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Subject: [TPN] JULIUS NYERERE: THE LEGEND OF AFRICA'S ELDER STATESMAN
By Nina Mbabazi Rukikaire,
JULIUS NYERERE: THE LEGEND OF AFRICA'S ELDER STATESMAN.
A Ugandan Perspective.
PART 1: How he saw it in the end.
Julius Kambarage Nyerere, founding father of Tanzania and often times defined as the "Elder Statesman" of Africa was by far the most interesting of all African leaders. Not only did he lead Tanzania to independence and unification of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, he set upon a path of equality among the citizens or Ujamaa; that was to produce the greatest policy disaster in Tanzania history since the departure of the Germans in World War I.
But through this disaster came a higher conscientious of what needed to be done to put Tanzania on the right path. Nyerere had the wisdom to lead his country to this path of steady growth before bowing out. By putting country and party first, he was able to speak with such openness and sincerity to his people in what is probably one of his greatest speeches. This speech defined his entire legacy and achievements as head of state. Nyerere said;
I am a very poor prophet. In 1967 a group of youth who were marching in support of the Arusha declaration asked me how long it would take Tanzania to become socialist. I thought 30 years. I was wrong. I am sure it will take us much more than that… Ten years after the Arusha declaration Tanzania is certainly neither socialist nor self–reliant. The nature of exploitation has changed, but it has not been altogether eliminated. There are still great inequalities between citizens. Our democracy is imperfect. A life of poverty is still the experience of the majority of our citizens.
We have not reached our goal; it is not even in sight. But that is neither surprising nor alarming….We have made reasonably good progress towards providing basic health, education and transportation facilities for all the people of this country…The measure of our success is that these fundamental achievements are generally taken for granted. We are now much more conscious of the difficulties in our daily lives than of fundamental exploitation….Today such difficulties and frustrations make us forget where we came from, and even make a reminder seem like an irrelevant impertinence. It is quite true that when our shops were full of a large variety of goods, the vast majority of people had no money to buy them…But people have now developed a little; they have higher expectations of life.
Over the last ten years we have done quite well in spreading basic social services to more and more people in the rural areas. More remains to be done; but we shall only be able to do it if we produce more wealth. And we have not been doing very well on that front.
Political and public service leadership has undoubtedly improved over the past ten years, in both commitment and efficiency. But still leader too often forget the purpose of government and party and of ALL the laws and regulations in this country to serve people….The truth is that despite our official policies, and despite all our democratic institutions, some leaders still do not LISTEN to people. They find it much easier to tell people what to do. Our leaders at all levels must make more effort to reach decisions by discussion. They must encourage the people to criticize mistakes which have been made, and they must be willing to work with people in rectifying past mistakes and avoiding new ones. Leadership by intimidation is not leadership. And it will work for a short time only.
The real danger to Ujamaa in this country does not come at all from people's criticism of leaders. It is arrogance, incompetence, and slackness among leaders which we have to guard against, and we must do so. Every leader should privately examine his own behavior to see where he/she has fallen down. Leaders are not gods; they are able to be effective and to serve the people; only on the basis of mutual respect between themselves and those who have entrusted them with responsibility.
We have cause for great satisfaction in our achievements of the past ten years. But we have no cause at all for complacency….As we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Arusha Declaration, let us determine that the twentieth anniversary (of his leadership) will find us more productive, and therefore more free as a nation and as individuals.
And with these words, Julius Nyerere began the end of his chapter of leadership in Tanzania. As he moved to unify Tanganyika and Zanzibar in his final decade of leadership, Nyerere who was obsessed with the cult like image of Chairman Mao Zedong, prepared to build for himself the greatest legacy of leadership in Africa.
Nyerere led his people quite successfully to independence. From the onset, he was beset with all sorts of conflicting interests in the country. His vision of a prosperous socialist Tanzania had failed. Ujamaa had yielded more hunger and anger from the public and a level of disillusionment that he could not fix. Nyerere had survived two coup attempts, hostilities from Kenya and Uganda, bloodshed on the Island, still his people loved him.
He had displayed a tendency to wobble on important issues and though the people that started the struggle with him had left him, it was of his own making and his own character weaknesses. But still through all of this, Julius Nyerere recognized his pivotal role in the history of a nation that he had helped build and he gracefully bowed out.
This is the beginning of a serialization of Nyerere's leadership. As we reflect upon his leadership, let us understand just how effective he was in preparing Tanzania for the current prosperous state that it is today. His weaknesses notwithstanding, understanding his depth of commitment to country is important in any assessment of political development in East African Federation, because his vision still defines Tanzania's social, political and economic policies and their perception of an East African Federation.
Mwalimu as he so fondly was called once said; "We have learnt this hard fact of life, that there are no shortcuts to our aspirations"
What was it that drove the elder statesman of Africa?
PART 3: The move to the left of Center.
In March 1959, Governor Turnbull proposed an increase in TANU's role in the government. His first move was to appoint five members to the twelve man cabinet. Julius Nyerere of course was against this. He insisted that since Tanganyika majority were blacks, the majority cabinet must be held by black Tanganyikans. Turnbull conceded and Nyerere's gamble before the elections vis a vis Mtemvu's position paid off. The wisdom to know what fight to pick was one of Nyerere's strengths. When asked by JR Bailey about independence Nyerere's response was; "It is up to the people of Tanganyika – Europeans and Africans and Asians – to say when and in what form. We want to set an example from which Rhodesia and Kenya can learn" And with this spirit, he set on the task of designing Tanzania's way forward. "You are my brother" the words that they said carried an age old message of love and hope. Nyerere certainly believed in those four words and it would shape his message to Africa. With the mindset that Africa had a lot to offer, Nyerere designed what he thought would be Africa's gift to the world. An African socialist state where every person was a worker, equal in stature and able to contribute equally.
"Our first step must be to re-educate ourselves" he wrote "To regain our former attitude of work. We took care of the community and the community took care of us". We neither needed or wished to exploit our fellow man – the basis of Ujamaa must be that a member of society is entitled to a piece of land on condition that he uses it. True socialism is an attitude of mind" And with those words, movement towards the Ujamaa began.
Tanganyika's greatest problem towards movement to Ujamaa was the fact that the rural population was greatly dispersed and Nyerere's new ideology was not coherent. His message also came at a time when Kawawa was emphasizing party discipline and was not speaking the same language as Nyerere. His (Nyerere) heart was in the right place, but he didn't have the mental faculty to design it properly. He was after all a simple man. The ideology was a great hit among the people of Tanzania. By early 1964 the Tanganyikans on their own initiative and from what they perceived as the word of delivery from the President formed 300 embryonic collective farms. Within a year, almost all had collapsed. The problem? There seemed to be no clear plan to follow other than the call by the President to Ujamaa.
Nyerere in turn responded by setting up the rural settlement commission whose duty was to approve plans for new schemes and finance those new schemes. Israeli experts were brought in to help make these village cooperatives viable. The village settlement program was key in the first five year plan for the move towards prosperous Tanzania. But by 1966, it had failed.
Nyerere said " To burden the farmer with heavy debts at the outset and at the same time to make it appear that government can provide all services is not the best way of promoting activity." In 1966 he abandoned the idea of village settlement schemes.
Why did the scheme fail, the design of the scheme though simple would not have been so disastrous? Well, what Nyerere designed between 1962 and 1965 was what we called development committees and ten house party cells. In Uganda we still use this system in Northern Uganda. It is called "Nyumba Kumi". Nyerere wanted to build a two way all weather road between the political centre and the rural masses. What happened was the reverse, with government dictating to the villages what they thought best and ignoring the requests by the farmers. What government failed to understand is that every society grows with its own science and if they are not allowed to explore their own homegrown solutions, the ideas that they are asked to implement will fail.
It didn't help that in January 1964, Zanzibar was held hostage by a raving Ugandan lunatic calling himself Field Marshal John Okello whose origins are in Lira. So Nyerere was implementing a scheme while having difficulties settling Zanzibar's political issues. He was also beset by a mutiny in the army in 1964 that was to rock his government.
While the Ujamaa was failing, the Tanzanian economy was growing. Nyerere had also embarked on an industrialization plan whose main focus was import substitution. The plan was to be financed through the sale of agricultural goods coming out of the Ujamaa villages, foreign direct investment (FDI) and aid. However, Tanzania was not able to attract that much needed FDI because of the risk factor attached to our African states at that period of time. Also the fact that world prices in sisal had dropped drastically, probably a European attempt to destabilize the African economies that were no longer providing markets for their goods, but still, because of Nyerere's message of import substitution, they registered a balance of payment surplus and were able to cushion some of the Ujamaa failings. But few jobs and private investment were forthcoming.
Nyerere said in 1966; "The amount of private investment which has taken place over the past year is quite frankly a disappointment to us. We have special tax concessions to encourage new investments; we have investment guarantees for bringing capital into the country; and we have many arrangements designed to encourage private enterprise of a character which will serve our nation. Yet the level of private investment does not appear to be as great as that provided for in the plan" A very honest speech from the leader.
Tanzania at this time was heavily dependent on aid and Nyerere felt that his vision of an egalitarian and democratic African society was slipping away. President Nyerere then called a party conference and on 5th February, 1967 unveiled a carefully written document that had far reaching implications. Written in his very blunt and vivid style, Nyerere unveiled the Arusha Declaration. The Arusha declaration introduced a move to nationalize all Industry and productive institutions. The justification in Nyerere's words? " the major means of production and exchange to be under the control of the peasants and workers".
The plan was for a radical reform of the rural areas, improvement of rural standards of living, improved productivity by collective villagisation and increased productivity through self help groups. It was no longer voluntary villagisation like before but was now compulsory. By mid 1970's most citizens had been moved to these villages and Tanzania's food production had taken a drastic drop. Tanzania then had no choice but to import staple foods to stave off hunger.
Nyerere in the Arusha declaration asserted: Socialism is a way of life, and a socialist society cannot simply come into existence, a socialist society can only be built by those who believe in, and who themselves practice, the principles of socialism. The first duty of a TANU member and especially of a TANU leader is to accept these socialist principles and to live his own live in accordance with them. In particular, a genuine TANU leader will not live off the sweat of another man nor commit any feudalistic or capitalistic actions.
Because of our emphasis on money, we have made another big mistake. We have put too much emphasis on industries. Just as we have said, "without money , there can be no development, we also seem to say, Industries are the basis of development" without industries there is no development. The mistake we are making is to think that development begins with industries. It is a mistake because we do not have the means to establish many modern industries in our country. We do not have either the necessary finances or the technical know-how.The development of a country is brought about by people, not money. Money and the wealth it represents, is the result and not the basis of development"
Thousands marched though Dar Es Salaam in support of the declaration. The old Ujamaa model as well as colonialism had bred a state of haves and have nots; Foreigners still owned a large section of Tanzania's economy.
The Black Tanzanians rejoiced; the Europeans and Asians were not happy, but for once Nyerere saw how deeply impoverished his people were and it shook him to the bone. He hated the kind of leaders that TANU leaders had become, each owning shares in business in foreign companies, he stated that rich men can't be asked politely to give up their shares, it must be taken away from them. No foreign aid was coming; people had to work hard if they wanted to improve themselves. How could TANU allow the repatriation of funds anyhow? Unemployed had to be sent back home to the rural area, the government made it clear; there was no room for slackers. The youth were turned into "Green guards" to ensure the success of socialism. The people were happy more so with the new leadership code that forbade and leaders of government from doing business and earning two salaries.
Although the idea was wonderful and welcomed by all, nobody had planned for the communal income. How as it supposed to be shared? What was the milestone for a day's work? What happens if someone does not meet the desired target? If they are lazy? What about those who decided to work privately after work. How would they share income? The response to this new Ujamaa was slow despite the incentives of building schools, running water, clinics and investment.
In 1973 due to the slow response, TANU committed themselves to actively relocating people into villages. Nyerere said; "This huge task TANU committed itlsef to involved the forced relocation of millions of people" The response of the people was not so nice. Nyerere used the police, army, national service and militiamen to move people to the villages. This they did with brutality.
By 1974, 2 million out of Tanzania's 9 million were in Ujamaa villages and in 1976 they were 13 million. What happened next was catastrophic. In 1970 Tanzania exported 540,000 tons of surplus maize, in 1974, it imported 300,000 tons of maize. TANU had been exposed as being ignorant of what the citizenry wanted.
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