euro zone
fetches the developed world some 63% of trade incomes.
While
Ghana also trades heavily with other developed countries on exports and imports
levels, such national income for those trade endeavors could be used to improve
on local production, while developing the Agric sector immensely, and also
partnering in trade where we have the
need.
A
recent 2016 development by the Africa Economic Outlook report also provides
that although having a yearly economic growth of 8.5% since 2010, trade between
African countries has not grown much; developed nations have been the major
determinants of Africa’s trade commodities, and consequently enjoying great
benefits at Africa’s own cost.
POSITIVE DRIVE FOR
AFRICA’S TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT
The
CFTA will bring together all African states with a population of over 1
billion, and combined GDP of more than $3.4 trillion, for business and trade
advantages - trading in high volumes with the rest of the world while reaping
the real benefits of trade.
Experts
on Africa’s Trade policies, Bamilade Adekunle and Glen Filson, say that
Africa’s intra-trade relations is estimated at 10% compared with North
America’s 40%, and Western Europe’s 60%.
The
CFTA seeks better intra-African trade relationship among all 54 member states.
Through this the CFTA is creating a single continental market for goods and
services, with free movement of business persons and investments, while
assisting African countries to use trade more effectively as a tool for growth
and sustainable development. It has been found that African nations partner
with more foreign countries than among themselves, owing to one challenge or
the other.
The
Agreement also seeks to improve African trade relations through creating better
relationships of understanding and coordination of trade liberalization and
also expediting processes to regimes and instruments across Africa. Trade talks among Africans can go through
rigid processes, in addition to other difficult requirements. While there may
be good opportunities for successful applicants, making trade talks more
pliable is also necessary to facilitate development among nations while reaping
mutual benefits. Trade facilitation measures can reduce the cost of doing
business across borders between 12% and 17%, according to one source, The
Conversation.
Also,
the CFTA will reduce the weakness of the African continent to external
pressures and consequent disadvantages that hamper on trade development and
economic growth on the continent, while reducing Africa’s high dependence on
foreign aid and borrowing, and heightening Africa’s participation on the globe
as a respectable business partner to other trade partners. Africa bleeds from
the harsh conditions of business with the developed world. Already suffering
from setbacks through huge debts, the continent faces stiff competitions on the
global economic market. The continent imports most of its staple foods. While
this is too costly, staple foods could otherwise be within reach in Africa.
These
indicators provide positive ways by which the continent can grow economically,
while reducing stress and stringent instruments that tie some countries down
from reaching out to the appropriate business partners on the continent.
GHANA ON THE WINGS
OF THE CFTA
Ghana
fares well in trade development, but still looks to increase her agricultural
inputs. Food sustainability has been a harrowing concern over the previous
years, considering that agric has been affected by climate change, and other
threats that currently face the backbone of our economy.
 |
| Dr Akoto, Ghana's Minister of Agriculture |
Food
sustainability, the ability to feed all in the country decently, and still have
more over the period of the next harvest- ensuring that food access is not
limited by any challenge whatsoever is an ongoing battle.
Meanwhile,
acquiring the most advanced methods for farming can be learned from other
African countries thriving well in agriculture.
Ghana
spends hundreds of millions of dollars importing staple foods, but exporting
just a small fraction of what we produce. The country’s imports grew to
$3324.63 million in the 3rd quarter of 2016, from $3243.20 million in the 2nd
quarter of 2016, according to Trading Economics. While many of such imports are
from developed countries, such figures could be drastically reduced if trade is
made more accessible on the continent.
While
many of our farmers remain in penury as a result of some of these challenges,
the CFTA will rather increase wealth among farmers and further open endless
opportunities for Ghana’s agriculture. Vegetable exports to the EU which
amounted to some $7 million annually have fallen by more than 50% since 1998,
according to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
In 2015 for example, The EU announced a
temporary freeze on the export of some fruits and vegetables from Ghana,
raising quality concerns. This challenge led to a drop in Ghana’s vegetables to
Europe since the 1990s, from 30 and 40 tonnes daily to 4 and 5 tonnes a day!
Through
this CFTA, the country will have easy access to the African market, while
reducing some of the stress that many of our farmers face. Losses that occur as
a result of strict quality control measures on the international market, which
most of our farmers cannot reach.
A CONTINENT WITH
ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES
While
this trade facilitation move through the CFTA is also a good way to create an
enabling environment for foreign direct investments in Africa, it is hoped that
the ‘dark continent’ would soon lighten up with positive economic advancement
through many of the forged trade partnerships in the near future.
Africa
beams with opportunities in people and human resources, and trade provides many
of the ways that these human and material resources can be developed.
The
African continent is full of zest and possibilities but little opportunities to
tap them. Freeing trade is one of the most viable ways to an economically
revolutionized Africa.
NYERERE, NATIONALISM AND PAN-AFRICANISM
Decisive moments in
Nyerere’s intellectual and political thought
 |
| Julius Nyerere |
Julius
Nyerere was among ‘the most articulate, intense and militant’ of the first
generation of African nationalists. Issa Shivji traces the development of a
Pan-Africanist philosopher-king and his struggle to live a more principled
politics.
INTRODUCTION: THE MAN
Julius Kambarage Nyerere
belonged to the first generation of African nationalists. He was among the most
articulate, intense and militant. Leading a country like Tanganyika, which was
essentially a semi-commoditized peasant society and ruled as a trust territory,
provided space to an individual leader which was not available, for example, to
a much more differentiated society like that of Kenya under the white settler
rule or Uganda with a history of fairly developed kingdoms.
While individuals may
make history, they do not choose the circumstances in which they do so. The
circumstances are given by history (Marx 1869, 1973: 146, Carr: 1961: passim,
Plekhanov 1969.). The circumstances of the then Tanganyika where social forces
were not developed produced a prominent individual like Nyerere who no doubt
appeared to tower above society and so did the state, which he headed after
independence. An understanding of the trajectory of Nyerere’s intellectual and
political thought is not only rewarding in its own right but also because it
tells a lot on and about the context, circumstances and the lives and struggles
of his fellow Tanganyikans.
In the first section of
the paper, I develop a conceptual framework for structuring, periodising and
laying bare the tensions in Nyerere’s thought. Subsequent sections tentatively
periodise the trajectory based on decisive moments or turning points in his
political journey.
Nyerere no doubt was a
great man. But he was also a politician at the pinnacle of state power and as
such at times pragmatism, even Machiavellism, overshadowed his avowed
principles. Unlike others, though, Nyerere had a great ability and talent to
rationalize his political action with an astute exposition of principles. (In
that respect he could have his cake and eat it.) Thus he was also a great
thinker and intellectually stood head and shoulders above many of his political
contemporaries. He could be truly described as a philosopher-king. While we
have touched on some of his political practices, which needless to say did not
always conform to his avowed principles, full justice to it can only be done in
a larger work, which is in the process of being developed.
THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Mwalimu Nyerere was an
ardent and militant African nationalist and an equally convinced and persuasive
pan-Africanist. Unlike, Nkrumah, though, Nyerere arrived at continental
pan-Africanism through Tanganyikan nationalism. Nkrumah arrived at Ghanaian
nationalism through pan-Africanism. Nyerere saw an irresoluble tension between
nationalism and pan-Africanism, which he perceived as a ‘dilemma of the pan-
Africanist’ in his famous 1966 address (Nyerere 1966 in 1968). As head of state
he was supposed to build and nurture ‘territorial nationalism’ based on a
sovereign independent state while pan-Africanism required him to dissolve
individual sovereignty and therefore the basis of ‘territorial nationalism’.
For Nkrumah, Ghanaian nationalism and sovereignty were a momentary expression
in the struggle for pan-Africanism. (This was captured in his famous dictum
that Ghana’s independence was meaningless without the independence of the rest
of the continent.) This brings out other two poles of the tension, imperialism
and ethnicity or tribalism.
‘I’m a good Mzanaki, but
I won’t advocate a Kizanaki-based political party. ... So I’m a Tanzanian, and
of course I am Mzanaki; politically I’m a Tanzanian, culturally I’m Mzanaki.’
(Sandbrook & Halfani eds. 1993: 31-32).
Nyerere’s perception of
the other two poles, ‘imperialism’ and ‘state’, was interesting but he did not
sufficiently problematise these concepts. To be sure, as a leader of the
independence movement, and later as a head of state, he intensely hated
colonialism and imperial powers. His opposition and resistance to colonial form
of imperialism and imperial powers was articulated in terms of the sovereign
right of a people to make their own decisions, that is, in the language of the
right of peoples to political self- determination. He thus located the tension
with imperialism at the level of the sovereignty of the state rather than that
between imperialism and the nation or people. His opposition to colonial
powers, and occasionally to imperialism, was politically perceptive and often
couched in very caustic terms. However, he did not always fully understand or
appreciate imperialism as a world system based on the political economy of
capitalism. For Nkrumah, on the other hand, neo-colonialism was a stage of
imperialism embedded in the processes of capitalist accumulation (Nkrumah
1965).
As for the state,
Nyerere’s perception was strongly coloured by the fact that he headed it. His
held a typically liberal view of the state. Given that at the time of
independence there was no organised force other than the state, Nyerere
perceived the state as the agency both for nation-building and economic
development as well as a unifier and organiser of society. Being a head of
state, such conceptualisation of the state logically led to the suppression of
any independent initiative of the people to organise themselves, independent
of, and opposed to the state. This is where the greatest contradiction in
Nyerere’s political practice lay. His well-intended policies were meant for the
people executed by the state from top. Top-down approach is a distinct mark of Nyerere’s
political rule (see, for instance, Havnevik 1993). He had little faith in the
people and people’s own initiative. While he recognised the limitations of his
bureaucracy, he sought to overcome them partly by training and partly by
keeping their excesses in check using his fiat as the head of state. The result
was that Nyerere’s politics became typically authoritarian on the one hand, and
destructive of people’s organisational capacity, on the other (see generally
articles in Shivji ed. 1986).
The conceptual framework
in which we have deployed a number of conceptual categories and ideological
constructs, namely, imperialism, state, nationalism, pan-Africanism, and
ethnicity, helps us to organise our discussion of Nyerere’s thought. The
tensions between them and in his thought are of course in the last instance a
reflection of real social relations and struggles. History is not made by
tensions between abstract categories; rather it is the product of the
interaction and struggles between real social beings. As Marx says,‘History
does nothing, it possesses no immense wealth, fights no battles. It is rather
man, real living man who does everything, who possesses and fights.’(Quoted in
Carr 1961: 49)
We will undoubtedly
locate the contradictions of Nyerere and his thought in the real men and women
who possess wealth and fight battles in the proposed larger work. The present
paper only schematically identifies some of the decisive or critical moments
both in his thought and the historical events in Tanzania.
CONTRADICTIONS OF NATIONAL-BUILDING AND
POLITICAL SURVIVAL: 1961- 1966
The immediate
post-independence period in Africa was generally tumultuous. More than a dozen
countries got their independence at a go. Many of them, almost immediately,
faced problems of stability and survival. In 1966 alone there were eight
military coups including the one that overthrew Kwame Nkrumah (Nyong’o
1998:78).
Among them the Congo
experience was the most traumatic with the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and
the outbreak of violence and chaos. In 1964, there were army mutinies in all
the three East African countries. In Tanganyika, it almost succeeded. Nyerere
went into hiding for a week. Eventually the mutineers were subdued with the
assistance of British troops. Nyerere’s nationalist ego was wounded. Soon
after, he called a meeting of the O.A.U (Organisation of African Unity) foreign
ministers to explain (Nyerere 1964 in 1966: 286- 5 290). Nyerere took one of
the most dramatic steps of his rule: he disbanded the colonial army completely.
During a period of one year when the new army was being rebuilt and soldiers
recruited from the youth wing of the ruling party TANU (Tanganyika African
National Union), Nigerian troops looked after the country’s defense.
In the same year there
was another momentous event, the revolution in Zanzibar, which overthrew the
newly independent government led by a coalition of the Arab-dominated Zanzibar
Nationalist Party and the Shirazi-dominated Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party.
Influenced by the left-wing party Umma, of Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu, the
revolution immediately attracted Cold War rivalries on the door step of the
East African mainland.
 |
| Julius Nyerere with Commandante Fidel Castro |
In another twist of
events, Nyerere clashed with West Germans who threatened to withdraw aid should
Tanzania continue to allow the then East Germany to have their Consulate in
Zanzibar. The German Democratic Republic was among the first to recognise the
revolution and establish an Embassy there. After the Union, Zanzibar continued
to have the embassy but now called it a Consulate. West Germany would not
compromise. In a strident response Nyerere asked West Germans to take away all
their aid. In an assertion of the country’s sovereignty, he said, we would not
allow our friends to choose enemies for us.
While Nyerere refused to
see the problem of the union as a quintessential expression of Zanzibar
nationalism against his territorial pan-Africanism, the tension between his
territorial nationalism and ethnic/racial parochialism was dramatically
expressed only a couple of months before independence in the debate over the
citizenship law. The Government had proposed a citizenship bill, which would
allow all residents of Tanganyika regardless of their race to obtain
Tanganyikan citizenship provided they satisfied certain conditions. A large
number of militant members of the parliament from the ruling party opposed the
bill arguing that citizenship ought to be based on race. Nyerere retorted with
an uncompromising condemnation of the racial position and threatened to resign.
You know what happens
when people begin to get drunk with power and glorify their race, the Hitlers,
that is what they do. You know where they lead the human race, the Verwoerds of
South Africa, that is what they do. You know where they are leading the human
race. These people are telling us to discriminate because of the ‘special
circumstance of Tanganyika.’ Verwoerd says, ‘the circumstances of South Africa
are different.’ This is the argument used by the racialists. ... ...
[T]his Government has
rejected, and rejected completely, any ideas that citizenship with the duties
and the rights of citizenship of this country, are going to be based on
anything except loyalty to this country. (Applause.) ... The views of those
Hon. Members and those of the Government could not be further apart. I am
therefore asking for a free vote, and the moment the majority of the
representatives of our people show that their views are different from ours, we
resign at that point. (Applause.) (Nyerere 1961, 1966:128-9. For a detailed
discussion see Listowel 1965.)
Immediately after
independence, Nyerere’s regime was threatened from not only external but also
internal forces. Two other centers of power, besides the state, were the army
and the trade unions. The army was dismantled following the mutiny. The state
took the opportunity also to ban free trade unions on the allegation that some
trade union leaders had collaborated with the mutineers. Instead a law of the
parliament established a single trade union subordinate to the state. The
subsequent year saw the establishment of the one-party state, which marked the
end of independent organisations of the civil society. Centralisation of power
in the state had an obverse effect though. As in many other African countries
the new petty bourgeoisie that had come to power began to differentiate rapidly
as the state positions were being used to gain a foothold in the economy giving
birth to what came to be called wabenzi (meaning owners of Mercedez Benz, a
symbol of the political nouveau riche then) in Tanzania. The state became a
terrain of accumulation. This development would have two-fold effect. It would
fracture the unity of the new rulers with the masses built around the promise
of independence and mobilized under the nationalist rhetoric. Secondly, the new
political class would fortify and safeguard the unequal structures inherited
from colonialism. Nyerere saw this and deeply agonized over it.
The opportunity came in
October 1966 when university students of the then University College, Dar es
Salaam (the only university in the country established on the eve of
independence) demonstrated in opposition to the national service law that
required all graduates to work in national service camps for six months and
then contribute 40% of their salary for the next 18 months. Nyerere commanded
all the demonstrators to be brought to the compounds of the state house. The
cabinet was there sitting at the high table as Nyerere listened carefully to
student demands. Then he erupted like a volcano reaching a crescendo with an
order: ‘Go home’. ‘Go home’ meant over 300 students were expelled from the
University.
‘You’r are right when
you talk about salaries. Our salaries are too high. You want me to cut them?
(some applause) ... Do you want me to start with my salary? Yes, I’ll slash
mine (cries of ‘No’.) I’ll slash the damned salaries in this country. Mine I
slash by twenty per cent as from this hour.
...
‘The damned salaries! These are the salaries which build this kind of attitude in the educated people, all of them. Me and you. We belong to a class of exploiters. I belong to your class. Where I think three hundred and eighty pounds a year [the minimum wage that would be paid in the National Service] is a prison camp, is forced labour. We belong to this damned exploiting class on top. Is this what the country fought for? Is this what we worked for? In order to maintain a class of exploiters on top? ...
...
‘The damned salaries! These are the salaries which build this kind of attitude in the educated people, all of them. Me and you. We belong to a class of exploiters. I belong to your class. Where I think three hundred and eighty pounds a year [the minimum wage that would be paid in the National Service] is a prison camp, is forced labour. We belong to this damned exploiting class on top. Is this what the country fought for? Is this what we worked for? In order to maintain a class of exploiters on top? ...
‘You are right, salaries
are too high. Everybody in this country is demanding a pound of flesh.
Everybody except the poor peasant. How can he demand it? He doesn’t know the
language. ... What kind of country are we building?’ [Smith 1971: 30 – 31]
That event was a turning
point. It paved the way for the adoption of the policy of socialism and
self-reliance a few months later.
THE MILITANT MELLOWED:
1967-1974
In February 1967 the
ruling party TANU adopted the policy of Socialism and Self- reliance proclaimed
in the document famously called the Arusha Declaration. It was a historic
document. Its significance lay in providing a vision around which masses could
rally. Hitherto, Nyerere had made his beliefs regarding socialism, or what he
called Ujamaa, known in the famous 1962 article called Ujamaa – The Basis of
African Socialism. There he announced: ‘Socialism ... is an attitude of mind.’
(Nyerere 1962 in 1966: 162). He went further.
‘The basic difference
between a socialist society and a capitalist society does not lie in their methods
of producing wealth, but in the way that wealth is distributed. While,
therefore, a millionaire could be a good socialist, he could hardly be the
product of a socialist society.’ (ibid. 162-
63).
63).
Nyerere’s conception of
socialism then could at best be described as Owenite, if not utopian. It did
not inspire anybody nor did it mobilize the masses. It was not meant for them.
In any case, it was written in English.
The Arusha Declaration
was of a different genre. It was written in Kiswahili, perhaps the best, yet
understandable, linguistic articulation. It inspired, it mobilized. It was a
call for a revolution, yet not a call to arms. It went beyond the ‘attitude of
mind’ to take concrete action. Major means of production – big plantations,
banks, insurance, wholesale business, etc. – were nationalized.
More importantly, it
imposed by law ‘leadership conditions’ on top state and party leaders and civil
servants, including executives in the public sector. Those occupying leadership
positions were prohibited from having shares and taking directorships in
private companies. They could not own houses for rent. They could not have more
than one income and so on. In short, they were legally barred from using their
public positions to accumulate private wealth. The moving call of the Arusha
declaration echoed all over the country.
‘We have been oppressed
a great deal, we have been exploited a great deal and we have been disregarded
a great deal. It is our weakness that has led to our being oppressed, exploited
and disregarded. Now we want a revolution – a revolution which brings to an end
our weakness, so that we are never again exploited, oppressed, or humiliated.’
(Nyerere 1967: 235)
The revolution was going
to be made from the top, by the state, with the support of the masses, -
peasant populism at its best. Nyerere was making politics in the Leninist
sense. ‘Politics begin where the masses are; not where there are thousands, but
where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin.’ But he was
also laying a basis for a hegemonic state. The great Caribbean historian, C. L.
R. James, got it right when he said:
... Dr. Julius Nyerere
in theory and practice laid the basis of an African state, which Nkrumah had
failed to do, and the Arusha Declaration in which Nyerere laid down his
principles is one of the great documents of post-World War II. (James 1977: 7)
Nyerere had indeed laid
the basis for a state. This helped him survive until he voluntarily retired
from formal politics in 1985. Nkrumah did not. He was overthrown by a CIA
(Central Intelligence Agency, the notorious spy agency of the United States)
engineered military coup with the collusion of right wing Ghanaian politicians.
The period 1967 to 1974, the heyday of the Arusha Declaration, was undoubtedly
the most momentous period in the political history of Tanzania. In terms of
time it was short; in terms of politics it was epochal.
The most decisive moment
of the period, and a turning point in Nyerere’s intellectual and political
trajectory, was 1971. It marks the high point of Nyerere’s resolute
nationalism, militant anti-imperialism and shrewd pragmatic politics. Nyerere’s
speeches and lectures in the immediate post-Arusha period were some of the most
militant, some of the most articulate, increasingly showing his appreciation of
the political economy of capitalism and imperialism. He undoubtedly read Marx
but perhaps much more Lenin. He gave a lecture in Kiswahili at the Kivukoni
Ideological College – equivalent of Nkrumah’s Ideological Institute at Winneba
(Milne 2000: 119) – on ‘The part played by Labour in the transformation of
Man’, which was very close to Engel’s article4 (personal memory). But Nyerere
was no Marxist or a proletarian revolutionary. He detested the notion of ‘class
struggle’ although by his own admission he was no Gandhinian pacifist either.
Where all other means failed, he was prepared to support armed struggles waged
by liberation movements in Southern Africa. He got on very well with and even
admired freedom fighters like Samora Machel and Amilcar Cabral who were avowed
Marxists. He often visited the University and conducted teach-ins on the Arusha
Declaration. He was well informed of the ideological fervour on the campus
where radical students had formed a militant organisation called the University
Students African Revolutionary Front (USARF). To preempt and disarm
‘revolutionary students’ who advocated ‘scientific socialism’ and likened
Ujamaa to ‘utopian socialism’, he often quoted Lenin’s dictum of the need for
‘concrete analysis of the concrete situation’. In one of such teach- ins he
made the famous statement that, ‘if Marx had been born in Sumbawanga5, he would
have come up with the Arusha Declaration instead of Das Capital.’
Two events with lasting
impact on Nyerere’s politics happen in 1971. Guinea, then the rear base of the
struggle of Guinea-Bissau against Portuguese colonialism, was invaded by
Portugal. Although Guinean forces including the people’s militia rebuffed the
attack, it was a clear warning to Tanzania, which was a steadfast rear base for
a number of liberation movements including the FRELIMO of Mozambique. In the
same year, as Uganda’s Milton Obote was attending the Commonwealth conference
in Singapore where he had strongly backed Nyerere on the issue of arm sales to
South Africa by Britain, his regime was overthrown by Idi Amin Dada. Amin was
supported by Britain and Israel. Obote had started moving to the Left and had
become quite close to Nyerere.
This was also the time
when Numeiry in Sudan had declared socialism. A kind of ‘corridor of
progressive states’ was thus in the making when imperialist powers struck to
overthrow Obote to break the chain while at the same time send warning signals
to Tanzania. Ngombale-Mwiru, one of the most articulate Marxists in the party,
was sent to Guinea to learn the secret of Guinean success against Portuguese
invasion. He came back with the idea of people’s militia (Ngombale/Shivji
2009).
Nyerere argued that the
coup was ‘directed against progressive African countries in a desperate move to
blow up the bridge between Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia (quoted in
Shivji 1976:124). Nyerere went further and interestingly linked imperialism with
local reactionary forces antagonized by the measures taken by the Arusha
Declaration and similar measures that Obote was contemplating to take in
Uganda.
‘When President Obote
set for the control of the economy, naturally he angered some of the Uganda Africans
who wanted to mass wealth and they branded him as their enemy and will work
hard to slow the process of his return. When we in Tanzania nationalized the
major means of production, we basically angered the British and even some of
our leaders and to those aspiring for wealth we laid down a code of behaviour.
President Obote was working for a similar goal to define the function of the
leader and that was why some of these Ugandan Africans are enthusiastic towards
the rebel regime in Kampala’ (Interview with Mustafa Amin, The Standard,
Tanzania, 16 February 1971).
Immediately after the
Uganda coup, the National Executive Committee of the Party met and adopted one
of the most militant documents, the Mwongozo or Guidelines. The Mwongozo
analysed the security situation and underlined the need for the party to
control the army and for the people to be armed. People must be involved in
decision-making, it demanded, and the habits of leaders must be scrutinized, it
asserted. Clause 15 of Mwongozo was a short but succinct summation of the
developing contradiction between the bureaucracy in the public sector and the
working class. ‘For a Tanzanian leader it must be forbidden to be arrogant,
extravagant, contemptuous and oppressive.’ This set off a wave of strikes and
workers struggles in the public and private sector. The struggle quickly moved
from strikes to locking out of managers and then on to taking over of
factories. Between February 1971 and September 1973, there were some 31
industrial disputes involving almost 23 000 workers with a loss of some 64 000
man-days. This was almost twice the man-days lost and workers involved for the
previous six years (Shivji 1976: 135 et seq). Almost two-thirds of these
strikes were in the public sector.
Mwongozo was thus a
document of different genre compared to the Arusha Declaration. It was
undoubtedly the work of the Left6 in the party, in particular Ngombale-Mwiru
and Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu (Ngombale/Shivji interview 2009: 69). Whereas the
Arusha Declaration mobilized people’s demonstrations in support, the Mwongozo
lit the fire of class struggle against the ‘new class’, the state based
proto-bourgeoisie. During the workers struggle Nyerere kept quiet. The sides to
the contention did not know where he stood. But behind the scenes there seems
to have been pressure on him in the usual language of the status quo. ‘Workers
were causing havoc, there was no industrial discipline, the country and the
economy would suffer, etc.’ On 1st May 1974, Nyerere came down on workers in
his famous speech ‘unapogoma, unamgomea nani?’ ‘when you strike, against whom
are you striking?’ The logic was standard. Nationalized enterprises were public
property, workers own property through their state. When they struck,
therefore, they were hurting themselves. Nyerere chose his side. The 1974
marked the end of Nyerere’s socialist militancy. Demagogues in the party took
over. A number of events happened subsequently in quick succession.
DEMAGOGUERY SETS IN: 1975-1979
Statutory workers committees
at the work place led the post-Mwongozo workers struggles. The committees,
composed exclusively of elected workers from non- management cadre, were
originally meant to help the employer discipline workers at the work place.
They had no relationship with the trade union. During the post-Mwongozo
struggle, however, the committees spearheaded the struggle because they were
the only organised and legitimate organs available at the workplace. The trade
union established by the state had no role; in fact in many cases workers
either ignored the trade union or were openly hostile to it. After the 1974
speech, managers managed to push through the law that abolished workers
committees and substituted them with trade union branches. The aim was to bring
workers under the control of the state through the trade union (Kapinga 1986:
87-106).
In the sister paper of
the Arusha Declaration, Socialism and Rural Development (1968), Nyerere had
advocated the establishment of ujamaa villages based on collective ownership of
means of production and collective work. But they were meant to be voluntary
associations. Between 1969 and 1972, the process of villagisation was slow. The
party stalwarts were for speeding up the process. In November 1973, Nyerere
directed that living in villages was no longer voluntary. By the end of 1976,
the whole rural population should have moved into villages. Thus began the
forced villagisation in which millions of peasants were resettled in villages.
There was no prior planning. Villagers were not consulted or involved in
decision-making (Land Commission 1994: 43). Politically the peasantry was
alienated and Nyerere began to lose his popular rural base. Meanwhile,
co-operatives, which had played a major role in the 1950s and early 1960s were
abolished in 1976 by fiat. State crop authorities were given monopoly powers to
buy crops. These authorities became a siphon to transfer the surplus from the
peasantry to state bureaucracy. Peasants were paid as low as 20-30% of the
market price for their crops.
As the economy was
showing signs of decline, politically the demagogues in the party began to
wield more and more power resulting in the state becoming more and more
authoritarian. In 1975, the party was declared supreme. The National Executive
Committee of the party was now the real powerhouse. The parliament was
sidelined. The line between the party and the state were blurred. Politics were
monopolized as the civil society was statised. Within the state, power was
concentrated in the executive and within the executive in the presidency.
Extreme concentration and centralisation of power was formally consecrated in
the 1977 Constitution so much so that Nyerere could quip to a BBC reporter
that, ‘I have sufficient powers under the Constitution to be a dictator.’
(Quoted in Mwakyembe 1986: 45). To be sure, Nyerere was not a dictator. That is
commendable of the man. But the same cannot be said of the constitutional order
which he created and presided over.
The stroke that broke
the camel’s back came in 1979 with the Uganda war. Although the Tanzanian army
was able to drive Iddi Amin out of Kagera and finally even out of Uganda, it
proved to be very costly to the economy. As it was, the economy had already
entered into a crisis. The Ugandan war only deepened it. The last term of
Nyerere as president was the worst of his 25-year rule.
THE CRISIS: 1980-1985
In his 25 years at the
helm of the state, there was no period when Nyerere had to face such a deep
crisis in his leadership. It was a crisis of both the economy as well as
politics when Nyerere’s own popularity and the legitimacy of his state were
challenged. Foreign exchange was scarce.
Commodities disappeared
from the shelves. Traders and smugglers took advantage. Parastatals were
running below capacity. There was no foreign exchange to import raw materials
and spare parts (Coulson 1982, passim). Corruption became endemic. The army
that had tasted power in Uganda began to flex its muscles on return. The
attempted army coup in 1982 came very close to success. Negotiations with the
IMF and the World Bank dragged on, as the latter would not budge, imposing
severe conditionalities. The Reagan-Thatcher duo had declared the ‘Washington
Consensus’ to build the world in the image of a rampant neo-liberal model.
Even the
social-democratic friends of Nyerere from the Scandinavian countries turned
away as Europe turned right. Country after country in Africa succumbed to
structural adjustment programmes mindlessly imposing liberalization policies
and withdrawal of crucial subsidies. Nyerere’s rhetoric on the unfair
international system and the need for the Third World to come together fell on
deaf ears. Pan-Africanism was at its lowest. In an interview with American
academics in 1983, Nyerere put up a brave face but the despondence was clear:
‘At present, Africa is not in the mood for its continental unity, rather it has
settled for economic cooperation. We are still panafricanists but we have
lowered our objectives and have become more realistic.’
The union with Zanzibar,
which Nyerere had sacrificed his principles to maintain, was shaken to the core
in the famous one-year debate in 1983. Zanzibaris openly questioned its
legitimacy and demanded revisiting the Articles of Union that had ordained a
two- government structure. In a seven days meeting of the National Executive
Committee of the Party convened to discuss what was dubbed as the ‘pollution of
political atmosphere’ Zanzibar’s president, Aboud Jumbe, was made a sacrificial
lamb. He was forced to resign from all his state and party posts (see generally
Shivji 2008). Nonetheless the crisis of the union was only shoved under the
carpet. It continued to bedevil the Tanzanian polity.
Much research needs to
be done to uncover the struggles and tensions in the party during this period.
There can be no doubt that there was such a struggle. The 1981 Mwongozo of the
party, one of the most candid documents ever produced, and no doubt the work of
the left in the party (see Ngombale/Shivji interview 2009), openly admitted
that under the umbrella of the Arusha Declaration and the parastatals, a new
class had emerged. It was this class that was now demanding that the party and
the country change its course. The document went further and for the first time
in any party document, talked about class struggle, which was anathema to
Nyerere himself.[8] Where did Nyerere stand? It is not clear but indications
are that he tried to steer a middle course, an impossible course of action at
that time. When asked about factional struggles in the party in the 1983
conversation with American academics, once again, Nyerere in his characteristic
style evaded the question. He tried to underplay the reality of factional
struggles:
‘It is much clearer, the
left/right conflicts are more clearly contained in a single-party system than
in a multi-party one where they break away. In a huge single-party system like
ours, the right and the left factions are very strong. We find that the younger
members are more theoretical and the older members are more to the right and «
wiser ». This describes the socialists but I am not sure all CCM members are
socialists ! This is the problem with a single-party system. I am quite sure we
have non-socialists and also sure that we have communists inside the CCM but
the tendencies are to gravitate towards the centre - and I am supposed to be in
the centre !’
The truth perhaps was
that the right-tendency was gaining ground and it clearly reared its head once
Nyerere stepped down in 1985. Edward Moringe Sokoine, the prime minister, put
up the last defense for Nyerere’s socialism. Sokoine was a no-nonsense
politician. He was a man of great integrity but at loggerheads with his fellow
politicians surrounding Nyerere. He was one politician who became popular with
the masses in his own right, not under the shadow of Nyerere. In the process,
he almost overshadowed Mwalimu and Mwalimu did not always like it. When he was
killed in a car accident on his way back from parliament in Dodoma where he had
promised to uncover and sack all corrupt leaders on his return to Dar es
Salaam, no one believed that the accident was genuine. In 1985, Nyerere stepped
down from the presidency and left the reigns of power to Ali Hassan Mwinyi. It
is widely believed that Mwinyi was not Nyerere’s first choice. Nyerere would
have liked Salim Ahmed Salim, whom he had appointed prime minister after
Sokoine’s death, to take over. Like Mwinyi, Salim is from Zanzibar, but from
Pemba Island, a neglected part of Zanzibar and the hotbed of political
opposition. A seasoned diplomat and a Nyerere loyalist, Salim would have
certainly been an obvious choice from within the mainstream politicians in the
party. Rumour has it that an alliance between the right-wing mainland party
stalwarts and hardliner ‘revolutionists’ from Zanzibar in the Central Committee
of the party, thwarted Nyerere’s efforts using, ironically, the race factor
against Salim. (Salim is perceived to be half-Arab.) If this is true, then it
shows how far Nyerere’s power even within the party had begun to wane when he
stepped down from the presidency.
‘OUT OF STATE POWER’: 1986-1999
Mwinyi’s regime quickly
gave in to the dictates of the IMF and World Bank, out of necessity, if not
choice. Mwinyi was no socialist nor were there any socialists in the party to
pressurize him. Even the icon of the Left in the party, Ngombale-Mwiru,
abandoned ship. When the workers and peasants party opened its doors to
capitalists and business people, it was Ngombale, deploying his Marxist
rhetoric, who rationalized and justified it, including pulling in the example
of one of the founders of ‘scientific socialism’ Engels who, he said, was after
all an industrialist. It is telling on Nyerere’s political style and practice
that there was no one in his party or the state to defend his ideology.
As the Arusha
Declaration was being abandoned, so the leaders of the party under Mwinyi
abandoned the ‘leadership code’. The public sector executives of yesteryears
became the frontliners to clamor for privatization of the parastatals for they
were a burden to the ‘poor’ Tanzanian taxpayer, they lamented. And, of course,
they should be privatized to wazawa, that is, indigenous Tanzanians. Parochial
ideologies against which Nyerere had stood steadfast in his attempt to build a
nation were making a comeback. Nonetheless, Mwinyi moved somewhat cautiously,
partly because he still worked under the shadow of Mwalimu, and partly because
he was still an old guard nationalist. His successor, president Benjamin
William Mkapa, had no such qualms or constraints. He led the neo-liberal
counter-revolution at full steam. Mkapa’s 10 years in power (1995-2005) saw the
final burial of all vestiges of the Arusha Declaration and the policy of
socialism and self-reliance. Mkapa opened the doors to financialisation of the
economy, to the pillage of natural resources and to the uninhibited entry of
speculative capital in the real estate sector. State positions became a means
of private accumulation and wealth. Overnight Tanzanian politicians became
filthy rich as class polarization deepened. Nyerere watched the beginnings of
this development from political sidelines. His last ditch effort to save the
state-owned National Bank of Commerce from being decimated and privatized
failed miserably.
Nyerere, out of power,
probably flowered much more as an intellectual thinker than an elder statesman
although it is for the latter that he is often eulogized. He returned to his
pet subject of South-South co-operation as head of the South Commission. Coming
at a time when neo-liberalism was in its triumphal stage, it did not have much
of an impact. In fact, some of the prominent members of his Commission
(Manmohan Singh of India, for example) were to become uncompromising
neo-liberal reformers in their own countries. I am not sure if Nyerere fully
appreciated the extent to which the countries in the South had differentiated.
The South of the 1990s was not the same South that Mwalimu spearheaded in the non-alignment
movement and the New International Economic Order of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Through the Mwalimu
Nyerere Foundation he also ventured into the Burundian peace process. That
initiative and Mwalimu’s leadership needs to be closely studied and analyzed.
My hunch is that it was only moderately successful. In any case, Mwalimu did
not live long enough to take it to the end.
Another much less
publicized attempt by Mwalimu on the African political front was in DRC, the
then Zaire. Given the mess that his protégés created there, it is doubtful if
that initiative too can be considered a roaring success.
Much more refreshing and
inspirational though was Mwalimu’s return to Pan- Africanism. His speech in
1997 on the occasion of celebrating forty years of Ghana’s independence is one
of the most candid admissions on the failures of the first generation African
nationalists and the restating of the case for Pan-Africanism. Reading between
the lines, one gets the impression that Nyerere is admitting to the failure of
the national project. One does not see the same agonizing over the tension that
he perceived between African (territorial) nationalism and Pan-Africanism in
1966 in his address on the dilemma of a pan-Africanist (Nyerere 1966 in
1968:207).
He even comes close to
admitting that in their 1960s debate with Nkrumah when he (Nyerere) advocated
‘gradualism’ and opposed Nkrumah’s call for ‘African Union now’, he was wrong.
He no longer posits tension between ‘tribalism’ and (‘territorial’)
nationalism; rather he sees Africa at crossroads, either it goes down the road
of Pan-Africanism or descends into ethnic divisions and tribalism. He calls
upon the new generation to reject the ‘return to the tribe’. He characterizes
the upsurge of ethnic, racial, and other forms of narrow nationalisms as
fossilising ‘Africa into the wounds inflicted upon it by the vultures of
imperialism.’ (Nyerere 1997a) In his Reflections on the occasion of his 75th
birthday, Nyerere returned to the issue of balkanization of Africa which was
predominant in the debate of the 1960s around the time of independence. He said
the Balkans themselves are being Africanised as they are absorbed in the larger
European Union, while, we, Africans, are being tribalised! Mwalimu said:
‘...these powerful European
states are moving towards unity, and you people are talking about the atavism
of the tribe, this is nonsense! I am telling you people. How can anybody think
of the tribe as the unity of the future, hakuna!’ (Nyerere 1997b: 22)
On the Arusha
Declaration, Nyerere seems to have had an intellectually ambivalent attitude.
He admitted that some mistakes were made under the Declaration, in particular
hasty and unplanned nationalizations but still believed that the Arusha
Declaration was the correct course of action for Tanzania then and that the
country would return to the values and principles of the Declaration (Nyerere
& Ikaweba Bunting, 1999). Intellectually, Nyerere’s analysis of the Arusha
Declaration as an ideology is more interesting than his political position on
it. Towards the end of 1980s and early 1990s, there were rumblings to abandon
the Arusha Declaration and the leadership code. In a meeting of parastatal and
state leaders, Nyerere made an ex tempore speech, one of his best. On whether
or not the Arusha Declaration should be abandoned, he said:
‘It is not that peace
has come by itself. The source of peace in Tanzania is not that the Arusha
Declaration has done away with poverty even a little bit. Isn't there this
poverty we are still living with? This poverty is right here with us. Is it not
the same economy we are grappling with? The fact is not that the Arusha
Declaration has banished poverty even by an iota - nor did it promise to do so.
The Arusha Declaration offered hope. A promise of justice, hope to the many,
indeed the majority of Tanzanians continue to live this hope. So long as there
is this hope, you'll continue to have peace. Here in Tanzania we have poverty
but no "social cancer" [original in English]. It is possible it has
just begun. But otherwise we don't have a social cancer. There isn't a volcano
[in English] in the making such that if you pressed your ear to the ground
you'd hear a volcano in the making, that one day it is bound to erupt. We have
not yet reached that stage because the people still have hopes based on the
stand taken by the Arusha Declaration. It did not do away with poverty but it
has given you all in this hall, capitalists and socialists alike, an
opportunity to build a country which holds out a future of hopes to the many.
...
‘To be sure, you few
Waswahili [a colloquial for, in this case, `people'], do you really expect to
rule Tanzanians through coercion, when there is no hope, and then expect that
they will sit quiet in peace? Peace is born of hope, when hope is gone there
will be social upheavals. I'd be surprised if these Tanzanians refuse to rebel,
why?
‘When the majority don't
have any hope you are building a volcano. It is bound to erupt one day. Unless
these people are fools. Many in these countries are fools, to accept being
ruled just like that. To be oppressed just like that when they have the force
of numbers, they are fools. So Tanzanians would be fools, idiots, if they
continued to accept to be oppressed by a minority in their own country. Why?
...
‘Therefore we cannot say
that we have now reached a stage when we can forget the Arusha Declaration.
Don't fool yourselves. This would be like that fool who uses a ladder to climb
and when he is up there kicks it away. Alright you're up there, you've kicked
away the ladder, right, so stay there because we'll cut the branch. You're up
there, we're down here and you've kicked away the ladder. This branch is high
up, we'll cut it. Your fall will be no ordinary fall either.
‘Let me say no more. It
is sufficient to say we should accept our principles, we should continue with
our principles of building peace and peace itself. Tanzanians should continue
to have faith in the Party, in the Government and in you in positions.
Tanzanians should see you as part of them not their enemies. They should trust
the Party, the Government and you who have opportunities for there is no
country where everyone is equal. These fingers of mine are not equal, and in
that sense there is no such equality anywhere.’ (Quoted in Shivji 1995).
In this speech, Nyerere
is at his best as the philosopher-king. The Arusha Declaration was a
legitimizing ideology without which the country would break up into violence.
You cannot have a society polarized into the filthy rich and the miserably poor
and still expect the poor to maintain peace while the rich continue living in
peace. So the Arusha Declaration did not bring about equality, nor was it meant
to do so. The Arusha Declaration was meant to give hope, hope which would
preserve peace both for the ‘capitalists and the socialists’. Was Nyerere’s
socialism then a strategy for political survival9 or a philosophical conviction
of a vision for a future society or both? Perhaps both, as was Nyerere himself
both, a king and a philosopher.
Indeed two of his close
expatriate associates, Roland and Irene Browne, trace the origins of the
Declaration to the need to survive both against external forces and the budding
internal elites who would become a bulwark of the status quo. (Brown, 1995: 12-
13.)
* Issa G. Shivji is the
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere University Professor in Pan-African Studies at the
University of Dar es Salaam.
Source: Pambazuka News.
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