Julius Nyerere
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article or section is missing citations and/or footnotes.
This article or section contains insufficiently sourced phrases. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. You may improve the article or discuss this issue on its talk page. Help on using footnotes is available. This article has been tagged since July 2007.
Julius Kambarage Nyerere
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1st President of Tanzania
In office
October 29, 1964 November 5, 1985
Preceded by None
Succeeded by Ali Hassan Mwinyi
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Born April 13, 1922
Butiama, Tanzania
Died October 14, 1999
London, United Kingdom
Political party CCM
Spouse Maria Nyerere
Julius Kambarage Nyerere (April 13, 1922 - October 14, 1999) was the first President of Tanzania, and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1964 until his retirement in 1985. Born in Tanganyika to a local Zanaki chief called Nyerere Burito, Julius Nyerere was known by the Swahili name Mwalimu or 'teacher' because of his profession before becoming active in politics.
Contents [hide]
1 Education
2 Political career
2.1 Government Positions Held
3 Economic Policies
4 Foreign Policy
5 After the Presidency
5.1 Positions Held after Presidency
5.2 Beatification inquiry
6 Honorary Degrees
7 Awards
8 Posthumous Awards
9 Publications & Literary Works
10 See also
11 References
12 External links
12.1 Beatification
[edit] Education
Nyerere began attending Government Primary School in Musoma at the age of 12 where he completed the 4 years program in 3 years and went on to Tabora Boys Government Secondary School. He received a scholarship to attend Makerere University, (at that time it was the only tertiary education institution in East Africa), where he obtained a teaching Diploma. He returned to Tanganyika and worked for 3 years at St. Marys Secondary School in Tabora, where he taught Biology and English. In 1949 he got a scholarship to attend the University of Edinburgh (he was the first Tanzanian to study at a British university and only the second to gain a university degree outside Africa) where he obtained his Masters of Arts Degree on Economics and History in 1952. In Edinburgh, partly through his encounter with Fabian thinking, Nyerere began to develop his particular vision of connecting socialism with African communal living.
[edit] Political career
On his return to Tanganyika, Nyerere took a position teaching History, English and Kiswahili, at St. Francis' College, near Dar es Salaam. In 1953 he was elected president of Tanganyika African Association (TAA), a civic organisation dominated by of civil servants, that he had helped found while a student at Makerere University. In 1954 he transformed TAA into the politically oriented Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). TANU's main objective was to achieve national sovereignty for Tanganyika. A campaign to register new members was launched, and within a year TANU had become the leading political organisation in the country.[1][2]
Nyerere's activities attracted the attention of the Colonial Authorities, and he was forced to make a choice between his political activities and his teaching. He was reported as saying that he was a schoolmaster by choice and a politician by accident. He resigned from teaching and traveled throughout the country speaking to common people and tribal chiefs, trying to garner support for movement towards independence. He also spoke on behalf of TANU to the Trusteeship Council and Fourth Committee of the United Nations in New York. His oratory skills and integrity helped Nyerere achieve TANU goal for an independent country without war or bloodshed. The cooperative British governor Sir Richard Turnbull was also a factor in the struggle for independence. Nyerere entered the Colonial Legislative council in 1958 and was elected chief minister in 1960. In 1961 Tanganyika was granted self governance and Nyerere became its first Prime Minister on December 9, 1961. A year later Nyerere was elected President of Tanganyika when it became a Republic. Nyerere was instrumental in the union between the islands of Zanzibar and the mainland Tanganyika to form Tanzania, after a coup in Zanzibar in 1964 toppled Jamshid bin Abdullah, who was the Sultan of Zanzibar.
[edit] Government Positions Held
1954 A Founder Member of TANU
1958-1960 Member of the Legislative Assembly in the first elections in which Africans were allowed to vote.
1958 Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.
1960 Chief Minister of the first Internal Self-Government Administration.
1961 Prime Minister of the first Government of Independent Tanganyika
1962 Elected President of Tanganyika when it became a Republic.
1963-1970 Chancellor of the University of East Africa.
1964-1985 President of the United Republic of Tanzania.
1970-1985 Chancellor of University of Dar-es-Salaam.
1977-1990 Chairman of Chama Cha Mapinduzi which was formed by a merger between TANU and the Afro-Shiraz Party of Zanzibar. CCM was born in Zanzibar on February 5, 1977.
1984-1985 Chancellor of Sokoine University of Agriculture.
1985: Retired from Presidency. 1999: Died of leukemia in London.
[edit] Economic Policies
Symbolic mixing of Soils from Zanzibar and Tanganyika in 1964When in power, Nyerere implemented a socialist economic program (announced in the Arusha Declaration), establishing close ties with China, and also introduced a policy of collectivization in the country's agricultural system, known as Ujamaa or "familyhood".
Although some of his policies can be characterized as socialist, Nyerere was first and foremost an African, and secondly a socialist. He was what is often called an African socialist. Nyerere had tremendous faith in rural African people and their traditional values and ways of life. He believed that life should be structured around the ujamaa, or extended family found in traditional Africa. He believed that in these traditional villages, the state of ujamaa had existed before the arrival of imperialists.
He believed that Africans were already, recently, socialists, all that they needed to do was return to their traditional mode of life and they would recapture it. This would be a true repudiation of capitalism, since his society would not rely on capitalism to exist. This ujamaa system failed to boost agricultural output and by 1976, the end of the forced collectivization program, Tanzania went from the largest exporter of agricultural products in Africa to the largest importer of agricultural products in Africa. Politically and socially the declaration was hugely unpopular. It was a failure and only plunged Tanzania into further debt, a crisis in its balance of payments deficits and worsened relations with international donors.
With the realisation that the Tanzanian economy did not flourish and being unwilling to lead Tanzania using an economic model he did not believe, Nyerere willingly announced that he would retire after presidential elections in 1985, leaving the country to enter its free market era under the leadership of Ali Hassan Mwinyi.
Nyerere was instrumental in putting both Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Benjamin Mkapa in power. He remained the chairman of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (ruling party) for five years following his presidency until 1990, and is still recognised as the Father of the Nation