The water, clay that made, shaped Mwalimu Nyerere

Bituro KazeriOctober 15, 2024

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TANZANIA: MWALIMU Julius Kambarage Nyerere passed away 25 years ago at the age of 77, having been born in March 1922 at Butiama in the chiefdom of Zanaki.

Truly to the Kiswahili saying hujafa hujaumbika as well as the views held and proposed by a German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel, the passing of Nyerere presents the opportunity to attempt to understand him and the basis of his ideas.

German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel sees human life as dialectical, where on one side it is continuous, emerging and indefinable.

On the other side, life produces objects made by individuals’ records of experiences. This sits well with the Ubuntu philosophy, which has its origins in ancient Africa, a newborn baby is not a person.

People are born without ena, or selfhood and instead must acquire it through interactions and experiences over time.

Thus, besides the naming, now we can tell that Nyerere was a son of his parents, experienced his childhood and passed all the traditional, Christian and formal education rites of passage that made him a family man and a teacher.

He became a nationalist and pan-Africanist toward becoming the first prime minister of independent Tanganyika (1961) and the first president of the new state of Tanzania (1964).

Nyerere was also the major force behind the formation of regional organisations. Currently, the process is underway to canonise meaning if it succeeds, we will have Saint Julius Kambarage Nyerere.

In the book titled Search of a Nation: Histories of Authority & Dissidence in Tanzania, edited by Gregory Maddox and James Leonard Giblin, sixteen historians, focusing on the experience of Tanzania, cast a situation that depicts African nationalists like Mwalimu Nyerere as a doublesided sword with the capacity of inspiring unity and the element of limiting political activities.

The historians see Tanzania and Tanzanian political discourse and identities for decades as a product created by the ant colonial nationalist movement, expanded by the Union after the Zanzibar Revolution and fused by the ideology of Ujamaa, in which the contribution of Mwalimu Nyerere is right in the midst.

Mwalimu Nyerere we know and idolise is a product of African tradition from which he crafted the idea of Ujamaa na Kujitegemea based on three principles: work by everyone and exploitation by none; fair sharing of resources that are produced by joint efforts; and equality and respect for human dignity.

Major & Mulvihill (2009) argue that Nyerere promoted Ujamaa na Kujitegemea because he believed in the value of sharing and assisting one another.

On the other hand, the traditional values of work, mutual cooperation and solidarity, and the reciprocal generosity and egalitarianism that Mwalimu Nyerere lived and experienced, helped his formation of the concept of power and the nation as a coherent body.

ALSO READ: Why celebrating Nyerere life significant

The African tradition is significantly highlighted everywhere where Mwalimu Nyerere directly or indirectly had an opportunity to participate.

For example, the creed (Imani) of TANU and later CCM, the political parties of which he was a founding member and leader, states that: 1)

All human beings are equal. 2) Every person is entitled to respect and recognition of his or her human dignity. 3) Socialism and self-reliance are the only ways to build a society of equal and free individuals (CCM, 2005).

The constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania of 1977 also reflects African traditionalism, which could also be attributed to Mwalimu.

It is stated that right in the preamble that the enacted constitution is based on the principles of freedom, justice, fraternity and concord and serves as a guide towards building a democratic, socialist and secular society.

The constitution, based on African tradition, defines socialism (Ujamaa na Kujitegemea) as the society’s life principles for building a nation that observes democracy, self-reliance, freedom, equality, fraternity and unity among the people of the United Republic (URT, 2005).

In the limelight of that definition, an argument can be stated that Tanzania all along and from time in memorial has been a Ujamaa na Kujitegemea society.

Another piece that made Mwalimu Nyerere is dynamicism. Mwalimu Nyerere dynamicism is manifested in the abolition and re-introduction of multi-party democracy. Multi-party democracy was introduced by the British colonialists with racial and religious hallmarks.

However, TANU, against all odds, allowed non-African membership, thanks to its leadership belief in equality of men, despite the fact that it had the word African in it.

The abolition of multi-party was mainly based on three reasons. One, multi-partism was not inherently African, as there is no anthropological evidence supporting that practice in African chiefdoms. Second, multi- partism was introduced and encouraged by colonial rulers as a tool of division based on race and ethnicity.

Third, multi-party democracy, posed a threat to the project of nation-building. Although multi-partism was abolished, competitive elections, albeit within the party, were allowed.

Literature records show the Kuku against Yai at the civic level election; the Jembe against Nyumba at the parliamentarian election; and the presidential election, which was Yes against No. Public and non-public political discourses were allowed with limitations in a manner that resembled a typical African traditional family where everything looked at the head of the family.

Mwalimu Nyerere, in his traditional, human rights and pan-Africanism conviction, could easily be accused of being a force behind the abolition of multi-party.

However, the quid pro quo of Mwalimu Nyerere’s implementation of his idea was the unity that we witness in Tanzania today. Mwalimu Nyerere has traces of liberalism.

By his own choice and opportunities that came his way, Mwalimu Nyerere embraced non-African value through formal education that took him to live in the society of Europeans, where his ideas were further shaped by liberal values.

Core beliefs of classical liberals included new ideas that depart and replace tradition practices in all aspects of life; believe that individuals are egoistic and rational; and believe that society is bigger than an individual or a total sum of all individuals (Ryan, 1995; Evans, 2001).

Classical liberals argue for a limited state focusing only on: protection of individual rights and to provide services that cannot be provided in a free market; provision of common national defense against foreign invaders; protection for citizens from wrongs committed against them by other citizens; protection of private property; enforcement of contracts and common law; Building and maintaining public institutions and public works that included a stable currency, standard weights and measures, and the building and upkeep of roads, canals, harbours, railways, communications and postal services (Smith,1778).

Classical liberalism is informed by the work of philosophers such as John Locke, Jean-Baptiste Thomas Robert Malthus, David Ricardo and Adam Smith.

Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith, just to mention a few. Armed with traditional values and fresh liberal and panAfricanism ideas, Mwalimu Nyerere changed corners depending on the situation.

They called the political party they formed, Tanganyika African Nation Union, yet supported non-African membership; he abolished chiefdom but continued to respect chiefs and made them part of the new polity system; he abolished multi-party, but later on strongly supported its re-introduction; he abolished co-operative societies, which violated the right to associate.

In the public discourse, yesterday, today and in the future, Mwalimu Nyerere is and will be remembered for the implementation of state construction and control of technical infrastructures such as ports, roads and public institutions such as schools and health facilities that were useful and relevant to the lives of common people.

Not only that, but also the defense of the sovereignty of Tanzania against interference of foreign influence.