Nyerere A Man of Vision

08, Nov 1999
Mwalimu Julius K Nyerere died in London and was buried in Dar es Salaam last month. There was no attempt by officials of the T&T Government to highlight in any way his passing, not even the traditional one-minute silence to mark respect in the Lower and Upper Houses of Parliament.

A mere few of our local columnists and commentators, who took time to observe his passing, paid neat homage to the stature and character of the man and underscored the level of respect he commanded worldwide as a humanist, teacher and political leader.

Much ado was made of his Christian and almost saint-like virtues, as well as his role in all the various struggles in Central and Southern Africa, particularly in the resolution of the Ugandan crisis. But as is typical in this country, no one took time to assess the man's contribution to international political thought and to modern developmental strategies relative particularly to the so-called Third World, neo-colonial situations.

That he was "nice" and was, in fact, a distinctly humane leader, a phenomenon quite unusual in today's world, is really neither "here nor there", for good leaders, no matter how well-intentioned, do not by themselves guarantee success of the developmental path a nation chooses.

Tanzania, like us, gained its political Independence in the early '60s and the developmental programme that was engaged thereafter was typical of what obtained in such societies worldwide.

Foreign direct investment was limited largely to the export sector and was geared basically to satisfy the requirements, ie the productive and non-productive consumption of the developed countries from where the investments originated. To a lesser extent such an arrangement served to satisfy the luxury tastes of the Tanzanian elite groups.

According to Issa Shivji, by 1967, some five years after Independence, 60 per cent of Tanzania's export went to the metropoles such as the UK, North America, Japan and the EEC, while some 70 per cent of Tanzania's imports, particularly machinery, refined goods and consumer durables, came from the very source areas. The point is that such externally-driven, offshore, economy had little to do with the masses of Tanzanian citizens who were dirt-poor, subsistence peasant-farmers.

As a matter of fact, it would later be proven that such externally driven economy was inimical to the development of local manufacturing and more than any other factor served to stymie the logical and rational development of agriculture, leading eventually to the famine which much of Africa will have to face in the '70s and '80s.

Nyerere had the vision and was the kind of purposeful leader that sought to deviate from this path of disaster. Not many could see what indeed he proved capable of seeing way back then. He recognised very early that the externally driven economic industrial enclave, divorced from the internal dynamism of an integrated home economy, was really an aberration.

He stood apart from the rest of African leaders in that he possessed the political integrity and credibility to say "no" to that accepted path of development as the only possible option and to challenge Tanzanian society to revert to the values of ancient, traditional African communalism, co-operative economics and self-reliance.

He knew that the enclaves of foreign propelled industrialisation of the export sector that brought needed foreign exchange had by necessity to continue but he was quick to point out to his people that "money is not wealth", and that emphasis had to be placed on the development of a true national economy based on agriculture and a "villagisation" programme, creating new communities, self-reliant Ujamaa villages, that would eventually develop the productivity levels of the rural peasant, then 95 per cent of the population, create thereby social wealth and raise the standard of living of the masses of people. That was the central focus and spirit of the Arusha declaration in 1967.

But, of course, there was the other side of it, the side with which we in T&T would be familiar, that is, the nationalisation of the "commanding heights of the economy", the establishing of a National Development Corporation (NDC) to facilitate the acquiring of majority shares (51 per cent) in some foreign concerns and the complete takeover of others.

Typically, the NDC's portfolio would involve largely the production of luxury consumer items and the service industries of entertainment and tourism, merely continuing the pre-Independence trend of development that did not make the people its central focus.

Nyerere warned his people about the social disparity, conflicts and contradictions that would surely arise between groups of people, between industrialised towns and rural Ujamaa villages, given uneven income distribution, wage differentials and such variables, but moral persuasion, rather than confrontation, was his way and he sought to get state officials, managers, skilled workers, etc to understand how by creative, progressive taxation and fiscal measure the disparities could be softened.

At the same time, he fought to indoctrinate them to accept that the purpose of development was not the creation of a new class of bureaucrats to "lord" it over the poor workers and peasant farmers. And though President of Tanzania, he lived his life devoid of all luxuries as an example to all. A code of conduct for all leaders, based on non-exploitative relationships, was clearly spelt out in the Arusha Declaration.

Listen to Nyerere speaking to a TANU Conference in October 1967: "Leaders cannot do anything for the people. We can only provide the necessary information, guidance and organisation for the people to build their own country for themselves... We have to assess our present situation which includes many things beyond our control and work out plans to change the situation and to counteract the effect of the things we cannot alter. Then we have to execute our plans by hard and intelligent work. There is no other way. There is no short cut... What matters is not speed, but the direction in which we move... And 'slowly' does not mean without determination..."

He knew that without a vision nothing was possible, and that the vision had to be clear, particularly to those charged with the responsibility for implementation on the ground, so he never ceased to clarify:
"In traditional African life the people were equal, they co-operated together, and they participated in all the decisions which affected their lives. But the equality was a equality of poverty... their government was only the government of their own family, their clan... Our task, therefore, is to modernise the traditional structure... to make it meet our new aspirations for a higher standard of living...

"This can be done provided we hold fast to the basic principles of traditional living, while we adapt its techniques to those of the 20th century. And the way to do this is to create all over Tanzania economic and social communities where people live together and work together for the good of all, and which are interlocked so that all of the different communities also work together in co-operation for the common good of the nation as a whole..."

In other words, the interlocking of Ujamaa Villages had to be the concrete application of the Arusha Declaration and the key to the social transformation of Tanzania, the key to move the peasantry into the 20th century, away from the "jembe" and the "panga" (hoe and cutlass) to modern technology but only on their terms and only as they could afford it in both a social and economic sense.

He was the one leader of his time who had the confidence in his people to place the onus on them to take charge of their own lives and all their social and economic activities. No other leader did this then. Not even those whose countries were better placed objectively to make a success of a different development option. Tanzania, objectively, could not. Nyerere's experiment failed horribly.

Without the objective basis to facilitate the transformation, Nyerere was left to hope that the values of the Ujamaa villages would somehow, with great effort from the leaders, supersede the values of modern capitalist economy. Such a strategy was utopian, rather than scientific. Nyerere was to say, rather prophetically, in his speech "Rational Choice" delivered in 1974, that original traditional African communalism was "doomed" as a system back then when first "challenged by the organised technology of the 20th century".

"The moment the first enamel pot, or factory woven cloth, is imported into a self-sufficient communal society, the economic and social structure of that society receives its death blow. Afterwards, it is merely a question of time, and of whether the people will be participants or victims in the new economic order..." and that whereas "Henry Ford could begin manufacturing cars in a bicycle repair shop and build up his capacity bit by bit..." now in the 1970s "anyone who decides to make vehicles must be prepared to make a multi-million dollar investment before the first one rolls off the assembly line..." and that at best all we could do for some time "would be to become agents of international capitalist concerns..."

Moreso given today the opening-up and liberalisation of all national economies, the abandonment of negative listing and the tightening of the one-world, free, global market.

Ideals faultless but strategy unscientific, Nyerere was forced to give way to the "silent" but powerful struggle of opposites, the Ujamaa villages succumbed to the aggression of modern capitalist relations, and he retired, spending the rest of his life advocating debt-forgiveness for impoverished nations caught in the trap of neo-colonial development and for nations, like us, to have a say in determining the nature of a new world economic order. For sure "we can only start from where we are" at any given point.

Rest in peace, Mwalimu!