The death from leukaemia of Julius Nyerere at the age of 77 deprives independent Africa of one of its most intelligent, perceptive and determinedly radical leaders. He was an inspiration not just to Africans but also to people all over the world who interpreted world development as meaning a fairer global economic system.
Having led Tanganyika to its independence from Britain in 1961, Nyerere was a prime mover in creating the Organization of African Unity in 1963 and oversaw Zanzibars incorporation into the new Republic of Tanzania. His 1967 Arusha Declaration was a ringing statement of an alternative path to development based on socialism and self-reliance.
Nyereres Tanzania became a magnet for anti-colonial activists and thinkers from all over the world especially for the resistance movements (and future leaders) of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia. By the time he retired as President in 1985 his alternative economic strategy had hit the buffers of debt and structural adjustment. But he remained deeply revered by Tanzanians and took his activism to the international level, first as head of the South-South Commission aiming to strengthen Third World unity and latterly in seeking political settlements that would end the conflicts in Burundi and DR Congo.
Nyerere was interviewed in the very first issue of the
NIs forerunner,
The Internationalist, in 1970. It was fitting therefore that he gave one of
his last interviews to the
New Internationalist special issue on
The Radical Twentieth Century (
NI 309), looking back thought-provokingly over an anti-colonial life.
In the course of that interview we asked Nyerere why his alternative strategy for development had foundered on the rocks. He would have been happy for his answer combative, provocative, insightful to have served as an epitaph:
I was in Washington last year. At the World Bank these people asked me to speak. Then they asked me the questions. The first question they asked was how did you fail? I responded that we took over a country with 85 per cent of its adult population illiterate. The British ruled us for 43 years. When they left, there were 2 trained engineers and 12 doctors. This is the country we inherited.
When I stepped down there was 91-per-cent literacy and nearly every child of school age was in school. We trained thousands of engineers and doctors and teachers.
In 1988 Tanzanias per-capita income was $280. Now, in 1998, it is $140. So I asked the World Bank people what went wrong. Because for the last ten years Tanzania has been signing on the dotted line and doing everything the IMF and the World Bank wanted. Enrolment in school has plummeted to 63 per cent and conditions in health and other social services have deteriorated.
I asked them again: What went wrong? These people just sat there looking at me. Then they asked what could they do? I told them have some humility. Humility they are so arrogant!
Chris Brazier
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