Nyerere: The Man, The Myth and the Legend
Nyerere: The Man, The Myth and the Legend
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Mwalimu Was Only Human - He Made Mistakes
Written by Karl Lyimo
5 October 2009
It is 10 years since the founder of Tanzanian nationalism and the country's leading light, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, died from leukemia in London.
Today's story is about Mwalimu, a man who means different things to different people. For many, Mwalimu remains their icon who would do no wrong.
That is partly why steps are being taken in certain quarters to have the man canonised.
Indeed, there can be no gainsaying that Mwalimu did a lot that was good for his country in particular, and others elsewhere in general.
These included oppressed communities, the poor and the voiceless.
It has been argued that had Mwalimu not been where he was -- and the kind of person he was -- political liberation and egalitarianism would have taken longer to come to countries like apartheid South Africa, Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and Mozambique.
It has also been stated that Mwalimu did much to create an egalitarian society in Tanzania.
But, euphoric observers have routinely turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the other side of the Nyerere coin.
Of course, not much of that side is articulated in public.
But, that's not being fair to the man, to his people -- and, most important, to history based on impartial analysis and facts, not sentiment.
Look at it this way: Nyerere was the prime force behind the independence of the-then Tanganyika from foreign rule in December 1961.
He was also behind efforts to deliver his people from a life of poverty and greedy capitalism into a selfless community of share-and-share alike.
To do this, he purposefully set out on the road to socialism that was paved with the February 5, 1967 Arusha Declaration on Socialism and Self-reliance.
Basically, this meant wholesale nationalisation and acquisition of estate in efforts to put the commanding heights of the economy in public hands and state control.
But, in the process, he made three fundamental errors that, at the end of the day, brought the socialist edifice tumbling down a generation later.
For starters, Mwalimu alienated some of his fellow elite, who disapproved of the Arusha Declaration and nationalisation.
His ruling party secretary-general and minister, Oscar Kambona, is a notable example.
Nyerere also alienated potential development partners in the international community, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
All these players worked to undermine Tanzania's developmental efforts at every turn - culminating in the reversal of the Arusha Declaration by the 1992 Zanzibar Declaration, and privatisation thereafter.
Mwalimu also failed to sharply bring to account failed managers of the parastatals born of the nationalisation.
Thieving and inept managers were routinely kicked upstairs or transferred to other parastatals.
This steadily screwed the entities into the ground, reducing Mwalimu's socialist experiment a cruel joke.
Thirdly, Mwalimu single-handedly selected and shoehorned his successors into office: Ali Hassan Mwinyi (1985) and Benjamin Mkapa (1995).
Karl Lyimo is a freelance journalist based in Dar
Written by Karl Lyimo
5 October 2009
It is 10 years since the founder of Tanzanian nationalism and the country's leading light, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, died from leukemia in London.
Today's story is about Mwalimu, a man who means different things to different people. For many, Mwalimu remains their icon who would do no wrong.
That is partly why steps are being taken in certain quarters to have the man canonised.
Indeed, there can be no gainsaying that Mwalimu did a lot that was good for his country in particular, and others elsewhere in general.
These included oppressed communities, the poor and the voiceless.
It has been argued that had Mwalimu not been where he was -- and the kind of person he was -- political liberation and egalitarianism would have taken longer to come to countries like apartheid South Africa, Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and Mozambique.
It has also been stated that Mwalimu did much to create an egalitarian society in Tanzania.
But, euphoric observers have routinely turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the other side of the Nyerere coin.
Of course, not much of that side is articulated in public.
But, that's not being fair to the man, to his people -- and, most important, to history based on impartial analysis and facts, not sentiment.
Look at it this way: Nyerere was the prime force behind the independence of the-then Tanganyika from foreign rule in December 1961.
He was also behind efforts to deliver his people from a life of poverty and greedy capitalism into a selfless community of share-and-share alike.
To do this, he purposefully set out on the road to socialism that was paved with the February 5, 1967 Arusha Declaration on Socialism and Self-reliance.
Basically, this meant wholesale nationalisation and acquisition of estate in efforts to put the commanding heights of the economy in public hands and state control.
But, in the process, he made three fundamental errors that, at the end of the day, brought the socialist edifice tumbling down a generation later.
For starters, Mwalimu alienated some of his fellow elite, who disapproved of the Arusha Declaration and nationalisation.
His ruling party secretary-general and minister, Oscar Kambona, is a notable example.
Nyerere also alienated potential development partners in the international community, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
All these players worked to undermine Tanzania's developmental efforts at every turn - culminating in the reversal of the Arusha Declaration by the 1992 Zanzibar Declaration, and privatisation thereafter.
Mwalimu also failed to sharply bring to account failed managers of the parastatals born of the nationalisation.
Thieving and inept managers were routinely kicked upstairs or transferred to other parastatals.
This steadily screwed the entities into the ground, reducing Mwalimu's socialist experiment a cruel joke.
Thirdly, Mwalimu single-handedly selected and shoehorned his successors into office: Ali Hassan Mwinyi (1985) and Benjamin Mkapa (1995).
Karl Lyimo is a freelance journalist based in Dar
Here is another perspective on Nyerere in a national and global context from Godfrey Mwakikagile's book, "Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era," pp. 438 - 478:
JULIUS NYERERE was one of the most eloquent spokesmen for the Third World. He was also a leading figure in the Non-Aligned Movement and one of its most uncompromising advocates. As he stated as far back as 1961, the same year he led Tanganyika to independence from Britain, we are not going to allow our friends to choose enemies for us.
But it was in Tanganyika, later Tanzania, where he demonstrated his qualities as a man of the people; a leader who sacrificed his personal comfort for the well-being of others. His policy of socialism was adopted in pursuit of this goal, as was the Arusha Declaration he wrote as the nation's political and economic blueprint but whose scope and relevance went beyond Tanzania to include Africa as a whole.
The driving force behind all his actions and policies was his belief that governments and societies exist to serve man. They have no other justification. A nation's economic growth is meaningless if the vast majority of its people, the poorest of the poor, do not benefit from such progress. Clean water for the people is more important than growth statistics; clinics more important than expensive projects undertaken out of sheer national pride.
And he was painfully aware of our underdeveloped status, not only as Tanzanians but as Africans as a whole. As he once said, "while others are going to the moon, we are trying to reach the village and it is getting farther and farther away." And to catch up with the rest, or achieve significant progress, "we must run while others walk," as he put it succinctly. Tragically, in many cases across the continent, we are not even running but crawling, if at all, emaciated by hunger, crippled by disease, and mangled by war. As he said not long before he died, "Africa is in a mess."
It was with such problems in mind, except civil wars, that he adopted socialist policies as the best way to achieve economic progress and social justice, enabling us to share the nation's wealth on an egalitarian basis. And his battle with the IMF and the World Bank in the early 1980s, against structural adjustment programmes and other austerity measures which hurt the poor the most but which these financial institutions demanded to be implemented by African and other developing countries as a condition for aid, clearly demonstrated his commitment to the well-being of the poorest of the poor; and his belief that economic growth indexes are less important than the welfare of the people. They come first.
In 1984, when he was still president and about a year after he survived a coup attempt some of whose details are discussed in Appendix VI of this book, Nyerere explained in detail Tanzania's stand on IMF proposals as they related to the country's economic development and financial woes. He said the major difference between Tanzania and the IMF was not based on the conditions demanded by the latter but the extent to which such conditions could be applied to Tanzania.
In an interview with local and foreign journalists at the State House in Dar es Salaam on November 22 the same year, the president said none of the IMF packages ranging from massive devaluation of currency, reduction of government deficits to liberalization of imports had helped improve any Third World economy. As he explained: "They (international financial institutions) advised us to liberalize imports in 1977 when we had surplus in foreign reserves and we did. But we have been in trouble ever since."1
He once described the IMF as the International Ministry of Finance and famously asked who elected the IMF to be the ministry of finance for every country in the world.
Nyerere said IMF imposition of the ready-made prescriptions on poor countries as a condition for aid was unacceptable: "Any serious Third World government will ask serious questions. I cannot sign an agreement (with the IMF) and then have riots on the streets. You may be the economic experts but I am the political expert - allow me at least to say how much the people can take."2
He went on to explain that blind conformity and acceptance of the IMF packages would force the government to turn the police force against the people. The president said the government was flexible in its economic policies and had taken a number of measures similar to those recommended by the IMF; and went on to stress: "We don't say we don't change but we say how much should we change. Every government will have to ask that. Every government asks that."3
He said Tanzania needed the financial resources offered by the IMF to pay for her raw materials and spare parts but insisted that the negotiations must be balanced. Commenting on government involvement in running the economy, Nyerere said all governments, including that of the United States, had to make decisions dealing with the economy. He cited as an example the deliberate decision by the American government to maintain "huge deficits" in its annual budget: "Those deficits are a government decision and it pervades the total economy."4
Nyerere said the higher degree of government control of the economy in Tanzania was basically historical because most of the economic infrastructure, including industry, was created by the government, pointing out that little was inherited from the colonial powers (first Germany, and then Britain). As he put it: "In Tanzania we do a little bit more than they (other countries) do. It is partly historical, partly ideological...but mostly historical."5
But he insisted that Tanzania would continue to pursue socialism and self-reliance as the only means to achieve development. However, he told reporters at the press conference, collectivization in the rural areas would continue to be voluntary: "It has never been the intention to force collectivization in Tanzania."6
It is true that forcing people to live in ujamaa villages had never been government policy. But some overzealous officials who implemented that policy resorted to intimidation, physical force and other tactics to mobilize people into those collective settlements. Peasant farming was collectivized between 1973 and 1976, triggering riots and retaliatory violence against government agents enforcing the policy.
President Nyerere reported by mid-1975 that over 9 million Tanzanians - then roughly half the entire population - had been moved into more than 6,900 ujamaa villages. And in 1976 the government launched a massive sweep of Dar es Salaam, the nation's capital and largest city, and rounded up thousands of the unemployed and sent them back to the rural areas to work in their home villages or in new settlements.
But, in spite of his commitment to socialism, Nyerere never ruled out capitalist involvement in the socialist transformation of Tanzania. In fact, the Arusha Declaration which he himself wrote, welcomed such participation. As he explained during the press conference at the State House (called Ikulu in Kiswahili) in 1984 almost exactly one year before he retired from the presidency, Tanzania would continue to invite foreign firms to invest in the economy under mutual agreements which did not compromise the principles of either party.
He told a questioner that this was not a capitalistic tendency. He said Tanzania had been willing to cooperate with private investors all along, citing the General Tyre (East Africa) Company formed jointly with an American firm shortly after the Arusha Declaration was published in February 1967. As he told the reporters: "I have been advised that it is correct to use capitalists to develop socialism."7
But socialism failed to develop the country's economy despite some success in the area of light manufacturing and import-substitution items, an achievement which is often overlooked when critics of Nyerere's economic policies harp on Tanzania's failure to develop under socialism. But the failure was disastrous, although for a number of other reasons as well besides socialism. For example, the end of the coffee boom of the 1970s and soaring oil prices also had a devastating impact on Tanzania's fragile economy, especially in 1979, the same year the country fought a six-month full-scale war against Idi Amin's forces - from November 1978 to April 1979 - which cost Tanzania $500 million. But the socialist development strategy also had a devastating impact on the country, and no amount of clever sheet balancing can mitigate its effects.
It was during this period, between 1981 and 1985, that President Nyerere entered into negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international donors to help revive the economy. That marked the beginning of the end of socialism in Tanzania as a state ideology and strategy for development. It was a fundamental change, and Nyerere was not enthusiastic about it; which explains why he was opposed to some of the IMF proposals and demands - the extent to which liberalization of the economy should be carried out - and entered into those negotiations only reluctantly. However, Tanzania had no choice but to comply with the IMF's mandatory conditions to try and improve her economy. As the executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), distinguished Nigerian economist Dr. Adebayo Adedeji, stated in 1983 when negotiations between Tanzania and the IMF were still going on:
The donor countries and institutions have the last word, rather than the governments themselves, such as in the recent controversy between the IMF and Tanzania. I think, in the final analysis, that the IMF won. This is the grueling reality of poverty. When you are poor, you can never be right. It is the rich country that is right, because it is the only one that can help you.8
Like all the other African countries, Tanzania had to adopt stringent austerity measures as a condition for financial aid from the IMF. The measures included structural adjustment programmes which demanded reducing controls on marketing and currency exchange rates and cutting overall public expenditure. Implementation of the programmes led to recession and caused a lot of hardship on the people, not only in Tanzania but also in other African countries and elsewhere in the underdeveloped regions of the world. The suffering seemed to last forever. As Joe Mensah, a lawyer and senior civil servant in Accra, Ghana, stated: "How many years does one have to live on earth, and how many of those must be spent in hardship?"9
But that is the kind of hardship people had to endure to implement structural adjustment programmes imposed on poor countries by donor nations through the IMF and other multilateral institutions. That is the nature of capitalism which does not have mechanisms to minimize its negative impact on the poor when it is implemented solely to achieve economic growth and not to provide services for the needy. And President Nyerere was fully aware of the contradictory nature of capitalism.
It is a system which seeks to develop society to benefit members of that society, yet survives and thrives on the exploitation of the very people it is intended to help. And the weakest members of society are the most vulnerable under such a system because capitalism is predatory by nature.
That is why there is an imperative need for government intervention to curb the predatory instincts of capitalism and protect the weakest members of society from ruthless competition fostered by free market policies. Nyerere believed that socialism, the very antithesis of capitalism, could do just that and bring about social equality by implementing egalitarian ideals espoused under such a system. Yet because of the weakness of Tanzania and other African countries in the international system dominated by the metropolitan powers, he also saw his people suffer immensely when the IMF imposed stiff conditions on Tanzania which had to be implemented in order for the country to qualify for financial aid. And it was a continental phenomenon.
The devastating impact of structural adjustment programmes ignited debate across Africa - and in other parts of the Third World - about the functional utility of IMF prescriptions for the ailing economies on the continent if the people who were supposed to be helped by these measures turned out to be the very people who suffered the most. Structural adjustment programmes had not helped the poor as the experts claimed they would; a point underscored by Chinua Achebe in his Presidential Fellow Lecture to the World Bank Group in 1998:
I believe it was in the first weeks of 1989 that I received an invitation to an anniversary meeting - the twentieth-fifth year, or something like that - of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris....
They talked in particular about the magic bullet of the 1980s, structural adjustment, specially designed for those parts of the world where economies had gone completely haywire.
The matter was really simple, the experts seemed to be saying; the only reason for failure to develop was indiscipline of all kinds, and the remedy was a quick, sharp administration of shock treatment....The most recurrent prescriptions for this condition were the removal of subsidies on food and fuel and the devaluation of the national currency....
Then the governor of the Bank of Kenya made his presentation. As I recall the events, he was probably the only other African at that session. He asked the experts to consider the case of Zambia, which according to him had accepted, and had been practising, a structural adjustment regime for something like 10 years, and whose economic condition was now worse than it had been when they began their treatment.
An American expert who seemed to command great attention and was accorded high deference in the room, spoke again. He repeated what had already been said many times before: "Be patient, it will work in time, trust me," or words to that effect....
I signaled my desire to speak and was given the floor. I told them what I had just recognized. I said that what was going on before me was a fiction workshop, no more and no less! 'Here you are, spinning your fine theories to be tried out in your imaginary laboratories. You are developing new drugs and feeding them to a bunch of laboratory guinea pigs and hoping for the best. I have news for you.
Africa is not fiction. Africa is people, real people. Have you thought of that? You are brilliant people, world experts. You may even have the very best intentions. But have you thought, really thought, of Africa as people?
I will tell you the experience of my own country, Nigeria, with structural adjustment. After two years of this remedy we saw the country's minimum wage fall in value from the equivalent of 15 British pounds to 5 pounds a month. This is not a lab report; it is not a mathematical exercise. We are talking about someone whose income, which is already miserable enough, is now reduced to one-third of what it was two years ago. And this flesh-and-blood man has a wife and children.
You say he should simply go home and tell them to be patient. Now let me ask you this question: Would you recommend a similar remedy to your own government? How do you sell it to an elected president? You are asking him to commit political suicide, or perhaps to get rid of elections altogether until he has fixed the economy. Do you realize that's what you're doing?'10
None of the experts could give a good answer to any of those questions. And as Nyerere said, Tanzania had adopted some of these solutions recommended by Western experts, "but we have been in trouble ever since." And what Chinua Achebe said about the pain and suffering caused by structural adjustment programmes, not only in his own country Nigeria but in other parts of Africa as well, should also remind us of what Nyerere said to World Bank officials in 1984 when they insisted on implementing harsh measures as a condition for aid to Tanzania: "I cannot sign an agreement and then have riots on the streets. You may be the economic experts but I am the political expert - allow me at least to say how much the people can take."11
But donor nations insisted on implementing structural adjustment programmes and other austerity measures as a condition for aid to poor countries, prompting Nyerere to ask in 1986 what has now become one of his famous questions: "Must we starve our children to pay our debt?" The answer, from the rich nations, is "yes." But that is the nature of capitalism. And Nyerere knew from the beginning how it can be cruel.
There is no room for sentiment under capitalism. Each to his own. People exploit each other, and even kill each other, to make money. Therefore starving children to death, by forcing poor countries to pay their debts to rich capitalist countries, is nothing new to capitalism. That is simply part of its nature, its very essence. And that is why these countries are resolutely opposed to debt cancellation. They want to bleed African countries, and other Third World countries, to death. And Nyerere was fully aware of that.
But as he made it clear, he was not against using capitalism to achieve socialist goals. He was against capitalism to achieve capitalist goals because of its nature as a predatory system which capitalizes on greed and exploits the most vulnerable members of society, and divides society along class lines, accentuating cleavages and turning man against fellow man for material gain including high social status. IMF-imposed solutions to improve Tanzania's - and Africa's - economy would achieve exactly that, despite professions to the contrary by its proponents who contended, and still maintain, that benefits will trickle down to members of the lowest strata - the working class and other low income earners as well as destitutes - throughout society. Yet, this trickle-down theory has not been validated by experience in all contexts, if any at all, in Africa and many parts of the Third World.
Good economic policy must translate into good social policy. But that is not the case with IMF prescriptions when they hurt and even kill the poor. And Nyerere understood this well probably more than any of his contemporaries. It also explains his uncompromising commitment to socialism to alleviate the plight of the poorest of the poor by implementing egalitarian ideals to achieve social equality and justice by redistributing wealth and increasing government spending for social services.
That is why, during his presidency, education was free, and medical service was also free, for everybody. And the government had to continue playing a major role in the economy to ensure equality because for historical and pragmatic reasons, it was the only institution in Tanganyika, later Tanzania, which controlled the largest amount of resources and was capable of functioning as the engine of progress in a country where the people - the poorest of the poor in one of the poorest countries in the world - had virtually nothing in terms of capital to invest in the economy. As President Benjamin Mkapa stated in an interview in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, broadcast on American television (PBS) in March 2001:
We establish(ed) a network of social-service delivery that was extremely egalitarian, and it succeeded very well indeed. It helped us to build an unparalleled sense of nationhood in our country, very much so, and a sense of equality, a challenge of opportunity for all of us. But the world was changing, and in the end we overstretched ourselves in the sense that the governmental proceeds could not sustain the vast network, and so we had to open up the doors to the private sector.
In fairness, let us say that the private sector wasn't excluded by either law or practice, but because we promoted a public sector-driven economy, the private sector was somewhat hesitant in coming in. What we did was to encourage them to come in, with assurances that we will not nationalize their enterprises.
So the first 20-something years where we established an extensive, large public sector-driven economy were extremely necessary, frankly, given the historical background....
When we first became independent, we had been part of the British empire during the colonial days, although we were very much on the periphery of the empire because we were a United Nations Trust Territory. That trust was placed in the British, as different from the protectorates such as Uganda or the colonies such as Kenya.
The British government and the citizenry of the United Kingdom had greater interest (in the colonies and protectorates), and therefore those countries witnessed greater economic investment and economic development than ourselves. Because we were peripheral and not essential, they didn't feel very keen to come and invest here. We were a very, very backward economy, and therefore the likelihood of development through the private sector was extremely remote.
President Nyerere undertook to promote the policy of economic development through public sector engines, the government itself being at the wheel and providing the wherewithal for investment, for production, and so on. So we had a public-sector economy here. For the first 30 years or so of our independence, we built public ownership, public management, and public investment....But we reached a point where we had to open up...the doors to the private sector....
If you define socialism as an economic development policy of public ownership, then there's no doubt that we reached a stage where growth was unsustainable or unachievable. That is why I said we had to open up, in order to invite other stakeholders or other participants in the growth process. So in that sense it failed, it couldn't continue, it couldn't be sustained. But defined as a process in which we are building a national economy in which there's a sense of both egalitarian ownership and partnership, it was extremely successful and may have been the major root cause for the stability that has characterized our political life.12
Even before Tanzania adopted the "Arusha Declaration: Socialism and Self-Reliance" in February 1967, five years after independence in December 1961, Nyerere was already committed to socialism as the best way to alleviate poverty, narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, and achieve social and economic justice for all.
In fact, socialist principles were already enshrined in the country's ruling party, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), long before socialism was formally adopted as a state ideology; although the country did not pursue socialist policies during the first years of independence in the early and mid-sixties despite Nyerere's commitment to socialism.
The acceptance, hence adoption, of the Arusha Declaration by the national executive committee of TANU in Arusha on January 29, 1967, and subsequent publication of this political and economic blueprint on February 5, 1967 - signaling the formal adoption of the declaration by the country on the latter date - marked a turning point in Tanzanian politics.
The ideology of the country was made explicit by this document; and the introduction of the leadership code - leadership qualifications - as well as the decision to nationalize major means of production and other vital assets set the country on a socialist path long envisioned by Nyerere. As stated in the first part of the TANU creed which also constitutes the first part of the Arusha Declaration: "The policy of TANU is to build a socialist state. The principles of socialism are laid down in the TANU constitution....to ensure that this country shall be governed by a democratic socialist government of the people."
And it is important to remember that TANU was founded in July 1954 to fight for independence. Therefore Nyerere and his colleagues were, as far back as 1954, committed to the creation of a socialist state even before they led the country to independence in December 1961.
There is no other document or piece of writing which explicitly defines Nyerere as a socialist, and Tanzania as a country committed to socialism under his leadership, as the Arusha Declaration which he himself wrote. And whatever mistakes one may find in his socialist beliefs and policies can be found in this document.
Its proponents view the declaration as one of the best political and economic blueprints ever written; and its opponents as one of the worst, or most idealistic and impractical, even though many of them have not even read it. It is for the readers to judge for themselves when they read the Arusha Declaration and decide what they think about it, and what they think about Nyerere himself as an ideological thinker. The declaration is reproduced here in its entirety:
THE ARUSHA DECLARATION: SOCIALISM AND SELF-RELIANCE
Part One: The TANU Creed
The policy of TANU is to build a socialist state. The principles of socialism are laid down in the TANU constitution and they are as follows:
Whereas TANU believes:
(a) That all human beings are equal;
(b) That every individual has a right to dignity and respect;
(c) That every citizen is an integral part of the nation and has the right to take an equal part in government at local, regional and national level;
(d) That every citizen has the right to freedom of expression, of movement, of religious belief and of association within the context of the law;
(e) That every individual has the right to receive from society protection of his life and of property held according to law;
(f) That every individual has the right to receive a just return for his labour;
(g) That all citizens together possess all the natural resources of the country in trust for their descendants;
(h) That in order to ensure economic justice the state must have effective control over the principal means of production;
and
(i) That it is the responsibility of the state to intervene actively in the economic life of the nation so as to ensure the well-being of all citizens, and so as to prevent the exploitation of one person by another or one group by another, and so as to prevent the accumulation of wealth to an extent which is inconsistent with the existence of a classless society.
Now, therefore, the principal aims and objectives of TANU shall be as follows:
(a) To consolidate and maintain the independence of this country and the freedom of its people;
(b) To safeguard the inherent dignity of the individual in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
(c) To ensure that this country shall be governed by a democratic socialist government of the people;
(d) To co-operate with all political parties in Africa engaged in the liberation of all Africa;
(e) To see that the government mobilizes all the resources of this country towards the elimination of poverty, ignorance and disease;
(f) To see that the government actively assists in the formation and maintenance of co-operative organizations;
(g) To see that wherever possible the government itself directly participates in the economic development of this country;
(h) To see that the government gives equal opportunity to all men and women irrespective of race, religion or status;
(i) To see that the government eradicates all types of exploitation, intimidation, discrimination, bribery and corruption;
(j) To see that the government exercises effective control over the principal means of production and pursues policies which facilitate the way to collective ownership of the resources of this country;
(k) To see that the government co-operates with other states in Africa in bringing about African unity;
(l) To see that the government works tirelessly towards world peace and security through the United Nations Organization.
Part Two: The Policy of Socialism
(a) Absence of Exploitation.
A truly socialist state is one in which all people are workers and in which neither capitalism nor feudalism exists. It does not have two classes of people, a lower class composed of people who work for their living, and an upper class of people who live on the work of others. In a really socialist country no person exploits another; everyone who is physically able to work does so; every worker obtains a just return for the labour he performs; and the incomes derived from different types of work are not grossly divergent.
In a socialist country, the only people who live on the work of others, and who have the right to be dependent upon their fellows, are small children, people who are too old to support themselves, the crippled, and those whom the state at any one time cannot provide with an opportunity to work for their living.
Tanzania is a nation of peasants and workers, but it is not yet a socialist society. It still contains elements of feudalism and capitalism - with their temptations. These feudalistic and capitalistic features of our society could spread and entrench themselves.
(b) The major means of production and exchange are under the control of the peasants and workers.
To build and maintain socialism it is essential that all the major means of production and exchange in the nation are controlled and owned by the peasants through the machinery of their government and their co-operatives. Further, it is essential that the ruling party should be a party of peasants and workers.
The major means of production and exchange are such things as: land; forests; minerals; water; oil and electricity; news media; communications; banks, insurance, import and export trade, wholesale trade; iron and steel, machine-tool, arms, motor-car, cement, fertilizer, and textile industries; and any big factory on which a large section of the people depend for their living, or which provides essential components of other industries; large plantations, and especially those which provide raw materials essential to important industries.
Some of the instruments of production and exchange which have been listed here are already owned or controlled by the people's government of Tanzania.
(c) The Existence of Democracy.
A state is not socialist simply because its means of production and exchange are controlled or owned by the government, either wholly or in large part. For a country to be socialist, it is essential that its government is chosen and led by the peasants and workers themselves. If the minority governments of Rhodesia or South Africa controlled or owned the entire economies of these respective countries, the result would be a strengthening of oppression, not the building of socialism. True socialism cannot exist without democracy also existing in the society.
(d) Socialism is a Belief.
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 practise, the principles of socialism. A committed member of TANU will be a socialist, and his fellow socialists - that is, his fellow believers in this political and economic system - are all those in Africa or elsewhere in the world who fight for the rights of peasants and workers. The first duty of a TANU member, and especially of a TANU leader, is to accept these socialist principles, and to live his own life 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.
The successful implementation of socialist objectives depends very much upon the leaders, because socialism is a belief in a particular system of living, and it is difficult for leaders to promote its growth if they do not themselves accept it.
Part Three: The Policy of Self-Reliance
We are at War.
TANU is involved in a war against poverty and oppression in our country; this struggle is aimed at moving the people of Tanzania - and the people of Africa as a whole - from a state of poverty to a state of prosperity.
We have been oppressed a great deal, we have been exploited a great deal and we have been disregarded a great deal. It is our weakness that has led to our being oppressed, exploited and disregarded. Now we want a revolution - a revolution which brings to an end our weakness, so that we are never again exploited, oppressed, or humiliated.
A Poor Man does not use Money as a Weapon.
But it is obvious that in the past we have chosen the wrong weapon for our struggle, because we chose money as our weapon. We are trying to overcome our economic weakness by using the weapons of the economically strong - weapons which in fact we do not possess. By our thoughts, words and actions it appears as if we have come to the conclusion that without money we cannot bring about the revolution we are aiming at. It is as if we have said, 'Money is the basis of development. Without money there can be no development.'
That is what we believe at present. TANU leaders, and government leaders and officials, all put great emphasis and dependence on money. The people's leaders and the people themselves, in TANU, NUTA (National Union of Tanganyika Workers), Parliament, UWT (Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania - Union of the Women of Tanzania), the co-operatives, TAPA (Tanzania Parents' Association), and in other national institutions think, hope and pray for MONEY. It is as if we had all agreed to speak with one voice, saying, 'If we get money we shall develop, without money we cannot develop.'
In brief, our Five-Year Development Plan aims at more food, more education, and better health; but the weapon we have put emphasis upon is money. It is as if we said, 'In the next five years we want to have more food, more education, and better health, and in order to achieve these things we shall spend 250,000,000 (British) pounds.' We think and speak as if the most important thing to depend upon is MONEY and anything else we intend to use in our struggle is of minor importance.
When a member of parliament says that there is a shortage of water in his constituency and he asks the government how it intends to deal with the problem, he expects the government to reply that it is planning to remove the shortage of water in his constituency - WITH MONEY.
When another member of parliament asks what the government is doing about the shortage of roads, schools or hospitals in his constituency, he also expects the government to tell him that it has specific plans to build roads, schools and hospitals in his constituency - WITH MONEY.
When a NUTA official asks the government about its plans to deal with the low wages and poor housing of the workers, he expects the government to inform him that the minimum wage will be increased and that better houses will be provided for the workers - WITH MONEY.
When a TAPA official asks the government what plans it has to give assistance to the many TAPA schools which do not get government aid, he expects the government to state that it is ready the following morning to give the required assistance - WITH MONEY.
When an official of the co-operative movement mentions any problem facing the farmer, he expects to hear that the government will solve the farmer's problems - WITH MONEY. In short, for every problem facing our nation, the solution that is in everybody's mind is MONEY.
Each year, each ministry of the government makes its estimates of expenditure, i.e. the amount of money it will require in the coming year to meet recurrent and development expenses. Only one minister and his ministry make estimates of revenue. This is the minister for finance. Every ministry puts forward very good development plans. When the ministry presents its estimates, it believes that the money is there for the asking but that the minister for finance and his ministry are being obstructive. And regularly each year the minister for finance has to tell his fellow ministers that there is no money. And each year the ministries complain about the ministry of finance when it trims down their estimates.
Similarly, when members of parliament and other leaders demand that the government should carry out a certain development project, they believe that there is a lot of money to spend on such projects, but that the government is the stumbling block. Yet such belief on the part of ministries, members of parliament and other leaders does not alter the stark truth, which is that government has no money.
When it is said that government has no money, what does this mean? It means that the people of Tanzania have insufficient money. The people pay taxes out of every little wealth they have; it is from these taxes that the government meets its recurrent and development expenditure. When we call on the government to spend more money on development projects we are asking the government to use more money. And if the government does not have any more, the only way it can do this is to increase its revenue through extra taxation.
If one calls on the government to spend more, one is in effect calling on the government to increase taxes. Calling on the government to spend more without raising taxes is like demanding that the government should perform miracles; it is equivalent to asking for more milk from a cow while insisting that the cow should not be milked again. But our refusal to admit that calling on the government to spend more is the same as calling on the government to raise taxes shows that we fully realize the difficulties of increasing taxes. We realize that the cow has no more milk - that is, that the people find it difficult to pay more taxes. We know that the cow would like to have more milk herself, so that her calves could drink it, or that she would like more milk which could be sold to provide more comfort for herself or her calves. But knowing all the things which could be done with more milk does not alter the fact that the cow has no more milk!
What of External Aid?
One method we use to try and avoid a recognition of the need to increase taxes if we want to have more money for development, is to think in terms of getting the extra money from outside Tanzania. Such external finance falls into three main categories.
(a) Gifts: This means that another government gives our government a sum of money as a free gift for a particular development scheme. Sometimes it may be that an institution in another country gives our government, or an institution in our country, financial help for development programmes.
(b) Loans: The greater portion of financial help we expect to get from outside is not in the form of gifts or charity, but in the form of loans. A foreign government or a foreign institution, such as a bank, lends our government money for the purposes of development. Such a loan has repayment conditions attached to it, covering such factors as the time period for which it is available and the rate of interest.
(c) Private investment: The third category of financial help is also greater than the first. This takes the form of investment in our country by individuals or companies from outside. The important condition which such private investors have in mind is that the enterprise into which they put their money should bring them profit and that our government should permit them to repatriate these profits. They also prefer to invest in a country whose policies they agree with and which will safeguard their economic interests.
These three are the main categories of external finance. And there is in Tanzania a fantastic amount of talk about getting money from outside. Our government and different groups of our leaders, never stop thinking about methods of getting finance from abroad. And if we get some money, or even if we just get a promise of it, our newspapers, our radio, and our leaders, all advertise the fact in order that every person shall know that salvation is coming, or is on the way. If we receive a gift we announce it, if we receive a loan we announce it, if we get a new factory we announce it - and always loudly. In the same way, when we get a promise of a gift, a loan, or a new industry, we make an announcement - even though we do not know the outcome of the discussions. Why do we do all this? Because we want people to know that we have started discussions which will bring prosperity.
DO NOT LET US DEPEND UPON MONEY FOR DEVELOPMENT
It is stupid to rely on money as the major instrument of development when we know only too well that our country is poor. It is equally stupid, indeed it is even more stupid, for us to imagine that we shall rid ourselves of our poverty through foreign financial assistance rather than our own financial resources. It is stupid for two reasons.
Firstly, we shall not get the money. It is true that there are countries which can, and which would like, to help us. But there is no country in the world which is prepared to give us gifts or loans, or establish industries, to the extent that we would be able to achieve all our development targets. There are many needy countries in the world. And even if all the prosperous nations were willing to help the needy countries, the assistance would still not suffice. But in any case the prosperous nations have not accepted a responsibility to fight world poverty. Even within their own borders poverty still exists, and the rich individuals do not willingly give money to the government to help their poor fellow citizens.
It is only through taxation, which people have to pay whether they want to or not, that money can be extracted from the rich in order to help the masses. Even then there would not be enough money. However heavily we taxed the citizens of Tanzania and the aliens living here, the resulting revenue would not be enough to meet the costs of the development we want. And there is no World Government which can tax the prosperous nations in order to help the poor nations; nor if one did exist could it raise enough revenue to do all that is needed in the world. But in fact, such a World Government does not exist. Such money as the rich nations offer to the poor nations is given voluntarily, either through their own goodness, or for their own benefits. All this means that it is impossible for Tanzania to obtain from overseas enough money to develop our economy.
GIFTS AND LOANS WILL ENDANGER OUR INDEPENDENCE
Secondly, even if it were possible for us to get enough money for our needs from external sources, is this what we really want? Independence means self-reliance. Independence cannot be real if a nation depends upon gifts and loans from another for its development. Even if there was a nation, or nations, prepared to give us all the money we need for our development, it would be improper for us to accept such assistance without asking ourselves how this would affect our independence and our very survival as a nation. Gifts which increase, or act as a catalyst, to our own efforts are valuable. But gifts which could have the effect of weakening or distorting our own efforts should not be accepted until we have asked ourselves a number of questions.
The same applies to loans. It is true that loans are better than 'free' gifts. A loan is intended to increase our efforts or make those efforts more fruitful. One condition of a loan is that you show how you are going to repay it. This means you have to show that you intend to use the loan profitably and will therefore be able to repay it.
But even loans have their limitations. You have to give consideration to the ability to repay. When we borrow money from other countries it is the Tanzanian who pays it back. And as we have already stated, Tanzanians are poor people. To burden the people with big loans, the repayment of which will be beyond their means, is not to help them but to make them suffer. It is even worse when the loans they are asked to repay have not benefited the majority of the people but have only benefited a small minority.
How about the enterprises of foreign investors? It is true we need these enterprises. We have even passed an Act of Parliament protecting foreign investments in this country. Our aim is to make foreign investors feel that Tanzania is a good place in which to invest because investments would be safe and profitable, and the profits can be taken out of the country without difficulty. We expect to get money through this method. But we cannot get enough. And even if we were able to convince foreign investors and foreign firms to undertake all the projects and programmes of economic development that we need, is that what we actually want to happen?
Had we been able to attract investors from America and Europe to come and start all the industries and all the projects of economic development that we need in this country, could we do so without questioning ourselves? Could we agree to leave the economy of our country in the hands of foreigners who would take the profits back to their countries? Or supposing they did not insist upon taking their profits away, but decided to reinvest in Tanzania; could we really accept this situation without asking ourselves what disadvantages our nation would suffer? Would this allow the socialism we have said it is our objective to build?
How can we depend upon gifts, loans and investments from foreign countries and foreign companies without endangering our independence? The English people have a proverb which says: 'He who pays the piper calls the tune.' How can we depend upon foreign governments and companies for the major part of our development without giving to those governments and countries a great part of our freedom to act as we please? The truth is that we cannot.
Let us repeat. We made a mistake in choosing money - something we do not have - to be the big instrument of our development. We are making a mistake to think that we shall get the money from other countries; first, because in fact we shall not be able to get sufficient money for our economic development; and secondly, because even if we could get all that we need, such dependence upon others would endanger our independence and our ability to chose our own political policies.
WE HAVE PUT TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON INDUSTRIES
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.' This is true. The day when we have lots of money we shall be able to say we are a developed country. We shall be able to say, 'When we began our Development Plans we did not have enough money and this situation made it difficult for us to develop as fast as we wanted. Today we are developed and we have enough money.' That is to say, our money has been brought by development. Similarly, the day we become industrialized, we shall be able to say we are developed. Development would have enabled us to have industries.
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. It is not enough to say that we shall borrow the finances and the technicians from other countries to come and start industries. The answer to this is the same one we gave earlier, that we cannot get enough money and borrow enough technicians to start all the industries we need. And even if we could get the necessary assistance, dependence on it could interfere with our policy of socialism. The policy of inviting a chain of capitalists to come and establish industries in our country might succeed in giving us all the industries we need, but it would also succeed in preventing the establishment of socialism unless we believe that without first building capitalism, we cannot build socialism.
LET US PAY HEED TO THE PEASANT
Our emphasis on money and industries has made us concentrate on urban development. We recognize that we do not have enough money to bring the kind of development to each village which would benefit everybody. We also know that we cannot establish an industry in each village and through this means effect a rise in the real incomes of the people. For these reasons we spend most of our money in the urban areas and our industries are established in the towns.
Yet the greater part of this money that we spend in the towns comes from loans. Whether it is used to build schools, hospitals, houses or factories, etc., it still has to be repaid. But it is obvious that it cannot be repaid just of money obtained from urban and industrial development. To repay the loans we have to use foreign currency which is obtained from the sale of our exports. But we do not now sell our industrial products in foreign markets, and indeed it is likely to be a long time before our industries produce for export. The main aim of our new industries is 'import substitution' - that is, to produce things which up to now we have had to import from foreign countries.
It is therefore obvious that the foreign currency we shall use to pay back the loans used in the development of the urban areas will not come from the towns or the industries. Where, then, shall we get if from? We shall get it from the villages and from agriculture. What does this mean?
It means that the people who benefit directly from development which is brought about by borrowed money are not the ones who will repay the loans. The largest proportion of the loans will be spent in, or for, the urban areas, but the largest proportion of the repayment will be made through the efforts of the farmers.
This fact should always be borne in mind, for there are various forms of exploitation. We must not forget that people who live in towns can possibly become the exploiters of those who live in the rural areas. All our big hospitals are in towns and they benefit only a small section of the people of Tanzania. Yet if we have built them with loans from outside Tanzania, it is the overseas sale of the peasants' produce which provides the foreign exchange for repayment. Those who do not get the benefit of the hospitals thus carry the major responsibility for paying them. Tarmac roads, too, are mostly found in towns and are of especial value to the motor-car owners.
Yet if we have built those roads with loans, it is again the farmer who produces the goods which will pay for them. What is more, the foreign exchange with which the car was bought also came from the sale of the farmers' produce. Again, electric lights, water pipes, hotels and other aspects of modern development are mostly found in towns. Most of them have been built with loans and most of them do not benefit the farmer directly, although they will be paid for by the foreign exchange earned by the sale of his produce. We should always bear this in mind.
Although when we talk of exploitation we usually think of capitalists, we should not forget that there are many fish in the sea. They eat each other. The large ones eat the small ones, and the small ones eat those who are even smaller. There are two possible ways of dividing the people in our country. We can put the capitalists and feudalists on one side, and the farmers and workers on the other. But we can also divide the people into urban dwellers on one side and those who live in the rural areas on the other. If we are not careful we might get to the position where the real exploitation in Tanzania is that of the town dwellers exploiting the peasants.
THE PEOPLE AND AGRICULTURE
The development of a country is brought about by people, not by money. Money, and the wealth it represents, is the result and not the basis of development. The four prerequisites of development are different; they are (i) People; (ii) Land; (iii) Good Policies; (iv) Good Leadership. Our country has more than ten million people (1967 census showed 12.3 million people) and its area is more than 362,000 square miles.
AGRICULTURE IS THE BASIS OF DEVELOPMENT
A great part of Tanzania's land is fertile and gets sufficient rain. Our country can produce various crops for home consumption and for export.
We can produce food crops (which can be exported if we produce in large quantities) such as maize, rice, wheat, beans, groundnuts, etc. And we can produce such cash crops as sisal, cotton, coffee, tobacco, pyrethrum, tea, etc. Our land is also good for grazing cattle, goats, sheep, and for raising chickens, etc.; we can get plenty of fish from our rivers, lakes, and from the sea. All of our farmers are in areas which can produce two or three or even more of the food and cash crops enumerated above, and each farmer could increase his production so as to get more food or more money. And because the main aim of development is to get more food, and more money for our other needs, our purpose must be to increase production of these agricultural crops. This is in fact the only road through which we can develop our country - in other words, only by increasing our production of these things can we get more food and more money for every Tanzanian.
THE CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT
(a) Hard Work
Everybody wants development; but not everybody understands and accepts the basic requirements for development. The biggest requirement is hard work. Let us go to the villages and talk to our people and see whether or not it is possible for them to work harder.
In towns, for example, wage-earners normally work for seven and a half or eight hours a day, and for six or six and a half days a week. This is about 45 hours a week for the whole year, except for two or three weeks' leave. In other words, a wage-earner works for 45 hours a week for 48 or 50 weeks of the year.
For a country like ours these are really quite short working hours. In other countries, even those which are more developed than we are, people work for more than 45 hours a week. It is not normal for a young country to start with such a short working week. The normal thing is to begin with long working hours and decrease them as the country becomes more and more prosperous. By starting with such short working hours and asking for even shorter hours, we are in fact imitating the more developed countries. And we shall regret this imitation. Nevertheless, wage-earners do work for 45 hours per week and their annual vacation does not exceed four weeks.
It would be appropriate to ask our farmers, especially the men, how many hours a week and how many weeks a year they work. Many do not even work for half as many hours as the wage-earner does. The truth is that in the villages the women work very hard. At times they work for 12 or 14 hours a day. They even work on Sundays and public holidays. Women who live in the villages work harder than anybody else in Tanzania. But the men who live in villages (and some of the women in towns) are on leave for half of their life. The energies of the millions of men in the villages and thousands of women in the towns which are at present wasted in gossip, dancing and drinking, are a great treasure which could contribute more towards the development of our country than anything we could get from rich nations.
We would be doing something very beneficial to our country if we went to the villages and told our people that they hold this treasure and that it is up to them to use it for their own benefit and the benefit of our whole nation.
(b) Intelligence
The second condition of development is the use of intelligence. Unintelligent hard work would not bring the same good results as the two combined. Using a big hoe instead of a small one; using a plough pulled by oxen instead of an ordinary hoe; the use of fertilizers; the use of insecticides; knowing the right crop for a particular season or soil; choosing good seeds for planting; knowing the right time for planting, weeding, etc.; all these things show the use of knowledge and intelligence. And all of them combine with hard work to produce more and better results.
The money and time we spend on passing on this knowledge to the peasants are better spent and bring more benefits to our country than the money and great amount of time we spend on other things which we call development.
These facts are well known to all of us. The parts of our Five-Year Development Plan which are on target, or where the target has been exceeded, are those parts which depend solely upon the people's own hard work. The production of cotton, coffee, cashew nuts, tobacco and pyrethrum has increased enormously for the past three years. But these are things which are produced by hard work and the good leadership of the people, not by the use of great amounts of money.
Furthermore the people, through their own hard work and with a little help and leadership, have finished many development projects in the villages. They have built schools, dispensaries, community centres, and roads; they have dug wells, water-channels, animal dips, small dams, and completed various other development projects. Had they waited for money, they would not now have the use of these things.
HARD WORK IS THE ROOT OF DEVELOPMENT
Some Plan projects which depend on money are going on well, but there are many which have stopped and others which might never be fulfilled because of lack of money. Yet still we talk about money and our search for money increases and takes nearly all our energies. We should not lessen our efforts to get the money we really need, but it would be more appropriate for us to spend time in the villages showing the people how to bring about development through their own efforts rather than going on so many long and expensive journeys abroad in search of development money. This is the real way to bring development to everybody in the country.
None of this means that from now on we will not need money or that we will not start industries or embark upon development projects which require money. Furthermore, we are not saying that we will not accept, or even that we shall not look for, money from other countries for development. This is NOT what are saying. We will continue to use money; and each year we will use more money for the various development projects than we used the previous year because this will be one of the signs of our development.
What we are saying, however, is that from now on we shall know what is the foundation and what is the fruit of development. Between MONEY and PEOPLE it is obvious that the people and their HARD WORK are the foundation of development, and money is one of the fruits of that hard work.
From now on we shall stand upright and walk forward on our feet rather than look at this problem upside down. Industries will come and money will come but their foundation is THE PEOPLE and their HARD WORK, especially in AGRICULTURE. This is the meaning of self-reliance. Our emphasis should therefore be on:
(a) The Land and Agriculture
(b) The People
(c) The Policy of Socialism and Self-Reliance, and
(d) Good leadership.
(a) The Land
Because the economy of Tanzania depends and will continue to depend on agriculture and animal husbandry, Tanzanians can live well without depending on help from outside if they use their land properly. Land is the basis of human life and all Tanzanians should use it as a valuable investment for future development. Because the land belongs to the nation, the government has to see to it that it is used for the benefit of the whole nation and not for the benefit of one individual or just a few people.
It is the responsibility of TANU to see that the country produces enough food and enough cash crops for export. It is the responsibility of the government and the co-operative societies to see to it that our people get the necessary tools, training and leadership in modern methods of agriculture.
(b) The People
In order properly to implement the policy of self-reliance, the people have to be taught the meaning of self-reliance and its practice. They must become self-sufficient in food, serviceable clothes and good housing.
In our country work should be something to be proud of, and laziness, drunkenness and idleness should be things to be ashamed of. And for the defence of our nation, it is necessary for us to be on guard against internal stooges who could be used by external enemies who aim to destroy us. The people should always be ready to defend their nation when they are called upon to do so.
(c) Good Policies
The principles of our policy of self-reliance go hand in hand with our policy on socialism. In order to prevent exploitation it is necessary for everybody to work and to live on his own labour. And in order to distribute the national wealth fairly, it is necessary for everybody to work to the maximum of his ability. Nobody should go and stay for a long time with his relative, doing no work, because in doing so he will be exploiting his relative. Likewise, nobody should be allowed to loiter in towns or villages without doing work which would enable him to be self-reliant without exploiting his relatives.
TANU believes that everybody who loves his nation has a duty to serve it by co-operating with his fellows in building the country for the benefit of all the people of Tanzania. In order to maintain our independence and our people's freedom we ought to be self-reliant in every possible way and avoid depending upon other countries for assistance. If every individual is self-reliant the ten-house cell will be self-reliant; if all the cells are self-reliant the whole ward will be self-reliant; and if the wards are self-reliant the district will be self-reliant. If the districts are self-reliant, then the region is self-reliant, and if the regions are self-reliant, then the whole nation is self-reliant and this is our aim.
(d) Good Leadership
TANU recognizes the urgency and importance of good leadership. But we have not yet produced systematic training for our leaders; it is necessary that TANU headquarters should now prepare a programme of training for all leaders - from the national level to the ten-house cell level - so that every one of them understands our political and economic policies. Leaders must set a good example to the rest of the people in their lives and in all their activities.
Part Four: TANU Membership
Since the party was founded (in 1954) we have put great emphasis on getting as many members as possible. This was the right policy during the independence struggle. But now the National Executive (of TANU) feels that the time has come when we should put more emphasis on the beliefs of our party and its policies of socialism.
That part of the TANU constitution which relates to the admission of a member should be adhered to, and if it is discovered that a man does not appear to accept the faith, the objects, and the rules and regulations of the party, then he should not be accepted as a member. In particular, it should not be forgotten that TANU is a party of peasants and workers.
Part Five: The Arusha Resolution
Therefore, the National Executive Committee, meeting in the Community Centre at Arusha from 26.1.67 (26 January 1967) to 29.1.67 (29 January 1967) resolves:
(a) The Leadership
1. Every TANU and government leader must be either a peasant or a worker, and should in no way be associated with the practices of capitalism or feudalism.
2. No TANU or government leader should hold shares in any company.
3. No TANU or government leader should hold directorships in any privately owned enterprise.
4. No TANU or government leader should receive two or more salaries.
5. No TANU or government leader should own houses which he rents to others.
6. For the purposes of this resolution the term 'leader' should comprise the following:
Members of the TANU National Executive Committee; ministers; members of parliament; senior officials of organizations affiliated to TANU; senior officials of para-statal organizations; all those appointed or elected under any clause of the TANU constitution; councillors; and civil servants in the high and middle cadres. (In this context 'leader' means a man, or a man and his wife; a woman, or a woman and her husband).
(b) The Government and Other Institutions
1. Congratulates the government for the steps it has taken so far in the implementation of the policy of socialism.
2. Calls upon the government to take further steps in the implementation of our policy of socialism as described in Part Two of this document without waiting for a Presidential Commission on Socialism.
3. Calls upon the government to put emphasis, when preparing its development plans, on the ability of this country to implement the plans rather than depending on foreign loans and grants as has been done in the current Five-Year Development Plan. The National Executive Committee also resolves that the Plan should be amended so as to make it fit in with the policy of self-reliance.
4. Calls upon the government to take action designed to ensure that the incomes of workers in the private sector are not very different from the incomes of workers in the public sector.
5. Calls upon the government to put great emphasis on actions which will raise the standard of living of the peasants, and the rural community.
6. Calls upon NUTA, the co-operatives, TAPA, UWT, TYL (TANU Youth League), and other government institutions to take steps to implement the policy of socialism and self-reliance.
(c) Membership
Members should get thorough teaching on Party ideology so that they may understand it, and they should always be reminded of the importance of living up to its principles.13
That is the Arusha Declaration. Throughout the document, one theme constantly comes up. And that is Nyerere's deep concern for the well-being of the poor, the peasants and the workers, especially the peasants, who constitute the vast majority of the population of Tanzania and those of other African countries and others in the Third World.
The Arusha Declaration earned Nyerere a reputation as one of the most prominent socialist thinkers in the world, and one of the most articulate spokesmen of the poor and the oppressed.
But in fairness, it must also be emphasized that even before the Arusha Declaration, he had already earned a reputation as one of the leading spokesmen of the Third World and of oppressed and exploited people everywhere round the globe. As he stated in one of his earliest speeches in the international arena, about two years after he led Tanganyika to independence, at a United Nations conference of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Rome in November 1963:
I think it is useful from time to time to remind ourselves that it is people - human beings with all their prejudices, hopes, stupidities, and potentialities - who are the purpose of every human organization and institution. The purpose of government is to secure for the people conditions in which they can live happily and peacefully, and the modern conception of its function demands that it should do this in a positive manner....The conditions in which many of the people now live and move are a negation of human dignity, and a disgrace to the twentieth-century world. Our governments have to secure an improvement so great that it demands a complete social and economic revolution in the country. And just as this change must be the objective of governments in underdeveloped countries, so also it is the declared aim of a whole complex of international organizations....
Apart from South Africa - which I intend to ignore today - there is now an almost world-wide recognition of the common humanity of man, and a growing sense of human brotherhood....Politically we talk of one world, yet we remain hundreds of individual nations who are taking only the first elementary steps towards recognizing their interdependence....Economically, I believe the irrelevance of this phrase is still greater....The world presents a picture of such violent economic contrasts that, for all the contact there can be, different sections of mankind could be living not just on different planets, but in different solar systems....
You know the statistics of poverty contrasted with riches; of obesity in one country and hunger in another. You know too that although within every country there are economic inequalities - with even the USA having its poor and undernourished - the startling inequalities come between the general standards of living in the different nation states of the world. $60 per head is the national income of India, and $2,000 per head in the United States....By far the greater majority of mankind does not get enough to eat, or does not get the sort of food which will keep a person healthy....
While these facts are not new, neither are they becoming out of date. This is the matter which must concern us now....For all the consciousness of world economic inequalities, for all the international organizations which have been established to remedy this situation, the gap between the haves and have-nots of the world is widening on a progressive scale. The richer you are the more wealth you accumulate, and the poorer - regardless of your effort - the less you can improve the situation. Economically, there are still two worlds, not one....For reasons of human dignity, and for the sake of peace and justice, these economic inequalities in the world must be reduced and the mass of the people must be able to relieve themselves from the burden of poverty....
The world can produce more of the goods needed by the people; the underdeveloped countries can themselves produce more. Indeed one of the distinguishing characteristics of an underdeveloped country is the low productivity of its workers and land. When we talk about a country being underdeveloped this is what we mean - that its gross domestic product is low in comparison to its population. People do not produce much and do not consume much - two things which are not so automatically interchangeable as pure economic theory implies.
The problems of the underdeveloped countries are thus twofold. Firstly, to increase production of goods and services which people need; and secondly, to increase consumption of the goods and services which denote a good and free life. The latter means that the goods and services produced must either be those directly required by the producers; or they must be able to flow through a system of exchange which brings, back to the producers, a purchasing power equivalent to the wealth their efforts have created. In other words, the marketing must be so organized that farmers can sell their products for a fair price, and the goods they require must likewise be available to buy at reasonable cost.
I think it is safe to say that in every underdeveloped country, neither increased output, nor increased consumption, can be achieved without very great and fundamental changes in the whole economy and social structure. We in Tanganyika, for example, (and you must excuse me if I draw most of my illustrations from the country I know best) have almost ninety-seven per cent of our people living in rural areas, and most of these earn their living by agriculture. It is obvious therefore that we should think in terms of increasing our agricultural output....
(But) despite the great hunger in the world - the real shortage of nourishing foods - the terms of trade have continually moved to the disadvantage of the primary producers in underdeveloped countries....When we try to sell to the developed countries we discover one of two things; either they protect their own industries from what they call the 'products of sweated labour,' or they can produce more cheaply than we because of the intensity of their capital investment. The fact that our labour is 'sweated' because we cannot afford investment - that we have nothing but our own hands to use - is inevitably of no interest to the developed countries. Neither is the fact that the only way we can stop 'sweated labour' is by building our economy.
Again, we find that even in agricultural products the developed countries, for internal distributive reasons, pay the(ir) farmers one price, and offer the goods on the world market for a much lower one - or even give them away. Singly, few of us can afford to refuse these gifts; indeed, my own country was extremely glad of them when we suffered famine conditions two years running through crop failures. But the effect is liable to be disastrous to efforts to build up new trade patterns between the poor countries by means of which each would increase their total wealth. And the very existence of these stocks under national control means that when underdeveloped countries can supply the existing markets at fair prices, stock releases from rich countries can at any time make the price we receive completely uneconomic.
None of these are matters which can be settled in isolation, commodity by commodity. The whole question of international monetary liquidity is involved, as well as other factors relating to orderly marketing of available and increasing world supplies. These matters can never be settled while every point has to be negotiated between dozens of countries, with unanimity always essential. We all know that whatever discussions we enter into, a country which has a stockpile of certain commodities, or which controls a large sector of the supply or effective demand, must agree to the final decision if it is to be worth anything. Such countries - and they are in practice almost always the wealthier ones - thus determine the result; they act as litigant and judge in the one case. The 'free international market' is inevitably, unavoidably, an arena in which the weakest goes to the wall....
Internationally,...the theoretical rejection of the co-existence of rich and poor countries has led to 'Aid' - the voluntary gifts from the rich to the poor. With this we have to pit our puny efforts against the whole trend of world investment and world trade.
On this basis the gap between the rich and poor nations cannot fail to increase. The effect of 'Aid' we get can be wiped out - and often is - by a marginal price change in one single raw material. This situation will inevitably continue until we have planned development and planned trade, internationally as well as nationally.
For a really constructive attack on world poverty which has hope of speedy success, there is no alternative. At the moment, however, many underdeveloped countries, include my own, themselves contribute to the expansion of this gap between rich and poor. We do this because in practice we appear to accept the doctrine that the world is one, and we subscribe to the multilateral free trade-theory with only minor protectionist and revenue taxes.
Our membership of GATT, for example, prevents our discriminating between suppliers in favour of other underdeveloped countries; our freely convertible currency means that any multiplier effect of our development not only spills, outside the country, but spills most often into the pockets of those who don't need it. And we accept 'tied loans' - often called 'aid' - which sometimes force us to buy in expensive markets and and then pay interest on the total. In addition, we allow the importation into our economy of any sort of luxury goods which an intensive advertising campaign can persuade people to buy!
There is a lot to be said in favour of each of these policies considered in isolation, and some of them are in any case, for various reasons, unavoidable. But the net result of them is that economically we, and other nations like us, act as though all the individual nations were in fact equals.
We poor countries (for, whatever our potential may be, we are certainly poor now) beg from the rich on the one hand, and at the same time compete with them to obtain capital and skilled manpower for investment, and markets for goods produced at very different levels of technique. On this basis the disparities between us are bound to get bigger, just as the runt of the litter is the one which always goes hungry.
As a rational people in control of our own destinies, obviously, the underdeveloped nations cannot allow the present situation to continue indefinitely. Either we go forward with everyone else into a World Economic Development Plan, or we shall have to go backward for the time being into economic isolationism. When only the law of the jungle reigns, the struggle for existence must naturally end up with - the survival of the fittest. This may be all right when it applies to beasts; as a method of contact between human beings it is intolerable. But as long as this law prevails it is only prudent for the weak to keep a good distance between themselves and the strong.
The choice is clear. Either we really become one world, with the problem of poverty in certain areas being attacked scientifically on a world scale; or, alternatively, we recognize that there are two worlds, the rich world and the poor world, and the latter gets down to the problem of protecting itself against the dominance of the other....
If there cannot be... a single economic plan for one world, then let there be a plan for that half of the world whose poverty puts out of the question the luxury of uncontrolled economic individualism. Between the poor anywhere, there can always be trade and the development of activity, provided that they do not try to base this on the medium of exchange which is held by and acceptable to the rich....Even a completely independent free market which is restricted to the poor of the world would be better for us than relying entirely on the present system in which the poor are at the mercy of the rich....Through the ruthless pursuance of such a policy we shall ultimately be able to defeat the poverty, both objective and relative, which now oppresses us. A continuation of the present combination of 'aid' and 'free international competition' will never do that.14
Nyerere's presentation at FAO, which was a McDougall Memorial Lecture, clearly articulated his position as a leading champion of the Third World whose primary focus was not only on narrowing the yawning gap between the rich nations and the poor nations - that is, between the North and the South - but also on promoting self-reliance among the underdeveloped countries as a way of protecting and promoting their interests in a world dominated by the metropolitan powers of the industrial West. It was a theme he carried on and formally articulated about three years later in the famous Arusha Declaration whose relevance went beyond Tanzania and embraced the whole African continent and resonated well in other parts of the Third World.
And he was explicit in his admission of the underdeveloped nature of Tanzania and other Third World countries - despite the relative disparity in wealth and development among them - as much as he was in his criticism, and sometimes condemnation, of the industrialized nations for their exploitation of the poor and underdeveloped regions of the world. As he stated at the ministerial meeting of the Group of 77 composed of Third World countries held in Arusha, Tanzania, on February 12, 1969 almost exactly two years after the Arusha Declaration was adopted, there was an imperative need for a new international economic order to correct the imbalance in the international system which always operated to the detriment of the underdeveloped nations.
He even told the delegates to the conference that they were fully aware of the poverty of Tanzania as clearly demonstrated by the quality of the facilities they used during their stay in the country. As he put it: "I suspect that some of you may have found that your accommodation gives you too frequent a reminder that this meeting is being held in an underdeveloped country. I want to assure you that we tried hard! I hope, however, that you will not find your rooms or the facilities so unsatisfactory that you cannot do your work properly."15
His disarming candor was one of the great qualities of his leadership. As he used to tell us in Tanzania, the only way we can develop is to admit that we are a poor country and use what resources we have to achieve progress and prosperity by depending on ourselves. In a global context, he urged Third World countries to do the same, while also demanding economic justice from the industrialized nations which dominated the world and continued to exploit them.
At the Third World conference in Arusha, President Nyerere went on to say that the odds were stacked up against the underdeveloped countries, no matter how hard they worked, because of the asymmetrical relationship between the rich and the poor countries in an international system created and dominated by the industrialized nations:
"Newly de-colonised nations, and the older countries of Latin America, had all inherited the same idea from the dominant Euro-American culture: work hard and you will become prosperous. Gradually we all discovered that hard work and prosperity were not cause and effect; something external to ourselves always seemed to break the reputed connection! The so-called neutrality of the world market place turned out to be a neutrality between the exploiter and the exploited, between a bird of prey and its victim.
If in our effort to find resources for survival - let alone development - we carried out the textbook procedures of raising capital, we always seemed to end up under the virtual control of the transnational corporations or subject to IMF deflationary policies - or both. We did not achieve progress; we simply moved from the frying pan into the deep-freezer! Even if we tried to do nothing except sell our traditional exports and buy our traditional imports, we found that we could buy less and less with more and more of our hard work."16
Nyerere stated in no uncertain terms that the present system had been developed by the industrialized nations to serve their purposes, and not of the rest of the world, as well, which was also an integral part of this global arrangement. The result was that the metropolitan powers, which have formed a cohesive bloc and act as one when dealing with other countries, control the levers of international exchange and finance, and also control the wealth accumulated through centuries of colonialism, gun-boat diplomacy, and an initial advantage in mass production techniques.
He also emphasized that Third World countries did not create the world's institutions of production and exchange and have virtually no say in those institutions and even in making decisions which affect them. And as Benjamin Mkapa - Tanzania's third president (1995 - 2005) and a disciple of Nyerere who, like his mentor, was also in his own right one of the most eloquent spokesmen of the Third World - said, in what was probably one of his best speeches, at the third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD III), Africa's advancement is retarded, governed, and determined by history that is not of our making.
He went on to say that in terms of institutions of global governance, Africa was frozen in 1945, a time when practically all African countries were mere extensions or integral parts of other regimes and were thus called dominions, colonies or overseas territories:
"It is history shaped by presiding institutions of which none of us are cornerstones and by rules in the making of which we have had no say. No African country had a say in the construction of present institutions of global governance and our say in their decision making is very limited."
President Mkapa went on to say that demands for the reconstruction of and realignment of such institutions, in order to benefit the entire world, have simply been ignored by the industrialized nations who are the greatest beneficiaries of these lopsided institutional arrangements, tipping scales in their favour. As he put it:
"We refuse to have a global indaba or baraza to discuss the post-cold war era and the unipolar world it has produced. As a result the idea of unilateralism and exclusion is creeping on us as the preferred philosophy. But is it globally preferred and is it the right philosophy for human equality?"
He warned that the power and influence arising from global dominance, especially by the industrialized West, as a result of the strong economies that emerged in the post-World War II era should not be perfunctorily ignored.
He went on to say that economically, there was a distinct threat to food and income security and the reduction of poverty because African commodities, which are mostly raw materials exported to the industrialized world, especially agricultural and mineral exports which are the mainstay of African economies, were sold on terms determined by the metropolitan powers at very low prices; prompting him to ask:
"Are we going to have rules based on internationalism or a sprawling rampant bilateralism, spewing forth bilateral trade agreements?"
The president also said that human security in Africa, and indeed anywhere else in the Third World, was incompatible with the debt crisis which continued to devastate African economies and institutions. He further pointed out that even in his own country Tanzania, one of the few countries to qualify for limited debt cancellation and better credit terms under the enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt initiative, servicing the remaining debt - which was enormous - was still a big drain on resources which could be used to fight poverty in one of the poorest countries in the world, yet one of the most heavily indebted.
President Mkapa went on to say that there was still no Marshall Plan for Africa and no comprehensive debt cancellation initiatives, leaving hundreds of millions of people on the continent at the mercy of the developed nations which continued to exploit them. He also appealed to fellow Africans by saying that Africa, in solidarity, must fight deprivation,dispossession, and greed; emphasizing that:
"We need to rethink nationally about the political and economic order in which we live. Neither complacency nor fervent hope are sustainable alternatives to bold, open consensus dialogue."
He warned that for her own sake and survival, Africa needed to rethink internationally in the era of the worsening debt crisis in the Third World, increasing income inequalities, terrorism, and the spread of new diseases such as AIDS. and the resurgence - sometimes with new strains - of old ones including malaria and tuberculosis.
He also said human security must find expression in agriculture and rural development, and that since slightly more than half of Africans were women, gender issues must be a critical component of any policy and strategy aimed at developing the continent, especially in the rural areas which are the backbone of African economies in this predominantly agricultural continent.
He went on to say: "Human security must emanate from poverty reduction for the poorest and economic growth for both the developing and developed countries....African countries have to define poverty in their own contexts and construct through a participatory approach, a national vision to eradicate it."
The president outlined the goals and priorities for Africa, emphasizing that the first challenge was to get together to plan, mobilize and implement strategies for development; and the second to ensure that Africa developed with hope and dignity. He also said that, economically, Africa inexorably has to move towards a greater private-sector driven economy in this era of globalization. But it must also be a fairly regulated economy with a discernible proportion of local ownership and entrepreneurship, directly or through joint venture ownerships.
President Mkapa emphasized that proper regulation of a market economy had to include an institutional framework against corruption, and the application of the principle of tripartism between the government, employers and unionized labour in policy formulation and legislation.17
He was blunt in his assessment and analysis of Africa's predicament and peripheral role in the global arena, and correctly pointed out that the international system built since the end of World War II on foundations laid by the developed countries, especially the industrial West, has frozen out Africa - and, indeed, most of the Third World - and was established without any participation by any of the African countries which were mere possessions of the imperial powers. This reminds me of what Tom Mboya once experienced when he went to London in 1960 to attend the constitutional talks on the independence of Kenya as a member of the Kenyan delegation led by him and Oginga Odinga when Jomo Kenyatta was still in prison. He said when he was walking around, one old English lady stopped him and asked him, "From which one of our possessions do you come from?"
Tragically, little has changed. Although African countries are independent today, theirs is only flag independence, as Nyerere once said, with their economies still controlled by the former colonial powers and other industrialized nations. And nothing is going to change until a new international economic order which takes into account the needs, interests, and aspirations of the poor and underdeveloped countries, is established with the full participation of all the countries of the Third World as equal partners in negotiations with the industrialized nations.
Otherwise the security of the entire world will be threatened by this injustice, caused by greed of the developed world which is sustained by industrial might at the expense of the underdeveloped nations. That is also one of the themes Nyerere articulated with magnificent eloquence throughout his leadership which spanned almost half a century, earning him distinction as one of the most influential Third World leaders, indeed one of the most prominent leaders in the entire world, who ever lived. And he died as one.
At the Third World conference in Arusha, Tanzania, in 1979, President Nyerere put in proper historical perspective the relationship between the industrialized nations and the underdeveloped countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, and offered practical solutions to the perennial problems these countries faced under an international system that was deliberately built to ignore their interests. As he bluntly stated:
"We are all, in relation to the developed world, dependent - not interdependent - nations. Each of our economies has developed as a by-product and a subsidiary of development in the industrialised North, and is externally oriented. We are not the prime movers of our own destiny. We are ashamed to admit it; but economically we are dependencies - semi-colonies at best - not sovereign states....
The unity of even the most powerful of the sub-groups within the Third World is not sufficient to allow its members to become full actors, rather than reactors, in the world economic system. The unity of the entire Third World is necessary for the achievement of fundamental change in the present world economic arrangements....But we have to do more than stand united....We have to work together; our nations have to co-operate economically. This is where the diversity of the Third World can be our strength also....We have to build up trade among ourselves."
He also went on to say that the underdeveloped and developing countries should co-operate in establishing Third World multinational corporations owned and controlled by them, to serve their purposes and to remain independent of transnational corporations - formed and owned especially by the West - which dominate the world economy. He also said Third World countries need to have institutions of research and development directed at serving the needs of those countries and developing their resources; and establish jointly-owned industries when the separate markets of the Third World countries are too small for the economic viability of certain production processes.18
Nyerere's status as the eminent Third World leader, especially during the last years of the Cold War, was enhanced when he was chosen as the chairman of the South Commission, a position he formally assumed in October 1987. As he stated at the commission's inaugural ceremony:
This independent international commission to examine the problems of the Economic South is the product of a long period of thinking and talking among intellectuals and other leaders of the South.
At the second summit meeting of Third World scholars and statesmen in Kualar Lumpur last year, the idea was finally brought to a head. A steering committee was set up under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed with the task of getting the project under way. On 1st September 1986, I agreed to be chairman of such an independent Commission of the South. The idea was then supported by by the Harare summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in September 1986, and early this year it was welcomed at the ministerial meeting of the Group of 77 in Havana.
Also, I myself and a group of friends and colleagues from the steering committee have been discussing the idea with governments and intellectual leaders in many countries of the Economic South. Today's meeting follows these events....
The Third World came into self-conscious existence as the anti-colonial movement achieved its successes in the post-1945 period. It consisted mainly of the countries of Latin America and the newly independent countries of Asia and Africa....Even now, some decades later, the common characteristics of what we call the Economic South are: extreme economic and technical backwardness; a dependency on, rather than a relationship of genuine interdependence with, the Economic North; powerlessness in making vital but underlying structural decisions which affect the lives of their peoples; and - save in a few exceptional cases - an intolerable level of national poverty....
The 1980s...have been a period of massive disappointment for most of the Third World. Standards of living have been actually falling in a large number of countries - which has inevitably led to social, economic and political tensions. Rising populations have meant that more jobs are required, but investment levels have almost everywhere fallen under the inexorable pressure of adjustment to a sharp deterioration in the international economic environment....
This deep disillusionment has now spread far beyond the intellectuals and political leaders with whom it started. For now it stems from wide and unpleasant experience, not from statistical and intellectual analysis. And it is reflected in great suspicion towards the prevailing strategies of development, and actual hostility towards the policy advice emanating from the international financial institutions and the creditor governments....
There is now convincing evidence that the economic crises in the Third World are in no small measure the result of a massive malfunctioning of the international arrangements which govern the flows of international trade, money, finance and investment. Over those kinds of arrangements developing countries have no control.
It is true that we in the South have made our own policy mistakes, and frequently failed to be efficient - or even effective - in the implementation of good policies. But our blunders do not account for the almost universal economic malaise of the world in general and the Third World in particular. One cannot gain a true understanding of the nature of the debt crisis, for instance, without taking note of the steep fall in commodity prices, the worsening of the Third World's terms of trade, and the general decline in the export earnings of the Economic South. Nor can one appreciate just how great is the debt burden for underdeveloped economies unless one considers the interest rates in relation to, and side by side with, the sharply declining commodity prices.
Further, at a time when countries of the Third World need massive transfers of resources to expand and restructure their economies, resources are in fact flowing in the reverse direction - from the poor South to the rich North. And at a time when the need of developing countries for additional export earnings is ever more pressing, their exports face new protectionist barriers - especially non-tariff barriers. Not surprisingly, growth impulses have sagged every year.
This harsh global economic environment means that debt servicing involves, year after year, an intolerable squeeze on both consumption and investment. This is an unsustainable situation, fraught with grave consequences.
Despite this reality, there is no sign that the countries which have the major responsibility for managing the international economic system are alive to the damage which the totality of their policies are inflicting on the Third World....Every effort is being made to impose on the Third World preconceived and ideologically oriented policy packages and perspectives. These are of a nature which will seriously undermine their ability to evolve an autonomous development strategy suited to the circumstances and the needs of the peoples of the South....
The North no longer plays its theoretical - and in the post-World War years actual - role of being a locomotive pulling Third World growth behind it....If the South is to regain and then sustain the momentum of its growth, it must therefore find new sources of growth within itself. Increased emphasis on agriculture and food production, and the economic well-being of small and marginal farmers, as well as of other disadvantaged groups, could contribute to this. It could, for example, considerably widen the home market for locally produced industrial goods, at least for those Third World countries which already have the nucleus of a self-sustaining industrial sector.
Even in the least developed countries, such emphasis on agriculture and food production is the only means by which any capital can be raised from internal sources, although this is not made easy by the continuing fall in international commodity prices....Co-operation must be multi-dimensional and must include areas such as trade, investment, science and technology, and the development of both economic infrastructure and human resources....
Giving a concrete shape to the ideal of collective self-reliance must therefore constitute a major task for the Commission....For the South, the North continues to be economically important because of its markets, its technology, and its potential as a source of capital. The Commission's stress on South-South co-operation therefore does not imply any lack of interest in restructuring the present North-South relations regarding trade, technology, investments and capital transfers. Nor can the Commission fail to concern itself with the future of multilateralism, and the promotion of an equitable management of global interdependence. In particular, the Commission must consider and make proposals directed at ensuring that the multilateral financial institutions truly nurse and promote sound development in the whole world - including the Third World.
There can be no running away from the logic of interdependence....The Commission...will therefore have to take a hard look at evolving North-South relations. In doing this it will have to recognise that unless the South organises and improves its bargaining power, its pleas for a restructuring of the international economic system are unlikely to be heeded. This is a struggle for independence and genuine independence is never given given on a platter. It is only when the South realises and develops its own potential, through national and collective self-reliance, that it will find an adequate response to the North....
The South is tired of being the world's taker - whether of import and export prices; of interest rates and political conditionality for financial and commercial transactions; of technology; of ideology and self-interested advice; and even of charity and benevolence. It is also tired of having its agenda set for it. It is therefore proposing to set its own agenda for its own action.19
In his subsequent speeches and lectures, as in previous ones about the relationship between the developed and the developing nations, Nyerere underscored the imperative need for fundamental change in the international system which perpetuated the exploitation of the Third World by the industrialized world. He was also painfully aware of the chronic dependency by the countries of the South - most of which are poor and underdeveloped - on the industrial North. These are some of the subjects he addressed in his speech to the summit conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade in September 1989 where he also said that some countries in the North have even resorted to military means to pursue their political and economic interests in a number of countries in the underdeveloped South.
He went on to say that the acute economic crisis in Third World countries forced them to be dependent on the North and made them very vulnerable to all sorts of pressures exerted by the industrialized nations; and were virtually held to ransom by threats of withholding credit, investment, economic assistance, and even denied them access to markets in the developed world, thus making it impossible for underdeveloped countries to sell their commodities and earn the capital and foreign exchange they desperately need. As sovereign entities, they were thus caught in a predicament which made their independence meaningless. And that is one of the main reasons why Nyerere talked so much about the need for self-reliance, not only within countries such as Tanzania, but also in the entire Third World.
Yet, in spite of the urgency for self-reliance within and among Third World countries, working with each other, Nyerere was also fully aware of the industrial and military might of the North, as he aptly demonstrated in his lecture, "The Developing Countries and the World of Tomorrow," to the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva in January 1990:
We live in a divided world. Until now the division which has received most attention has been the East-West division. The division is basically a European division, and the two so-called World Wars were basically European wars; but Europe is such an important region of the world that European wars spread throughout the globe and profoundly affect all countries. Therefore, although the East-West division is so European that until very recently it could be symbolised by a wall in Berlin, it is rightly regarded as a world division. And because of Europe's power and history, it is a very dangerous division. For this reason alone, I would welcome the current signs that this East-West division and confrontation is coming to an end.
But I want to welcome the likely end to the East-West division in particular because it could bring into better focus a more fundamental and more truly world division. That is the economic division between North and South, and the near-monopoly of international, economic, and military power possessed by the North.
The Economic North is rich, industrialised and powerful. It is organised - in the Group of Seven, in OECD, in the European Community and so on. Its members have the veto in the United Nations Security Council; only China from the South does so, and that is a historical accident arising from the second world war. Countries of the North control the IMF, the World Bank, and other powerful international institutions where the vote is determined by wealth. The countries of the South, on the other hand, all have in common, underdevelopment, powerlessness to influence the world economy, and - with a few exceptions - poverty.
While largely dependent on commodity prices, the countries of the South cannot determine them or, individually, even greatly influence them; these prices are set in the North. With economies which are highly import dependent for both capital goods and basic inputs, they cannot determine the prices of those goods either; these too are set in the North. The prices of both what they sell and what they buy are set in the North.
While needing to obtain capital for development, the South is exporting capital because of interest rates and international exchange rates set in the North. And even in this age when military power has largely been replaced by economic power as a means of domination, the countries of the South are subject to invasion, Northern-financed-and-controlled subversion and rebellion, and constant threats to their sovereign integrity. I only have to mention Vietnam, Grenada, Libya, Nicaragua, Angola, Cuba, the Comoros and Panama to illustrate that point. Can anyone imagine any nation of the South invading Luxemburg, or bombing the White House to kill its occupant, or planning the assassination of a European president, or financing the equivalent of the Contras?...
This dominance in all fields is now maintained and protected through the workings of the international economic structures and practices; these evolved and were designed in the North to meet its own interests and needs, and the North therefore fiercely protects them. But these structures and practices also help to perpetuate the underdevelopment of the South and its offshoots - poverty, ignorance, malnutrition and disease.20
He went on to say that for hundreds of millions of people in the Third World, hunger had simply become a way of life; basic education and health care beyond reach. While the North had now begun to talk even in terms of a new post-industrial era in which it would make even more advances, industrialization in most parts of the South had hardly begun. Basic communications and social structure, especially in Africa, doesn't exist in most cases, and the capital needed to overcome these handicaps is not available.
But he also warned that such division between the haves and the have-nots is potential for instability, and this instability can be maintained only by force. And that is the case within countries and in the international system dominated by the developed nations. He further warned that despite attempts by the North to create a new international economic order of its liking, the North alone cannot bring order - any kind of order - to the world. Genuine order is a product of justice, and no system imposed on the majority for the benefit of a few can be either viable or stable in the long run. "And change leading towards an end to poverty is now possible. The world has the resources and the knowledge to eliminate malnutrition and hunger, preventable disease, ignorance, and hopelessness. There is no excuse for the indignity of absolute poverty existing in 'tomorrow's world.'"21
Nyerere further stated that change was already taking place in the world, and was inevitable, because of advances in science and technology, and through structural arrangements by the industrialized countries backed by the power they have over the rest of mankind. The changes now taking place are a result of what are called the blind forces of the market, which is the prevailing orthodoxy in the North but which has also been considerably and, in many cases successfully, propagated in the South. Opposition to this ideology or doctrine by some Third World governments and humanitarian agencies because of its rapacious nature is strongly condemned by the North which even uses military might - let alone economic and political power - against small and weak countries which try to control and manage the inevitable impact of such global change in the interests of their own people.
He went on to say that even science and technology which could be used for the benefit of the entire mankind was being used as a weapon against the poor in the South because it was concentrated in the North. And the industrialized countries had no interest in developing technology which would benefit Third World countries and poor people because it was not profitable for them.
It is also for the same reason that they don't try to find cures for tropical diseases. They are not going to earn a lot of money for such cures in Third World countries. Therefore research in tropical medicine is not a priority for the West or any other industrialized part of the world. And Africa's chronic dependency on the West and other industrialized parts of the world, including mid-level countries in the industrial hierarchy such as India, for medicine and other supplies is a source of constant embarrassment and humiliation for us in the world's least developed and poorest continent.
It is also such a shame that African doctors and scientists have done little to alleviate our plight; they hardly do any research and have produced very little in that area and are partly responsible for our deplorable condition. Therefore we will continue to beg for medicine from the developed countries, as we also continue to blame them for their refusal and unwillingness to find cures for diseases which kill millions of Africans every year.
But much of the blame lies on the industrialized world which is also partly, not solely, responsible for the brain drain Africa suffers every year; African governments also have to accept responsibility for this probably more than anybody else because of their unwillingness to provide incentives and create conditions which would enable most of the professionals to stay in their countries instead of forcing them to emigrate to other countries seeking greener pastures and better working conditions especially in the industrialized West. The benefits, and multiplier effect, of the technological advances made by the industrialized nations are beyond dispute.
But this technological advantage enjoyed by the West also has had devastating consequences in Third World countries in myriad ways. And the prime motive behind any research done in the industrialized countries is profit. There is nothing altruistic about it. Billions of people in Third World countries are left on their own without hardly any help from the developed nations to help alleviate their plight. The logic of the market forces dictates that whatever is done in science and technology must be concentrated in areas which generate wealth and consolidate the dominant position the rich and developed North has over the poor and underdeveloped South. The industrialized countries have such enormous power and influence over the Third World that their hegemonic control has become an omnipresent phenomenon virtually on a global scale. As Nyerere pointed out, "even seeds collected without charge from the South are subjected to research and then patented - and sold to the South."21
And because of the dominant position the North has over the South, the underdeveloped countries do not have, and cannot raise, enough capital to fund research let alone invest in their economies to achieve progress. As Nyerere stated:
It is the poor South which transfers massive amounts of capital to the rich North. This has happened through various mechanisms. Thus, for example, the adverse movements in terms of trade between primary commodities and manufactured goods has meant immense loss to the majority of countries in the South, which rely heavily on the export of primary commodities for their export earnings. One estimate gives a loss for sub-Saharan Africa of 42 billion US dollars between 1980 and 1987! This is money lost by the poorest countries of the world.
Not concealed through the workings of 'market determined prices' are transfers during the 1980s from South to North through debt-servicing. Including both long term and short term debt, World Bank figures show a net transfer of 164 billion US dollars in five years, 1984 - 1988. The amount of this transfer in anyone year is not determined solely by the amount which the countries of the South have borrowed in the past. For, as Northern countries try to fight their domestic inflation by raising interest rates, they increase the debt servicing obligations of the indebted countries. For every percentage increase in interest rates, the debt service obligations of the 17 most indebted countries goes up by 5 billion US dollars.
And thirdly, instability among the exchange rates of Northern currencies which are used as international media of exchange has caused great losses to the developing countries, with the importance of this factor varying according to their debt and trade patterns. Visiting Indonesia in November 1989, I was told that the country had in the previous twelve months, made a net loss of one and a half billion US dollars as a result of international exchange rate instabilities.
All these transfers from South to North are carried out through the workings of systems and institutions. Questions of morality are consequently not applicable, for, systems and institutions are impersonal and cannot commit any sin. Completely honest people can therefore live with, and even participate in, these massive robberies by the rich from the poor without as much as a suspicion that they are doing anything wrong, and indeed while being upset and concerned about the persistence of poverty and injustice in the world.
Yet the immorality is there, in the injustices and the thefts of value from the poor. A bearable and sustainable world of tomorrow demands an end to this sin by changing the systems and institutions which act as the instruments of robbery. The Bretton Woods institutions and GATT are prominent among the international instruments used in support of these iniquitous capital transfers from poor to rich, or to place further handicaps on the efforts of the developing countries to overcome their poverty.
Thus, for example, the Bretton Woods institutions, intended according to their initially declared purposes to promote stability and growing prosperity in the world, are themselves now net recipients of capital transfers from the South. Further, - from the viewpoint of the South - they appear to have become effective Northern instruments of control over developing countries, as dominant voting power is used for political and ideological purposes.
GATT has a different kind of institutional structure, but in practice it too is used to serve the rich and developed. Its declared purpose is to promote 'free trade' and 'liberalisation,' in accordance with the economic theory of comparative advantage. I do not challenge that theory - applied among equals. But if I am put in a boxing ring with a Mohammed Ali, and both of us are told that we must play according to the rules of the game, the result will be murder, not a boxing match....
Human survival on this planet is incompatible with reckless exploitation of the world's resources, regardless of whether this happens as a result of poverty or as a method of maintaining and expanding existing lifestyles of affluence. Equally important: peace and security on a single and closely integrated planet is incompatible with continuous and institutionalised injustice.22
Although Nyerere blamed the North for the South's stunted economic growth because of massive exploitation of its resources by the industrialized nations, perpetuated by the structural imbalance in multilateral institutions dominated by the metropolitan powers, he did not absolve the South of all responsibility for its deplorable condition; emphatically stating that responsibility for development of the South is the responsibility of the South.
He stressed the need for Third World countries to work in solidarity and end their dependency on the North, yet made it clear that there was a need to work and cooperate with the North in areas of mutual interest and for the benefit of all mankind to end institutionalized injustice resulting from domination of the international system by the industrialized nations. As he bluntly stated, "I am not making an absurd call for xenophobic self-sufficiency. I am simply saying that the South can, and must, overcome its widespread sense of hopelessness and reduce its current dependence upon the North - particularly the North West."23
He also warned developing countries of the danger they faced in a unipolar world dominated by the United States after the end of the Cold War in which the West emerged victorious because of the economic collapse of the Eastern bloc countries. The developed North, especially the North West led by the United States, now felt that it was free to dictate terms to other countries, using its economic clout to force them to adopt its political philosophy and free market policies even if this was not always in their best interest. With the Soviet Union no longer on the global scene to act as a counter-weight against the West, there was no other power to challenge the United States, with the former communist countries themselves including Russia having adopted free market policies and other Western doctrines to develop their economies.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites meant that the North was now no longer divided between East and West but had become one and even more powerful. As he stated in his speech at the Non-Aligned Movement summit conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, in September 1992:
The East-West confrontation within the North has come to an end. But this was not the result of deliberate mutual accommodation among the Cold War opponents, for the sake of world peace and building a more just and peaceful world. On the contrary, it resulted from a complete economic and political collapse in the Eastern bloc within the North....
These events have had two very important consequences for all the countries of the South. First, they increase the urgency for developing countries to build national self-reliance and increase their economic cooperation in all fields. There was never enough money in the North for all the aid, credit, or even direct foreign investment which the Southern countries in total were hoping (and indeed competing) for. And now, such limited resources as the countries of the market economies of the North are willing to use abroad are being, and will be, directed more towards meeting the huge demands of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe than towards developing countries of the South....
Secondly, the triumphant West now believes that its success in the Cold War gives it the right (as well as the untrammelled power) aggressively to promote its economic and and political philosophy throughout the South. Directly, and through international finance and trade institutions controlled by the wealthy states, and sometimes by embargoes or even political intervention, the North is therefore forcing developing countries of the South to conform to the patterns which it designs.
Ever increasing 'conditionality' is applied to aid, credit, and even normal trade relations of developing countries; increasingly, conditionalities are being used to force us to adopt Western political systems, exclusively individualistic definitions of 'human rights,' and national economic management policies prescribed by the West. At the same time protectionism of different kinds is increasing in the North, and our separate weakness is being used to ride roughshod over our opinions in international negotiations as well as bilateral South-North discussions.
The reality is that the widening North-South gap in income and technological capacity is being used to secure Northern control over our development strategies, our political structures, our economic policies, and our military defences. And North-South dialogue on matters related to world governance - which requires equal and mutual respect among countries - is rapidly being superseded by Northern power confronting and dominating over the separate nations of the South....
Now that we are no longer faced by a divided North, nor subjected to rival pressures from East or West, let us invite all the countries of the South to join us so that together we become really a Movement of the whole South....The end of the Cold War means that a hitherto divided North is now becoming a united North. There is no earthly reason why the end of division among the rich should lead to disunity among the poor.24
Nyerere conceded that the development options for the Third World were constrained by the exercise of international power politics. Yet he saw prospects for a countervailing force if the developing countries used their combined strength - remember, there is dignity in numbers - to extract concessions from the developed North.
With all its might, political and economic as well as military, the industrial North could not afford to sever ties with the South. The South is the source of the world's largest amount of raw materials; it is also a market for manufactured goods from the North. And the countries of the South can use that as leverage in negotiations with the industrialized nations to get meaningful concessions from them.
But Third World countries have not been able to do that, or they have had only little success in that area, because of external forces and internal factors. Their fate even in this post-Cold War era is determined by dynamics of power in the international arena where they remain peripheral actors despite their status as sovereign entities entitled to the same rights as the industrialized nations.
Although the end of the Cold War ended the rivalry between the two super powers and ideological camps of East and West, which had direct impact on Third World countries where Western powers and Eastern-bloc countries competed for client states, thus dividing the South; the South itself was also partly responsible for the division within itself because Southern countries competed for economic aid and other forms of assistance from the developed North, especially from the North West which is the richest and most industrialized part of the world. And they still do so today, even without the Soviet Union on the international scene where many Third World countries played one super power against the other for attention and assistance.
The competition among them now is for aid from the North West, especially from the United States and other highly developed countries such as Britain, Germany, France and Canada. This competition among Third World countries for investments and other resources from the West is exacerbated by the interference in their internal affairs by the metropolitan powers which dictate terms to them on what kind of policies they must follow if they are to qualify for aid.
And as long as the countries of the South put their own interests first, as they all inevitably do, without coordinated action in a number of areas of mutual interest when dealing with the North, they will remain divided and make it even much easier for the Western powers and other industrialized countries of the North to continue to exploit them. Nyerere was fully aware of this danger probably more than any other leader in the Third World, besides Fidel Castro, and often stood out as a lone voice in the wilderness crying for equality and justice for the world's poorest countries.
When he spoke, the world listened. When he acted, Africa followed. When he died, the world mourned. He was not only an African and a Third World leader, but a world leader. As Newsweek stated when he died: "The world has lost a man of principle."25
He was not only "The Conscience of Africa" but of the entire world, and one of the most eloquent spokesmen for the poor who ever lived.
Source: Godfrey Mwakikagile, "Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era," 744 pages, Fourth Edition, 2008, pp. 438 - 478.
JULIUS NYERERE was one of the most eloquent spokesmen for the Third World. He was also a leading figure in the Non-Aligned Movement and one of its most uncompromising advocates. As he stated as far back as 1961, the same year he led Tanganyika to independence from Britain, we are not going to allow our friends to choose enemies for us.
But it was in Tanganyika, later Tanzania, where he demonstrated his qualities as a man of the people; a leader who sacrificed his personal comfort for the well-being of others. His policy of socialism was adopted in pursuit of this goal, as was the Arusha Declaration he wrote as the nation's political and economic blueprint but whose scope and relevance went beyond Tanzania to include Africa as a whole.
The driving force behind all his actions and policies was his belief that governments and societies exist to serve man. They have no other justification. A nation's economic growth is meaningless if the vast majority of its people, the poorest of the poor, do not benefit from such progress. Clean water for the people is more important than growth statistics; clinics more important than expensive projects undertaken out of sheer national pride.
And he was painfully aware of our underdeveloped status, not only as Tanzanians but as Africans as a whole. As he once said, "while others are going to the moon, we are trying to reach the village and it is getting farther and farther away." And to catch up with the rest, or achieve significant progress, "we must run while others walk," as he put it succinctly. Tragically, in many cases across the continent, we are not even running but crawling, if at all, emaciated by hunger, crippled by disease, and mangled by war. As he said not long before he died, "Africa is in a mess."
It was with such problems in mind, except civil wars, that he adopted socialist policies as the best way to achieve economic progress and social justice, enabling us to share the nation's wealth on an egalitarian basis. And his battle with the IMF and the World Bank in the early 1980s, against structural adjustment programmes and other austerity measures which hurt the poor the most but which these financial institutions demanded to be implemented by African and other developing countries as a condition for aid, clearly demonstrated his commitment to the well-being of the poorest of the poor; and his belief that economic growth indexes are less important than the welfare of the people. They come first.
In 1984, when he was still president and about a year after he survived a coup attempt some of whose details are discussed in Appendix VI of this book, Nyerere explained in detail Tanzania's stand on IMF proposals as they related to the country's economic development and financial woes. He said the major difference between Tanzania and the IMF was not based on the conditions demanded by the latter but the extent to which such conditions could be applied to Tanzania.
In an interview with local and foreign journalists at the State House in Dar es Salaam on November 22 the same year, the president said none of the IMF packages ranging from massive devaluation of currency, reduction of government deficits to liberalization of imports had helped improve any Third World economy. As he explained: "They (international financial institutions) advised us to liberalize imports in 1977 when we had surplus in foreign reserves and we did. But we have been in trouble ever since."1
He once described the IMF as the International Ministry of Finance and famously asked who elected the IMF to be the ministry of finance for every country in the world.
Nyerere said IMF imposition of the ready-made prescriptions on poor countries as a condition for aid was unacceptable: "Any serious Third World government will ask serious questions. I cannot sign an agreement (with the IMF) and then have riots on the streets. You may be the economic experts but I am the political expert - allow me at least to say how much the people can take."2
He went on to explain that blind conformity and acceptance of the IMF packages would force the government to turn the police force against the people. The president said the government was flexible in its economic policies and had taken a number of measures similar to those recommended by the IMF; and went on to stress: "We don't say we don't change but we say how much should we change. Every government will have to ask that. Every government asks that."3
He said Tanzania needed the financial resources offered by the IMF to pay for her raw materials and spare parts but insisted that the negotiations must be balanced. Commenting on government involvement in running the economy, Nyerere said all governments, including that of the United States, had to make decisions dealing with the economy. He cited as an example the deliberate decision by the American government to maintain "huge deficits" in its annual budget: "Those deficits are a government decision and it pervades the total economy."4
Nyerere said the higher degree of government control of the economy in Tanzania was basically historical because most of the economic infrastructure, including industry, was created by the government, pointing out that little was inherited from the colonial powers (first Germany, and then Britain). As he put it: "In Tanzania we do a little bit more than they (other countries) do. It is partly historical, partly ideological...but mostly historical."5
But he insisted that Tanzania would continue to pursue socialism and self-reliance as the only means to achieve development. However, he told reporters at the press conference, collectivization in the rural areas would continue to be voluntary: "It has never been the intention to force collectivization in Tanzania."6
It is true that forcing people to live in ujamaa villages had never been government policy. But some overzealous officials who implemented that policy resorted to intimidation, physical force and other tactics to mobilize people into those collective settlements. Peasant farming was collectivized between 1973 and 1976, triggering riots and retaliatory violence against government agents enforcing the policy.
President Nyerere reported by mid-1975 that over 9 million Tanzanians - then roughly half the entire population - had been moved into more than 6,900 ujamaa villages. And in 1976 the government launched a massive sweep of Dar es Salaam, the nation's capital and largest city, and rounded up thousands of the unemployed and sent them back to the rural areas to work in their home villages or in new settlements.
But, in spite of his commitment to socialism, Nyerere never ruled out capitalist involvement in the socialist transformation of Tanzania. In fact, the Arusha Declaration which he himself wrote, welcomed such participation. As he explained during the press conference at the State House (called Ikulu in Kiswahili) in 1984 almost exactly one year before he retired from the presidency, Tanzania would continue to invite foreign firms to invest in the economy under mutual agreements which did not compromise the principles of either party.
He told a questioner that this was not a capitalistic tendency. He said Tanzania had been willing to cooperate with private investors all along, citing the General Tyre (East Africa) Company formed jointly with an American firm shortly after the Arusha Declaration was published in February 1967. As he told the reporters: "I have been advised that it is correct to use capitalists to develop socialism."7
But socialism failed to develop the country's economy despite some success in the area of light manufacturing and import-substitution items, an achievement which is often overlooked when critics of Nyerere's economic policies harp on Tanzania's failure to develop under socialism. But the failure was disastrous, although for a number of other reasons as well besides socialism. For example, the end of the coffee boom of the 1970s and soaring oil prices also had a devastating impact on Tanzania's fragile economy, especially in 1979, the same year the country fought a six-month full-scale war against Idi Amin's forces - from November 1978 to April 1979 - which cost Tanzania $500 million. But the socialist development strategy also had a devastating impact on the country, and no amount of clever sheet balancing can mitigate its effects.
It was during this period, between 1981 and 1985, that President Nyerere entered into negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international donors to help revive the economy. That marked the beginning of the end of socialism in Tanzania as a state ideology and strategy for development. It was a fundamental change, and Nyerere was not enthusiastic about it; which explains why he was opposed to some of the IMF proposals and demands - the extent to which liberalization of the economy should be carried out - and entered into those negotiations only reluctantly. However, Tanzania had no choice but to comply with the IMF's mandatory conditions to try and improve her economy. As the executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), distinguished Nigerian economist Dr. Adebayo Adedeji, stated in 1983 when negotiations between Tanzania and the IMF were still going on:
The donor countries and institutions have the last word, rather than the governments themselves, such as in the recent controversy between the IMF and Tanzania. I think, in the final analysis, that the IMF won. This is the grueling reality of poverty. When you are poor, you can never be right. It is the rich country that is right, because it is the only one that can help you.8
Like all the other African countries, Tanzania had to adopt stringent austerity measures as a condition for financial aid from the IMF. The measures included structural adjustment programmes which demanded reducing controls on marketing and currency exchange rates and cutting overall public expenditure. Implementation of the programmes led to recession and caused a lot of hardship on the people, not only in Tanzania but also in other African countries and elsewhere in the underdeveloped regions of the world. The suffering seemed to last forever. As Joe Mensah, a lawyer and senior civil servant in Accra, Ghana, stated: "How many years does one have to live on earth, and how many of those must be spent in hardship?"9
But that is the kind of hardship people had to endure to implement structural adjustment programmes imposed on poor countries by donor nations through the IMF and other multilateral institutions. That is the nature of capitalism which does not have mechanisms to minimize its negative impact on the poor when it is implemented solely to achieve economic growth and not to provide services for the needy. And President Nyerere was fully aware of the contradictory nature of capitalism.
It is a system which seeks to develop society to benefit members of that society, yet survives and thrives on the exploitation of the very people it is intended to help. And the weakest members of society are the most vulnerable under such a system because capitalism is predatory by nature.
That is why there is an imperative need for government intervention to curb the predatory instincts of capitalism and protect the weakest members of society from ruthless competition fostered by free market policies. Nyerere believed that socialism, the very antithesis of capitalism, could do just that and bring about social equality by implementing egalitarian ideals espoused under such a system. Yet because of the weakness of Tanzania and other African countries in the international system dominated by the metropolitan powers, he also saw his people suffer immensely when the IMF imposed stiff conditions on Tanzania which had to be implemented in order for the country to qualify for financial aid. And it was a continental phenomenon.
The devastating impact of structural adjustment programmes ignited debate across Africa - and in other parts of the Third World - about the functional utility of IMF prescriptions for the ailing economies on the continent if the people who were supposed to be helped by these measures turned out to be the very people who suffered the most. Structural adjustment programmes had not helped the poor as the experts claimed they would; a point underscored by Chinua Achebe in his Presidential Fellow Lecture to the World Bank Group in 1998:
I believe it was in the first weeks of 1989 that I received an invitation to an anniversary meeting - the twentieth-fifth year, or something like that - of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris....
They talked in particular about the magic bullet of the 1980s, structural adjustment, specially designed for those parts of the world where economies had gone completely haywire.
The matter was really simple, the experts seemed to be saying; the only reason for failure to develop was indiscipline of all kinds, and the remedy was a quick, sharp administration of shock treatment....The most recurrent prescriptions for this condition were the removal of subsidies on food and fuel and the devaluation of the national currency....
Then the governor of the Bank of Kenya made his presentation. As I recall the events, he was probably the only other African at that session. He asked the experts to consider the case of Zambia, which according to him had accepted, and had been practising, a structural adjustment regime for something like 10 years, and whose economic condition was now worse than it had been when they began their treatment.
An American expert who seemed to command great attention and was accorded high deference in the room, spoke again. He repeated what had already been said many times before: "Be patient, it will work in time, trust me," or words to that effect....
I signaled my desire to speak and was given the floor. I told them what I had just recognized. I said that what was going on before me was a fiction workshop, no more and no less! 'Here you are, spinning your fine theories to be tried out in your imaginary laboratories. You are developing new drugs and feeding them to a bunch of laboratory guinea pigs and hoping for the best. I have news for you.
Africa is not fiction. Africa is people, real people. Have you thought of that? You are brilliant people, world experts. You may even have the very best intentions. But have you thought, really thought, of Africa as people?
I will tell you the experience of my own country, Nigeria, with structural adjustment. After two years of this remedy we saw the country's minimum wage fall in value from the equivalent of 15 British pounds to 5 pounds a month. This is not a lab report; it is not a mathematical exercise. We are talking about someone whose income, which is already miserable enough, is now reduced to one-third of what it was two years ago. And this flesh-and-blood man has a wife and children.
You say he should simply go home and tell them to be patient. Now let me ask you this question: Would you recommend a similar remedy to your own government? How do you sell it to an elected president? You are asking him to commit political suicide, or perhaps to get rid of elections altogether until he has fixed the economy. Do you realize that's what you're doing?'10
None of the experts could give a good answer to any of those questions. And as Nyerere said, Tanzania had adopted some of these solutions recommended by Western experts, "but we have been in trouble ever since." And what Chinua Achebe said about the pain and suffering caused by structural adjustment programmes, not only in his own country Nigeria but in other parts of Africa as well, should also remind us of what Nyerere said to World Bank officials in 1984 when they insisted on implementing harsh measures as a condition for aid to Tanzania: "I cannot sign an agreement and then have riots on the streets. You may be the economic experts but I am the political expert - allow me at least to say how much the people can take."11
But donor nations insisted on implementing structural adjustment programmes and other austerity measures as a condition for aid to poor countries, prompting Nyerere to ask in 1986 what has now become one of his famous questions: "Must we starve our children to pay our debt?" The answer, from the rich nations, is "yes." But that is the nature of capitalism. And Nyerere knew from the beginning how it can be cruel.
There is no room for sentiment under capitalism. Each to his own. People exploit each other, and even kill each other, to make money. Therefore starving children to death, by forcing poor countries to pay their debts to rich capitalist countries, is nothing new to capitalism. That is simply part of its nature, its very essence. And that is why these countries are resolutely opposed to debt cancellation. They want to bleed African countries, and other Third World countries, to death. And Nyerere was fully aware of that.
But as he made it clear, he was not against using capitalism to achieve socialist goals. He was against capitalism to achieve capitalist goals because of its nature as a predatory system which capitalizes on greed and exploits the most vulnerable members of society, and divides society along class lines, accentuating cleavages and turning man against fellow man for material gain including high social status. IMF-imposed solutions to improve Tanzania's - and Africa's - economy would achieve exactly that, despite professions to the contrary by its proponents who contended, and still maintain, that benefits will trickle down to members of the lowest strata - the working class and other low income earners as well as destitutes - throughout society. Yet, this trickle-down theory has not been validated by experience in all contexts, if any at all, in Africa and many parts of the Third World.
Good economic policy must translate into good social policy. But that is not the case with IMF prescriptions when they hurt and even kill the poor. And Nyerere understood this well probably more than any of his contemporaries. It also explains his uncompromising commitment to socialism to alleviate the plight of the poorest of the poor by implementing egalitarian ideals to achieve social equality and justice by redistributing wealth and increasing government spending for social services.
That is why, during his presidency, education was free, and medical service was also free, for everybody. And the government had to continue playing a major role in the economy to ensure equality because for historical and pragmatic reasons, it was the only institution in Tanganyika, later Tanzania, which controlled the largest amount of resources and was capable of functioning as the engine of progress in a country where the people - the poorest of the poor in one of the poorest countries in the world - had virtually nothing in terms of capital to invest in the economy. As President Benjamin Mkapa stated in an interview in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, broadcast on American television (PBS) in March 2001:
We establish(ed) a network of social-service delivery that was extremely egalitarian, and it succeeded very well indeed. It helped us to build an unparalleled sense of nationhood in our country, very much so, and a sense of equality, a challenge of opportunity for all of us. But the world was changing, and in the end we overstretched ourselves in the sense that the governmental proceeds could not sustain the vast network, and so we had to open up the doors to the private sector.
In fairness, let us say that the private sector wasn't excluded by either law or practice, but because we promoted a public sector-driven economy, the private sector was somewhat hesitant in coming in. What we did was to encourage them to come in, with assurances that we will not nationalize their enterprises.
So the first 20-something years where we established an extensive, large public sector-driven economy were extremely necessary, frankly, given the historical background....
When we first became independent, we had been part of the British empire during the colonial days, although we were very much on the periphery of the empire because we were a United Nations Trust Territory. That trust was placed in the British, as different from the protectorates such as Uganda or the colonies such as Kenya.
The British government and the citizenry of the United Kingdom had greater interest (in the colonies and protectorates), and therefore those countries witnessed greater economic investment and economic development than ourselves. Because we were peripheral and not essential, they didn't feel very keen to come and invest here. We were a very, very backward economy, and therefore the likelihood of development through the private sector was extremely remote.
President Nyerere undertook to promote the policy of economic development through public sector engines, the government itself being at the wheel and providing the wherewithal for investment, for production, and so on. So we had a public-sector economy here. For the first 30 years or so of our independence, we built public ownership, public management, and public investment....But we reached a point where we had to open up...the doors to the private sector....
If you define socialism as an economic development policy of public ownership, then there's no doubt that we reached a stage where growth was unsustainable or unachievable. That is why I said we had to open up, in order to invite other stakeholders or other participants in the growth process. So in that sense it failed, it couldn't continue, it couldn't be sustained. But defined as a process in which we are building a national economy in which there's a sense of both egalitarian ownership and partnership, it was extremely successful and may have been the major root cause for the stability that has characterized our political life.12
Even before Tanzania adopted the "Arusha Declaration: Socialism and Self-Reliance" in February 1967, five years after independence in December 1961, Nyerere was already committed to socialism as the best way to alleviate poverty, narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, and achieve social and economic justice for all.
In fact, socialist principles were already enshrined in the country's ruling party, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), long before socialism was formally adopted as a state ideology; although the country did not pursue socialist policies during the first years of independence in the early and mid-sixties despite Nyerere's commitment to socialism.
The acceptance, hence adoption, of the Arusha Declaration by the national executive committee of TANU in Arusha on January 29, 1967, and subsequent publication of this political and economic blueprint on February 5, 1967 - signaling the formal adoption of the declaration by the country on the latter date - marked a turning point in Tanzanian politics.
The ideology of the country was made explicit by this document; and the introduction of the leadership code - leadership qualifications - as well as the decision to nationalize major means of production and other vital assets set the country on a socialist path long envisioned by Nyerere. As stated in the first part of the TANU creed which also constitutes the first part of the Arusha Declaration: "The policy of TANU is to build a socialist state. The principles of socialism are laid down in the TANU constitution....to ensure that this country shall be governed by a democratic socialist government of the people."
And it is important to remember that TANU was founded in July 1954 to fight for independence. Therefore Nyerere and his colleagues were, as far back as 1954, committed to the creation of a socialist state even before they led the country to independence in December 1961.
There is no other document or piece of writing which explicitly defines Nyerere as a socialist, and Tanzania as a country committed to socialism under his leadership, as the Arusha Declaration which he himself wrote. And whatever mistakes one may find in his socialist beliefs and policies can be found in this document.
Its proponents view the declaration as one of the best political and economic blueprints ever written; and its opponents as one of the worst, or most idealistic and impractical, even though many of them have not even read it. It is for the readers to judge for themselves when they read the Arusha Declaration and decide what they think about it, and what they think about Nyerere himself as an ideological thinker. The declaration is reproduced here in its entirety:
THE ARUSHA DECLARATION: SOCIALISM AND SELF-RELIANCE
Part One: The TANU Creed
The policy of TANU is to build a socialist state. The principles of socialism are laid down in the TANU constitution and they are as follows:
Whereas TANU believes:
(a) That all human beings are equal;
(b) That every individual has a right to dignity and respect;
(c) That every citizen is an integral part of the nation and has the right to take an equal part in government at local, regional and national level;
(d) That every citizen has the right to freedom of expression, of movement, of religious belief and of association within the context of the law;
(e) That every individual has the right to receive from society protection of his life and of property held according to law;
(f) That every individual has the right to receive a just return for his labour;
(g) That all citizens together possess all the natural resources of the country in trust for their descendants;
(h) That in order to ensure economic justice the state must have effective control over the principal means of production;
and
(i) That it is the responsibility of the state to intervene actively in the economic life of the nation so as to ensure the well-being of all citizens, and so as to prevent the exploitation of one person by another or one group by another, and so as to prevent the accumulation of wealth to an extent which is inconsistent with the existence of a classless society.
Now, therefore, the principal aims and objectives of TANU shall be as follows:
(a) To consolidate and maintain the independence of this country and the freedom of its people;
(b) To safeguard the inherent dignity of the individual in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
(c) To ensure that this country shall be governed by a democratic socialist government of the people;
(d) To co-operate with all political parties in Africa engaged in the liberation of all Africa;
(e) To see that the government mobilizes all the resources of this country towards the elimination of poverty, ignorance and disease;
(f) To see that the government actively assists in the formation and maintenance of co-operative organizations;
(g) To see that wherever possible the government itself directly participates in the economic development of this country;
(h) To see that the government gives equal opportunity to all men and women irrespective of race, religion or status;
(i) To see that the government eradicates all types of exploitation, intimidation, discrimination, bribery and corruption;
(j) To see that the government exercises effective control over the principal means of production and pursues policies which facilitate the way to collective ownership of the resources of this country;
(k) To see that the government co-operates with other states in Africa in bringing about African unity;
(l) To see that the government works tirelessly towards world peace and security through the United Nations Organization.
Part Two: The Policy of Socialism
(a) Absence of Exploitation.
A truly socialist state is one in which all people are workers and in which neither capitalism nor feudalism exists. It does not have two classes of people, a lower class composed of people who work for their living, and an upper class of people who live on the work of others. In a really socialist country no person exploits another; everyone who is physically able to work does so; every worker obtains a just return for the labour he performs; and the incomes derived from different types of work are not grossly divergent.
In a socialist country, the only people who live on the work of others, and who have the right to be dependent upon their fellows, are small children, people who are too old to support themselves, the crippled, and those whom the state at any one time cannot provide with an opportunity to work for their living.
Tanzania is a nation of peasants and workers, but it is not yet a socialist society. It still contains elements of feudalism and capitalism - with their temptations. These feudalistic and capitalistic features of our society could spread and entrench themselves.
(b) The major means of production and exchange are under the control of the peasants and workers.
To build and maintain socialism it is essential that all the major means of production and exchange in the nation are controlled and owned by the peasants through the machinery of their government and their co-operatives. Further, it is essential that the ruling party should be a party of peasants and workers.
The major means of production and exchange are such things as: land; forests; minerals; water; oil and electricity; news media; communications; banks, insurance, import and export trade, wholesale trade; iron and steel, machine-tool, arms, motor-car, cement, fertilizer, and textile industries; and any big factory on which a large section of the people depend for their living, or which provides essential components of other industries; large plantations, and especially those which provide raw materials essential to important industries.
Some of the instruments of production and exchange which have been listed here are already owned or controlled by the people's government of Tanzania.
(c) The Existence of Democracy.
A state is not socialist simply because its means of production and exchange are controlled or owned by the government, either wholly or in large part. For a country to be socialist, it is essential that its government is chosen and led by the peasants and workers themselves. If the minority governments of Rhodesia or South Africa controlled or owned the entire economies of these respective countries, the result would be a strengthening of oppression, not the building of socialism. True socialism cannot exist without democracy also existing in the society.
(d) Socialism is a Belief.
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 practise, the principles of socialism. A committed member of TANU will be a socialist, and his fellow socialists - that is, his fellow believers in this political and economic system - are all those in Africa or elsewhere in the world who fight for the rights of peasants and workers. The first duty of a TANU member, and especially of a TANU leader, is to accept these socialist principles, and to live his own life 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.
The successful implementation of socialist objectives depends very much upon the leaders, because socialism is a belief in a particular system of living, and it is difficult for leaders to promote its growth if they do not themselves accept it.
Part Three: The Policy of Self-Reliance
We are at War.
TANU is involved in a war against poverty and oppression in our country; this struggle is aimed at moving the people of Tanzania - and the people of Africa as a whole - from a state of poverty to a state of prosperity.
We have been oppressed a great deal, we have been exploited a great deal and we have been disregarded a great deal. It is our weakness that has led to our being oppressed, exploited and disregarded. Now we want a revolution - a revolution which brings to an end our weakness, so that we are never again exploited, oppressed, or humiliated.
A Poor Man does not use Money as a Weapon.
But it is obvious that in the past we have chosen the wrong weapon for our struggle, because we chose money as our weapon. We are trying to overcome our economic weakness by using the weapons of the economically strong - weapons which in fact we do not possess. By our thoughts, words and actions it appears as if we have come to the conclusion that without money we cannot bring about the revolution we are aiming at. It is as if we have said, 'Money is the basis of development. Without money there can be no development.'
That is what we believe at present. TANU leaders, and government leaders and officials, all put great emphasis and dependence on money. The people's leaders and the people themselves, in TANU, NUTA (National Union of Tanganyika Workers), Parliament, UWT (Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania - Union of the Women of Tanzania), the co-operatives, TAPA (Tanzania Parents' Association), and in other national institutions think, hope and pray for MONEY. It is as if we had all agreed to speak with one voice, saying, 'If we get money we shall develop, without money we cannot develop.'
In brief, our Five-Year Development Plan aims at more food, more education, and better health; but the weapon we have put emphasis upon is money. It is as if we said, 'In the next five years we want to have more food, more education, and better health, and in order to achieve these things we shall spend 250,000,000 (British) pounds.' We think and speak as if the most important thing to depend upon is MONEY and anything else we intend to use in our struggle is of minor importance.
When a member of parliament says that there is a shortage of water in his constituency and he asks the government how it intends to deal with the problem, he expects the government to reply that it is planning to remove the shortage of water in his constituency - WITH MONEY.
When another member of parliament asks what the government is doing about the shortage of roads, schools or hospitals in his constituency, he also expects the government to tell him that it has specific plans to build roads, schools and hospitals in his constituency - WITH MONEY.
When a NUTA official asks the government about its plans to deal with the low wages and poor housing of the workers, he expects the government to inform him that the minimum wage will be increased and that better houses will be provided for the workers - WITH MONEY.
When a TAPA official asks the government what plans it has to give assistance to the many TAPA schools which do not get government aid, he expects the government to state that it is ready the following morning to give the required assistance - WITH MONEY.
When an official of the co-operative movement mentions any problem facing the farmer, he expects to hear that the government will solve the farmer's problems - WITH MONEY. In short, for every problem facing our nation, the solution that is in everybody's mind is MONEY.
Each year, each ministry of the government makes its estimates of expenditure, i.e. the amount of money it will require in the coming year to meet recurrent and development expenses. Only one minister and his ministry make estimates of revenue. This is the minister for finance. Every ministry puts forward very good development plans. When the ministry presents its estimates, it believes that the money is there for the asking but that the minister for finance and his ministry are being obstructive. And regularly each year the minister for finance has to tell his fellow ministers that there is no money. And each year the ministries complain about the ministry of finance when it trims down their estimates.
Similarly, when members of parliament and other leaders demand that the government should carry out a certain development project, they believe that there is a lot of money to spend on such projects, but that the government is the stumbling block. Yet such belief on the part of ministries, members of parliament and other leaders does not alter the stark truth, which is that government has no money.
When it is said that government has no money, what does this mean? It means that the people of Tanzania have insufficient money. The people pay taxes out of every little wealth they have; it is from these taxes that the government meets its recurrent and development expenditure. When we call on the government to spend more money on development projects we are asking the government to use more money. And if the government does not have any more, the only way it can do this is to increase its revenue through extra taxation.
If one calls on the government to spend more, one is in effect calling on the government to increase taxes. Calling on the government to spend more without raising taxes is like demanding that the government should perform miracles; it is equivalent to asking for more milk from a cow while insisting that the cow should not be milked again. But our refusal to admit that calling on the government to spend more is the same as calling on the government to raise taxes shows that we fully realize the difficulties of increasing taxes. We realize that the cow has no more milk - that is, that the people find it difficult to pay more taxes. We know that the cow would like to have more milk herself, so that her calves could drink it, or that she would like more milk which could be sold to provide more comfort for herself or her calves. But knowing all the things which could be done with more milk does not alter the fact that the cow has no more milk!
What of External Aid?
One method we use to try and avoid a recognition of the need to increase taxes if we want to have more money for development, is to think in terms of getting the extra money from outside Tanzania. Such external finance falls into three main categories.
(a) Gifts: This means that another government gives our government a sum of money as a free gift for a particular development scheme. Sometimes it may be that an institution in another country gives our government, or an institution in our country, financial help for development programmes.
(b) Loans: The greater portion of financial help we expect to get from outside is not in the form of gifts or charity, but in the form of loans. A foreign government or a foreign institution, such as a bank, lends our government money for the purposes of development. Such a loan has repayment conditions attached to it, covering such factors as the time period for which it is available and the rate of interest.
(c) Private investment: The third category of financial help is also greater than the first. This takes the form of investment in our country by individuals or companies from outside. The important condition which such private investors have in mind is that the enterprise into which they put their money should bring them profit and that our government should permit them to repatriate these profits. They also prefer to invest in a country whose policies they agree with and which will safeguard their economic interests.
These three are the main categories of external finance. And there is in Tanzania a fantastic amount of talk about getting money from outside. Our government and different groups of our leaders, never stop thinking about methods of getting finance from abroad. And if we get some money, or even if we just get a promise of it, our newspapers, our radio, and our leaders, all advertise the fact in order that every person shall know that salvation is coming, or is on the way. If we receive a gift we announce it, if we receive a loan we announce it, if we get a new factory we announce it - and always loudly. In the same way, when we get a promise of a gift, a loan, or a new industry, we make an announcement - even though we do not know the outcome of the discussions. Why do we do all this? Because we want people to know that we have started discussions which will bring prosperity.
DO NOT LET US DEPEND UPON MONEY FOR DEVELOPMENT
It is stupid to rely on money as the major instrument of development when we know only too well that our country is poor. It is equally stupid, indeed it is even more stupid, for us to imagine that we shall rid ourselves of our poverty through foreign financial assistance rather than our own financial resources. It is stupid for two reasons.
Firstly, we shall not get the money. It is true that there are countries which can, and which would like, to help us. But there is no country in the world which is prepared to give us gifts or loans, or establish industries, to the extent that we would be able to achieve all our development targets. There are many needy countries in the world. And even if all the prosperous nations were willing to help the needy countries, the assistance would still not suffice. But in any case the prosperous nations have not accepted a responsibility to fight world poverty. Even within their own borders poverty still exists, and the rich individuals do not willingly give money to the government to help their poor fellow citizens.
It is only through taxation, which people have to pay whether they want to or not, that money can be extracted from the rich in order to help the masses. Even then there would not be enough money. However heavily we taxed the citizens of Tanzania and the aliens living here, the resulting revenue would not be enough to meet the costs of the development we want. And there is no World Government which can tax the prosperous nations in order to help the poor nations; nor if one did exist could it raise enough revenue to do all that is needed in the world. But in fact, such a World Government does not exist. Such money as the rich nations offer to the poor nations is given voluntarily, either through their own goodness, or for their own benefits. All this means that it is impossible for Tanzania to obtain from overseas enough money to develop our economy.
GIFTS AND LOANS WILL ENDANGER OUR INDEPENDENCE
Secondly, even if it were possible for us to get enough money for our needs from external sources, is this what we really want? Independence means self-reliance. Independence cannot be real if a nation depends upon gifts and loans from another for its development. Even if there was a nation, or nations, prepared to give us all the money we need for our development, it would be improper for us to accept such assistance without asking ourselves how this would affect our independence and our very survival as a nation. Gifts which increase, or act as a catalyst, to our own efforts are valuable. But gifts which could have the effect of weakening or distorting our own efforts should not be accepted until we have asked ourselves a number of questions.
The same applies to loans. It is true that loans are better than 'free' gifts. A loan is intended to increase our efforts or make those efforts more fruitful. One condition of a loan is that you show how you are going to repay it. This means you have to show that you intend to use the loan profitably and will therefore be able to repay it.
But even loans have their limitations. You have to give consideration to the ability to repay. When we borrow money from other countries it is the Tanzanian who pays it back. And as we have already stated, Tanzanians are poor people. To burden the people with big loans, the repayment of which will be beyond their means, is not to help them but to make them suffer. It is even worse when the loans they are asked to repay have not benefited the majority of the people but have only benefited a small minority.
How about the enterprises of foreign investors? It is true we need these enterprises. We have even passed an Act of Parliament protecting foreign investments in this country. Our aim is to make foreign investors feel that Tanzania is a good place in which to invest because investments would be safe and profitable, and the profits can be taken out of the country without difficulty. We expect to get money through this method. But we cannot get enough. And even if we were able to convince foreign investors and foreign firms to undertake all the projects and programmes of economic development that we need, is that what we actually want to happen?
Had we been able to attract investors from America and Europe to come and start all the industries and all the projects of economic development that we need in this country, could we do so without questioning ourselves? Could we agree to leave the economy of our country in the hands of foreigners who would take the profits back to their countries? Or supposing they did not insist upon taking their profits away, but decided to reinvest in Tanzania; could we really accept this situation without asking ourselves what disadvantages our nation would suffer? Would this allow the socialism we have said it is our objective to build?
How can we depend upon gifts, loans and investments from foreign countries and foreign companies without endangering our independence? The English people have a proverb which says: 'He who pays the piper calls the tune.' How can we depend upon foreign governments and companies for the major part of our development without giving to those governments and countries a great part of our freedom to act as we please? The truth is that we cannot.
Let us repeat. We made a mistake in choosing money - something we do not have - to be the big instrument of our development. We are making a mistake to think that we shall get the money from other countries; first, because in fact we shall not be able to get sufficient money for our economic development; and secondly, because even if we could get all that we need, such dependence upon others would endanger our independence and our ability to chose our own political policies.
WE HAVE PUT TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON INDUSTRIES
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.' This is true. The day when we have lots of money we shall be able to say we are a developed country. We shall be able to say, 'When we began our Development Plans we did not have enough money and this situation made it difficult for us to develop as fast as we wanted. Today we are developed and we have enough money.' That is to say, our money has been brought by development. Similarly, the day we become industrialized, we shall be able to say we are developed. Development would have enabled us to have industries.
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. It is not enough to say that we shall borrow the finances and the technicians from other countries to come and start industries. The answer to this is the same one we gave earlier, that we cannot get enough money and borrow enough technicians to start all the industries we need. And even if we could get the necessary assistance, dependence on it could interfere with our policy of socialism. The policy of inviting a chain of capitalists to come and establish industries in our country might succeed in giving us all the industries we need, but it would also succeed in preventing the establishment of socialism unless we believe that without first building capitalism, we cannot build socialism.
LET US PAY HEED TO THE PEASANT
Our emphasis on money and industries has made us concentrate on urban development. We recognize that we do not have enough money to bring the kind of development to each village which would benefit everybody. We also know that we cannot establish an industry in each village and through this means effect a rise in the real incomes of the people. For these reasons we spend most of our money in the urban areas and our industries are established in the towns.
Yet the greater part of this money that we spend in the towns comes from loans. Whether it is used to build schools, hospitals, houses or factories, etc., it still has to be repaid. But it is obvious that it cannot be repaid just of money obtained from urban and industrial development. To repay the loans we have to use foreign currency which is obtained from the sale of our exports. But we do not now sell our industrial products in foreign markets, and indeed it is likely to be a long time before our industries produce for export. The main aim of our new industries is 'import substitution' - that is, to produce things which up to now we have had to import from foreign countries.
It is therefore obvious that the foreign currency we shall use to pay back the loans used in the development of the urban areas will not come from the towns or the industries. Where, then, shall we get if from? We shall get it from the villages and from agriculture. What does this mean?
It means that the people who benefit directly from development which is brought about by borrowed money are not the ones who will repay the loans. The largest proportion of the loans will be spent in, or for, the urban areas, but the largest proportion of the repayment will be made through the efforts of the farmers.
This fact should always be borne in mind, for there are various forms of exploitation. We must not forget that people who live in towns can possibly become the exploiters of those who live in the rural areas. All our big hospitals are in towns and they benefit only a small section of the people of Tanzania. Yet if we have built them with loans from outside Tanzania, it is the overseas sale of the peasants' produce which provides the foreign exchange for repayment. Those who do not get the benefit of the hospitals thus carry the major responsibility for paying them. Tarmac roads, too, are mostly found in towns and are of especial value to the motor-car owners.
Yet if we have built those roads with loans, it is again the farmer who produces the goods which will pay for them. What is more, the foreign exchange with which the car was bought also came from the sale of the farmers' produce. Again, electric lights, water pipes, hotels and other aspects of modern development are mostly found in towns. Most of them have been built with loans and most of them do not benefit the farmer directly, although they will be paid for by the foreign exchange earned by the sale of his produce. We should always bear this in mind.
Although when we talk of exploitation we usually think of capitalists, we should not forget that there are many fish in the sea. They eat each other. The large ones eat the small ones, and the small ones eat those who are even smaller. There are two possible ways of dividing the people in our country. We can put the capitalists and feudalists on one side, and the farmers and workers on the other. But we can also divide the people into urban dwellers on one side and those who live in the rural areas on the other. If we are not careful we might get to the position where the real exploitation in Tanzania is that of the town dwellers exploiting the peasants.
THE PEOPLE AND AGRICULTURE
The development of a country is brought about by people, not by money. Money, and the wealth it represents, is the result and not the basis of development. The four prerequisites of development are different; they are (i) People; (ii) Land; (iii) Good Policies; (iv) Good Leadership. Our country has more than ten million people (1967 census showed 12.3 million people) and its area is more than 362,000 square miles.
AGRICULTURE IS THE BASIS OF DEVELOPMENT
A great part of Tanzania's land is fertile and gets sufficient rain. Our country can produce various crops for home consumption and for export.
We can produce food crops (which can be exported if we produce in large quantities) such as maize, rice, wheat, beans, groundnuts, etc. And we can produce such cash crops as sisal, cotton, coffee, tobacco, pyrethrum, tea, etc. Our land is also good for grazing cattle, goats, sheep, and for raising chickens, etc.; we can get plenty of fish from our rivers, lakes, and from the sea. All of our farmers are in areas which can produce two or three or even more of the food and cash crops enumerated above, and each farmer could increase his production so as to get more food or more money. And because the main aim of development is to get more food, and more money for our other needs, our purpose must be to increase production of these agricultural crops. This is in fact the only road through which we can develop our country - in other words, only by increasing our production of these things can we get more food and more money for every Tanzanian.
THE CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT
(a) Hard Work
Everybody wants development; but not everybody understands and accepts the basic requirements for development. The biggest requirement is hard work. Let us go to the villages and talk to our people and see whether or not it is possible for them to work harder.
In towns, for example, wage-earners normally work for seven and a half or eight hours a day, and for six or six and a half days a week. This is about 45 hours a week for the whole year, except for two or three weeks' leave. In other words, a wage-earner works for 45 hours a week for 48 or 50 weeks of the year.
For a country like ours these are really quite short working hours. In other countries, even those which are more developed than we are, people work for more than 45 hours a week. It is not normal for a young country to start with such a short working week. The normal thing is to begin with long working hours and decrease them as the country becomes more and more prosperous. By starting with such short working hours and asking for even shorter hours, we are in fact imitating the more developed countries. And we shall regret this imitation. Nevertheless, wage-earners do work for 45 hours per week and their annual vacation does not exceed four weeks.
It would be appropriate to ask our farmers, especially the men, how many hours a week and how many weeks a year they work. Many do not even work for half as many hours as the wage-earner does. The truth is that in the villages the women work very hard. At times they work for 12 or 14 hours a day. They even work on Sundays and public holidays. Women who live in the villages work harder than anybody else in Tanzania. But the men who live in villages (and some of the women in towns) are on leave for half of their life. The energies of the millions of men in the villages and thousands of women in the towns which are at present wasted in gossip, dancing and drinking, are a great treasure which could contribute more towards the development of our country than anything we could get from rich nations.
We would be doing something very beneficial to our country if we went to the villages and told our people that they hold this treasure and that it is up to them to use it for their own benefit and the benefit of our whole nation.
(b) Intelligence
The second condition of development is the use of intelligence. Unintelligent hard work would not bring the same good results as the two combined. Using a big hoe instead of a small one; using a plough pulled by oxen instead of an ordinary hoe; the use of fertilizers; the use of insecticides; knowing the right crop for a particular season or soil; choosing good seeds for planting; knowing the right time for planting, weeding, etc.; all these things show the use of knowledge and intelligence. And all of them combine with hard work to produce more and better results.
The money and time we spend on passing on this knowledge to the peasants are better spent and bring more benefits to our country than the money and great amount of time we spend on other things which we call development.
These facts are well known to all of us. The parts of our Five-Year Development Plan which are on target, or where the target has been exceeded, are those parts which depend solely upon the people's own hard work. The production of cotton, coffee, cashew nuts, tobacco and pyrethrum has increased enormously for the past three years. But these are things which are produced by hard work and the good leadership of the people, not by the use of great amounts of money.
Furthermore the people, through their own hard work and with a little help and leadership, have finished many development projects in the villages. They have built schools, dispensaries, community centres, and roads; they have dug wells, water-channels, animal dips, small dams, and completed various other development projects. Had they waited for money, they would not now have the use of these things.
HARD WORK IS THE ROOT OF DEVELOPMENT
Some Plan projects which depend on money are going on well, but there are many which have stopped and others which might never be fulfilled because of lack of money. Yet still we talk about money and our search for money increases and takes nearly all our energies. We should not lessen our efforts to get the money we really need, but it would be more appropriate for us to spend time in the villages showing the people how to bring about development through their own efforts rather than going on so many long and expensive journeys abroad in search of development money. This is the real way to bring development to everybody in the country.
None of this means that from now on we will not need money or that we will not start industries or embark upon development projects which require money. Furthermore, we are not saying that we will not accept, or even that we shall not look for, money from other countries for development. This is NOT what are saying. We will continue to use money; and each year we will use more money for the various development projects than we used the previous year because this will be one of the signs of our development.
What we are saying, however, is that from now on we shall know what is the foundation and what is the fruit of development. Between MONEY and PEOPLE it is obvious that the people and their HARD WORK are the foundation of development, and money is one of the fruits of that hard work.
From now on we shall stand upright and walk forward on our feet rather than look at this problem upside down. Industries will come and money will come but their foundation is THE PEOPLE and their HARD WORK, especially in AGRICULTURE. This is the meaning of self-reliance. Our emphasis should therefore be on:
(a) The Land and Agriculture
(b) The People
(c) The Policy of Socialism and Self-Reliance, and
(d) Good leadership.
(a) The Land
Because the economy of Tanzania depends and will continue to depend on agriculture and animal husbandry, Tanzanians can live well without depending on help from outside if they use their land properly. Land is the basis of human life and all Tanzanians should use it as a valuable investment for future development. Because the land belongs to the nation, the government has to see to it that it is used for the benefit of the whole nation and not for the benefit of one individual or just a few people.
It is the responsibility of TANU to see that the country produces enough food and enough cash crops for export. It is the responsibility of the government and the co-operative societies to see to it that our people get the necessary tools, training and leadership in modern methods of agriculture.
(b) The People
In order properly to implement the policy of self-reliance, the people have to be taught the meaning of self-reliance and its practice. They must become self-sufficient in food, serviceable clothes and good housing.
In our country work should be something to be proud of, and laziness, drunkenness and idleness should be things to be ashamed of. And for the defence of our nation, it is necessary for us to be on guard against internal stooges who could be used by external enemies who aim to destroy us. The people should always be ready to defend their nation when they are called upon to do so.
(c) Good Policies
The principles of our policy of self-reliance go hand in hand with our policy on socialism. In order to prevent exploitation it is necessary for everybody to work and to live on his own labour. And in order to distribute the national wealth fairly, it is necessary for everybody to work to the maximum of his ability. Nobody should go and stay for a long time with his relative, doing no work, because in doing so he will be exploiting his relative. Likewise, nobody should be allowed to loiter in towns or villages without doing work which would enable him to be self-reliant without exploiting his relatives.
TANU believes that everybody who loves his nation has a duty to serve it by co-operating with his fellows in building the country for the benefit of all the people of Tanzania. In order to maintain our independence and our people's freedom we ought to be self-reliant in every possible way and avoid depending upon other countries for assistance. If every individual is self-reliant the ten-house cell will be self-reliant; if all the cells are self-reliant the whole ward will be self-reliant; and if the wards are self-reliant the district will be self-reliant. If the districts are self-reliant, then the region is self-reliant, and if the regions are self-reliant, then the whole nation is self-reliant and this is our aim.
(d) Good Leadership
TANU recognizes the urgency and importance of good leadership. But we have not yet produced systematic training for our leaders; it is necessary that TANU headquarters should now prepare a programme of training for all leaders - from the national level to the ten-house cell level - so that every one of them understands our political and economic policies. Leaders must set a good example to the rest of the people in their lives and in all their activities.
Part Four: TANU Membership
Since the party was founded (in 1954) we have put great emphasis on getting as many members as possible. This was the right policy during the independence struggle. But now the National Executive (of TANU) feels that the time has come when we should put more emphasis on the beliefs of our party and its policies of socialism.
That part of the TANU constitution which relates to the admission of a member should be adhered to, and if it is discovered that a man does not appear to accept the faith, the objects, and the rules and regulations of the party, then he should not be accepted as a member. In particular, it should not be forgotten that TANU is a party of peasants and workers.
Part Five: The Arusha Resolution
Therefore, the National Executive Committee, meeting in the Community Centre at Arusha from 26.1.67 (26 January 1967) to 29.1.67 (29 January 1967) resolves:
(a) The Leadership
1. Every TANU and government leader must be either a peasant or a worker, and should in no way be associated with the practices of capitalism or feudalism.
2. No TANU or government leader should hold shares in any company.
3. No TANU or government leader should hold directorships in any privately owned enterprise.
4. No TANU or government leader should receive two or more salaries.
5. No TANU or government leader should own houses which he rents to others.
6. For the purposes of this resolution the term 'leader' should comprise the following:
Members of the TANU National Executive Committee; ministers; members of parliament; senior officials of organizations affiliated to TANU; senior officials of para-statal organizations; all those appointed or elected under any clause of the TANU constitution; councillors; and civil servants in the high and middle cadres. (In this context 'leader' means a man, or a man and his wife; a woman, or a woman and her husband).
(b) The Government and Other Institutions
1. Congratulates the government for the steps it has taken so far in the implementation of the policy of socialism.
2. Calls upon the government to take further steps in the implementation of our policy of socialism as described in Part Two of this document without waiting for a Presidential Commission on Socialism.
3. Calls upon the government to put emphasis, when preparing its development plans, on the ability of this country to implement the plans rather than depending on foreign loans and grants as has been done in the current Five-Year Development Plan. The National Executive Committee also resolves that the Plan should be amended so as to make it fit in with the policy of self-reliance.
4. Calls upon the government to take action designed to ensure that the incomes of workers in the private sector are not very different from the incomes of workers in the public sector.
5. Calls upon the government to put great emphasis on actions which will raise the standard of living of the peasants, and the rural community.
6. Calls upon NUTA, the co-operatives, TAPA, UWT, TYL (TANU Youth League), and other government institutions to take steps to implement the policy of socialism and self-reliance.
(c) Membership
Members should get thorough teaching on Party ideology so that they may understand it, and they should always be reminded of the importance of living up to its principles.13
That is the Arusha Declaration. Throughout the document, one theme constantly comes up. And that is Nyerere's deep concern for the well-being of the poor, the peasants and the workers, especially the peasants, who constitute the vast majority of the population of Tanzania and those of other African countries and others in the Third World.
The Arusha Declaration earned Nyerere a reputation as one of the most prominent socialist thinkers in the world, and one of the most articulate spokesmen of the poor and the oppressed.
But in fairness, it must also be emphasized that even before the Arusha Declaration, he had already earned a reputation as one of the leading spokesmen of the Third World and of oppressed and exploited people everywhere round the globe. As he stated in one of his earliest speeches in the international arena, about two years after he led Tanganyika to independence, at a United Nations conference of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Rome in November 1963:
I think it is useful from time to time to remind ourselves that it is people - human beings with all their prejudices, hopes, stupidities, and potentialities - who are the purpose of every human organization and institution. The purpose of government is to secure for the people conditions in which they can live happily and peacefully, and the modern conception of its function demands that it should do this in a positive manner....The conditions in which many of the people now live and move are a negation of human dignity, and a disgrace to the twentieth-century world. Our governments have to secure an improvement so great that it demands a complete social and economic revolution in the country. And just as this change must be the objective of governments in underdeveloped countries, so also it is the declared aim of a whole complex of international organizations....
Apart from South Africa - which I intend to ignore today - there is now an almost world-wide recognition of the common humanity of man, and a growing sense of human brotherhood....Politically we talk of one world, yet we remain hundreds of individual nations who are taking only the first elementary steps towards recognizing their interdependence....Economically, I believe the irrelevance of this phrase is still greater....The world presents a picture of such violent economic contrasts that, for all the contact there can be, different sections of mankind could be living not just on different planets, but in different solar systems....
You know the statistics of poverty contrasted with riches; of obesity in one country and hunger in another. You know too that although within every country there are economic inequalities - with even the USA having its poor and undernourished - the startling inequalities come between the general standards of living in the different nation states of the world. $60 per head is the national income of India, and $2,000 per head in the United States....By far the greater majority of mankind does not get enough to eat, or does not get the sort of food which will keep a person healthy....
While these facts are not new, neither are they becoming out of date. This is the matter which must concern us now....For all the consciousness of world economic inequalities, for all the international organizations which have been established to remedy this situation, the gap between the haves and have-nots of the world is widening on a progressive scale. The richer you are the more wealth you accumulate, and the poorer - regardless of your effort - the less you can improve the situation. Economically, there are still two worlds, not one....For reasons of human dignity, and for the sake of peace and justice, these economic inequalities in the world must be reduced and the mass of the people must be able to relieve themselves from the burden of poverty....
The world can produce more of the goods needed by the people; the underdeveloped countries can themselves produce more. Indeed one of the distinguishing characteristics of an underdeveloped country is the low productivity of its workers and land. When we talk about a country being underdeveloped this is what we mean - that its gross domestic product is low in comparison to its population. People do not produce much and do not consume much - two things which are not so automatically interchangeable as pure economic theory implies.
The problems of the underdeveloped countries are thus twofold. Firstly, to increase production of goods and services which people need; and secondly, to increase consumption of the goods and services which denote a good and free life. The latter means that the goods and services produced must either be those directly required by the producers; or they must be able to flow through a system of exchange which brings, back to the producers, a purchasing power equivalent to the wealth their efforts have created. In other words, the marketing must be so organized that farmers can sell their products for a fair price, and the goods they require must likewise be available to buy at reasonable cost.
I think it is safe to say that in every underdeveloped country, neither increased output, nor increased consumption, can be achieved without very great and fundamental changes in the whole economy and social structure. We in Tanganyika, for example, (and you must excuse me if I draw most of my illustrations from the country I know best) have almost ninety-seven per cent of our people living in rural areas, and most of these earn their living by agriculture. It is obvious therefore that we should think in terms of increasing our agricultural output....
(But) despite the great hunger in the world - the real shortage of nourishing foods - the terms of trade have continually moved to the disadvantage of the primary producers in underdeveloped countries....When we try to sell to the developed countries we discover one of two things; either they protect their own industries from what they call the 'products of sweated labour,' or they can produce more cheaply than we because of the intensity of their capital investment. The fact that our labour is 'sweated' because we cannot afford investment - that we have nothing but our own hands to use - is inevitably of no interest to the developed countries. Neither is the fact that the only way we can stop 'sweated labour' is by building our economy.
Again, we find that even in agricultural products the developed countries, for internal distributive reasons, pay the(ir) farmers one price, and offer the goods on the world market for a much lower one - or even give them away. Singly, few of us can afford to refuse these gifts; indeed, my own country was extremely glad of them when we suffered famine conditions two years running through crop failures. But the effect is liable to be disastrous to efforts to build up new trade patterns between the poor countries by means of which each would increase their total wealth. And the very existence of these stocks under national control means that when underdeveloped countries can supply the existing markets at fair prices, stock releases from rich countries can at any time make the price we receive completely uneconomic.
None of these are matters which can be settled in isolation, commodity by commodity. The whole question of international monetary liquidity is involved, as well as other factors relating to orderly marketing of available and increasing world supplies. These matters can never be settled while every point has to be negotiated between dozens of countries, with unanimity always essential. We all know that whatever discussions we enter into, a country which has a stockpile of certain commodities, or which controls a large sector of the supply or effective demand, must agree to the final decision if it is to be worth anything. Such countries - and they are in practice almost always the wealthier ones - thus determine the result; they act as litigant and judge in the one case. The 'free international market' is inevitably, unavoidably, an arena in which the weakest goes to the wall....
Internationally,...the theoretical rejection of the co-existence of rich and poor countries has led to 'Aid' - the voluntary gifts from the rich to the poor. With this we have to pit our puny efforts against the whole trend of world investment and world trade.
On this basis the gap between the rich and poor nations cannot fail to increase. The effect of 'Aid' we get can be wiped out - and often is - by a marginal price change in one single raw material. This situation will inevitably continue until we have planned development and planned trade, internationally as well as nationally.
For a really constructive attack on world poverty which has hope of speedy success, there is no alternative. At the moment, however, many underdeveloped countries, include my own, themselves contribute to the expansion of this gap between rich and poor. We do this because in practice we appear to accept the doctrine that the world is one, and we subscribe to the multilateral free trade-theory with only minor protectionist and revenue taxes.
Our membership of GATT, for example, prevents our discriminating between suppliers in favour of other underdeveloped countries; our freely convertible currency means that any multiplier effect of our development not only spills, outside the country, but spills most often into the pockets of those who don't need it. And we accept 'tied loans' - often called 'aid' - which sometimes force us to buy in expensive markets and and then pay interest on the total. In addition, we allow the importation into our economy of any sort of luxury goods which an intensive advertising campaign can persuade people to buy!
There is a lot to be said in favour of each of these policies considered in isolation, and some of them are in any case, for various reasons, unavoidable. But the net result of them is that economically we, and other nations like us, act as though all the individual nations were in fact equals.
We poor countries (for, whatever our potential may be, we are certainly poor now) beg from the rich on the one hand, and at the same time compete with them to obtain capital and skilled manpower for investment, and markets for goods produced at very different levels of technique. On this basis the disparities between us are bound to get bigger, just as the runt of the litter is the one which always goes hungry.
As a rational people in control of our own destinies, obviously, the underdeveloped nations cannot allow the present situation to continue indefinitely. Either we go forward with everyone else into a World Economic Development Plan, or we shall have to go backward for the time being into economic isolationism. When only the law of the jungle reigns, the struggle for existence must naturally end up with - the survival of the fittest. This may be all right when it applies to beasts; as a method of contact between human beings it is intolerable. But as long as this law prevails it is only prudent for the weak to keep a good distance between themselves and the strong.
The choice is clear. Either we really become one world, with the problem of poverty in certain areas being attacked scientifically on a world scale; or, alternatively, we recognize that there are two worlds, the rich world and the poor world, and the latter gets down to the problem of protecting itself against the dominance of the other....
If there cannot be... a single economic plan for one world, then let there be a plan for that half of the world whose poverty puts out of the question the luxury of uncontrolled economic individualism. Between the poor anywhere, there can always be trade and the development of activity, provided that they do not try to base this on the medium of exchange which is held by and acceptable to the rich....Even a completely independent free market which is restricted to the poor of the world would be better for us than relying entirely on the present system in which the poor are at the mercy of the rich....Through the ruthless pursuance of such a policy we shall ultimately be able to defeat the poverty, both objective and relative, which now oppresses us. A continuation of the present combination of 'aid' and 'free international competition' will never do that.14
Nyerere's presentation at FAO, which was a McDougall Memorial Lecture, clearly articulated his position as a leading champion of the Third World whose primary focus was not only on narrowing the yawning gap between the rich nations and the poor nations - that is, between the North and the South - but also on promoting self-reliance among the underdeveloped countries as a way of protecting and promoting their interests in a world dominated by the metropolitan powers of the industrial West. It was a theme he carried on and formally articulated about three years later in the famous Arusha Declaration whose relevance went beyond Tanzania and embraced the whole African continent and resonated well in other parts of the Third World.
And he was explicit in his admission of the underdeveloped nature of Tanzania and other Third World countries - despite the relative disparity in wealth and development among them - as much as he was in his criticism, and sometimes condemnation, of the industrialized nations for their exploitation of the poor and underdeveloped regions of the world. As he stated at the ministerial meeting of the Group of 77 composed of Third World countries held in Arusha, Tanzania, on February 12, 1969 almost exactly two years after the Arusha Declaration was adopted, there was an imperative need for a new international economic order to correct the imbalance in the international system which always operated to the detriment of the underdeveloped nations.
He even told the delegates to the conference that they were fully aware of the poverty of Tanzania as clearly demonstrated by the quality of the facilities they used during their stay in the country. As he put it: "I suspect that some of you may have found that your accommodation gives you too frequent a reminder that this meeting is being held in an underdeveloped country. I want to assure you that we tried hard! I hope, however, that you will not find your rooms or the facilities so unsatisfactory that you cannot do your work properly."15
His disarming candor was one of the great qualities of his leadership. As he used to tell us in Tanzania, the only way we can develop is to admit that we are a poor country and use what resources we have to achieve progress and prosperity by depending on ourselves. In a global context, he urged Third World countries to do the same, while also demanding economic justice from the industrialized nations which dominated the world and continued to exploit them.
At the Third World conference in Arusha, President Nyerere went on to say that the odds were stacked up against the underdeveloped countries, no matter how hard they worked, because of the asymmetrical relationship between the rich and the poor countries in an international system created and dominated by the industrialized nations:
"Newly de-colonised nations, and the older countries of Latin America, had all inherited the same idea from the dominant Euro-American culture: work hard and you will become prosperous. Gradually we all discovered that hard work and prosperity were not cause and effect; something external to ourselves always seemed to break the reputed connection! The so-called neutrality of the world market place turned out to be a neutrality between the exploiter and the exploited, between a bird of prey and its victim.
If in our effort to find resources for survival - let alone development - we carried out the textbook procedures of raising capital, we always seemed to end up under the virtual control of the transnational corporations or subject to IMF deflationary policies - or both. We did not achieve progress; we simply moved from the frying pan into the deep-freezer! Even if we tried to do nothing except sell our traditional exports and buy our traditional imports, we found that we could buy less and less with more and more of our hard work."16
Nyerere stated in no uncertain terms that the present system had been developed by the industrialized nations to serve their purposes, and not of the rest of the world, as well, which was also an integral part of this global arrangement. The result was that the metropolitan powers, which have formed a cohesive bloc and act as one when dealing with other countries, control the levers of international exchange and finance, and also control the wealth accumulated through centuries of colonialism, gun-boat diplomacy, and an initial advantage in mass production techniques.
He also emphasized that Third World countries did not create the world's institutions of production and exchange and have virtually no say in those institutions and even in making decisions which affect them. And as Benjamin Mkapa - Tanzania's third president (1995 - 2005) and a disciple of Nyerere who, like his mentor, was also in his own right one of the most eloquent spokesmen of the Third World - said, in what was probably one of his best speeches, at the third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD III), Africa's advancement is retarded, governed, and determined by history that is not of our making.
He went on to say that in terms of institutions of global governance, Africa was frozen in 1945, a time when practically all African countries were mere extensions or integral parts of other regimes and were thus called dominions, colonies or overseas territories:
"It is history shaped by presiding institutions of which none of us are cornerstones and by rules in the making of which we have had no say. No African country had a say in the construction of present institutions of global governance and our say in their decision making is very limited."
President Mkapa went on to say that demands for the reconstruction of and realignment of such institutions, in order to benefit the entire world, have simply been ignored by the industrialized nations who are the greatest beneficiaries of these lopsided institutional arrangements, tipping scales in their favour. As he put it:
"We refuse to have a global indaba or baraza to discuss the post-cold war era and the unipolar world it has produced. As a result the idea of unilateralism and exclusion is creeping on us as the preferred philosophy. But is it globally preferred and is it the right philosophy for human equality?"
He warned that the power and influence arising from global dominance, especially by the industrialized West, as a result of the strong economies that emerged in the post-World War II era should not be perfunctorily ignored.
He went on to say that economically, there was a distinct threat to food and income security and the reduction of poverty because African commodities, which are mostly raw materials exported to the industrialized world, especially agricultural and mineral exports which are the mainstay of African economies, were sold on terms determined by the metropolitan powers at very low prices; prompting him to ask:
"Are we going to have rules based on internationalism or a sprawling rampant bilateralism, spewing forth bilateral trade agreements?"
The president also said that human security in Africa, and indeed anywhere else in the Third World, was incompatible with the debt crisis which continued to devastate African economies and institutions. He further pointed out that even in his own country Tanzania, one of the few countries to qualify for limited debt cancellation and better credit terms under the enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt initiative, servicing the remaining debt - which was enormous - was still a big drain on resources which could be used to fight poverty in one of the poorest countries in the world, yet one of the most heavily indebted.
President Mkapa went on to say that there was still no Marshall Plan for Africa and no comprehensive debt cancellation initiatives, leaving hundreds of millions of people on the continent at the mercy of the developed nations which continued to exploit them. He also appealed to fellow Africans by saying that Africa, in solidarity, must fight deprivation,dispossession, and greed; emphasizing that:
"We need to rethink nationally about the political and economic order in which we live. Neither complacency nor fervent hope are sustainable alternatives to bold, open consensus dialogue."
He warned that for her own sake and survival, Africa needed to rethink internationally in the era of the worsening debt crisis in the Third World, increasing income inequalities, terrorism, and the spread of new diseases such as AIDS. and the resurgence - sometimes with new strains - of old ones including malaria and tuberculosis.
He also said human security must find expression in agriculture and rural development, and that since slightly more than half of Africans were women, gender issues must be a critical component of any policy and strategy aimed at developing the continent, especially in the rural areas which are the backbone of African economies in this predominantly agricultural continent.
He went on to say: "Human security must emanate from poverty reduction for the poorest and economic growth for both the developing and developed countries....African countries have to define poverty in their own contexts and construct through a participatory approach, a national vision to eradicate it."
The president outlined the goals and priorities for Africa, emphasizing that the first challenge was to get together to plan, mobilize and implement strategies for development; and the second to ensure that Africa developed with hope and dignity. He also said that, economically, Africa inexorably has to move towards a greater private-sector driven economy in this era of globalization. But it must also be a fairly regulated economy with a discernible proportion of local ownership and entrepreneurship, directly or through joint venture ownerships.
President Mkapa emphasized that proper regulation of a market economy had to include an institutional framework against corruption, and the application of the principle of tripartism between the government, employers and unionized labour in policy formulation and legislation.17
He was blunt in his assessment and analysis of Africa's predicament and peripheral role in the global arena, and correctly pointed out that the international system built since the end of World War II on foundations laid by the developed countries, especially the industrial West, has frozen out Africa - and, indeed, most of the Third World - and was established without any participation by any of the African countries which were mere possessions of the imperial powers. This reminds me of what Tom Mboya once experienced when he went to London in 1960 to attend the constitutional talks on the independence of Kenya as a member of the Kenyan delegation led by him and Oginga Odinga when Jomo Kenyatta was still in prison. He said when he was walking around, one old English lady stopped him and asked him, "From which one of our possessions do you come from?"
Tragically, little has changed. Although African countries are independent today, theirs is only flag independence, as Nyerere once said, with their economies still controlled by the former colonial powers and other industrialized nations. And nothing is going to change until a new international economic order which takes into account the needs, interests, and aspirations of the poor and underdeveloped countries, is established with the full participation of all the countries of the Third World as equal partners in negotiations with the industrialized nations.
Otherwise the security of the entire world will be threatened by this injustice, caused by greed of the developed world which is sustained by industrial might at the expense of the underdeveloped nations. That is also one of the themes Nyerere articulated with magnificent eloquence throughout his leadership which spanned almost half a century, earning him distinction as one of the most influential Third World leaders, indeed one of the most prominent leaders in the entire world, who ever lived. And he died as one.
At the Third World conference in Arusha, Tanzania, in 1979, President Nyerere put in proper historical perspective the relationship between the industrialized nations and the underdeveloped countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, and offered practical solutions to the perennial problems these countries faced under an international system that was deliberately built to ignore their interests. As he bluntly stated:
"We are all, in relation to the developed world, dependent - not interdependent - nations. Each of our economies has developed as a by-product and a subsidiary of development in the industrialised North, and is externally oriented. We are not the prime movers of our own destiny. We are ashamed to admit it; but economically we are dependencies - semi-colonies at best - not sovereign states....
The unity of even the most powerful of the sub-groups within the Third World is not sufficient to allow its members to become full actors, rather than reactors, in the world economic system. The unity of the entire Third World is necessary for the achievement of fundamental change in the present world economic arrangements....But we have to do more than stand united....We have to work together; our nations have to co-operate economically. This is where the diversity of the Third World can be our strength also....We have to build up trade among ourselves."
He also went on to say that the underdeveloped and developing countries should co-operate in establishing Third World multinational corporations owned and controlled by them, to serve their purposes and to remain independent of transnational corporations - formed and owned especially by the West - which dominate the world economy. He also said Third World countries need to have institutions of research and development directed at serving the needs of those countries and developing their resources; and establish jointly-owned industries when the separate markets of the Third World countries are too small for the economic viability of certain production processes.18
Nyerere's status as the eminent Third World leader, especially during the last years of the Cold War, was enhanced when he was chosen as the chairman of the South Commission, a position he formally assumed in October 1987. As he stated at the commission's inaugural ceremony:
This independent international commission to examine the problems of the Economic South is the product of a long period of thinking and talking among intellectuals and other leaders of the South.
At the second summit meeting of Third World scholars and statesmen in Kualar Lumpur last year, the idea was finally brought to a head. A steering committee was set up under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed with the task of getting the project under way. On 1st September 1986, I agreed to be chairman of such an independent Commission of the South. The idea was then supported by by the Harare summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in September 1986, and early this year it was welcomed at the ministerial meeting of the Group of 77 in Havana.
Also, I myself and a group of friends and colleagues from the steering committee have been discussing the idea with governments and intellectual leaders in many countries of the Economic South. Today's meeting follows these events....
The Third World came into self-conscious existence as the anti-colonial movement achieved its successes in the post-1945 period. It consisted mainly of the countries of Latin America and the newly independent countries of Asia and Africa....Even now, some decades later, the common characteristics of what we call the Economic South are: extreme economic and technical backwardness; a dependency on, rather than a relationship of genuine interdependence with, the Economic North; powerlessness in making vital but underlying structural decisions which affect the lives of their peoples; and - save in a few exceptional cases - an intolerable level of national poverty....
The 1980s...have been a period of massive disappointment for most of the Third World. Standards of living have been actually falling in a large number of countries - which has inevitably led to social, economic and political tensions. Rising populations have meant that more jobs are required, but investment levels have almost everywhere fallen under the inexorable pressure of adjustment to a sharp deterioration in the international economic environment....
This deep disillusionment has now spread far beyond the intellectuals and political leaders with whom it started. For now it stems from wide and unpleasant experience, not from statistical and intellectual analysis. And it is reflected in great suspicion towards the prevailing strategies of development, and actual hostility towards the policy advice emanating from the international financial institutions and the creditor governments....
There is now convincing evidence that the economic crises in the Third World are in no small measure the result of a massive malfunctioning of the international arrangements which govern the flows of international trade, money, finance and investment. Over those kinds of arrangements developing countries have no control.
It is true that we in the South have made our own policy mistakes, and frequently failed to be efficient - or even effective - in the implementation of good policies. But our blunders do not account for the almost universal economic malaise of the world in general and the Third World in particular. One cannot gain a true understanding of the nature of the debt crisis, for instance, without taking note of the steep fall in commodity prices, the worsening of the Third World's terms of trade, and the general decline in the export earnings of the Economic South. Nor can one appreciate just how great is the debt burden for underdeveloped economies unless one considers the interest rates in relation to, and side by side with, the sharply declining commodity prices.
Further, at a time when countries of the Third World need massive transfers of resources to expand and restructure their economies, resources are in fact flowing in the reverse direction - from the poor South to the rich North. And at a time when the need of developing countries for additional export earnings is ever more pressing, their exports face new protectionist barriers - especially non-tariff barriers. Not surprisingly, growth impulses have sagged every year.
This harsh global economic environment means that debt servicing involves, year after year, an intolerable squeeze on both consumption and investment. This is an unsustainable situation, fraught with grave consequences.
Despite this reality, there is no sign that the countries which have the major responsibility for managing the international economic system are alive to the damage which the totality of their policies are inflicting on the Third World....Every effort is being made to impose on the Third World preconceived and ideologically oriented policy packages and perspectives. These are of a nature which will seriously undermine their ability to evolve an autonomous development strategy suited to the circumstances and the needs of the peoples of the South....
The North no longer plays its theoretical - and in the post-World War years actual - role of being a locomotive pulling Third World growth behind it....If the South is to regain and then sustain the momentum of its growth, it must therefore find new sources of growth within itself. Increased emphasis on agriculture and food production, and the economic well-being of small and marginal farmers, as well as of other disadvantaged groups, could contribute to this. It could, for example, considerably widen the home market for locally produced industrial goods, at least for those Third World countries which already have the nucleus of a self-sustaining industrial sector.
Even in the least developed countries, such emphasis on agriculture and food production is the only means by which any capital can be raised from internal sources, although this is not made easy by the continuing fall in international commodity prices....Co-operation must be multi-dimensional and must include areas such as trade, investment, science and technology, and the development of both economic infrastructure and human resources....
Giving a concrete shape to the ideal of collective self-reliance must therefore constitute a major task for the Commission....For the South, the North continues to be economically important because of its markets, its technology, and its potential as a source of capital. The Commission's stress on South-South co-operation therefore does not imply any lack of interest in restructuring the present North-South relations regarding trade, technology, investments and capital transfers. Nor can the Commission fail to concern itself with the future of multilateralism, and the promotion of an equitable management of global interdependence. In particular, the Commission must consider and make proposals directed at ensuring that the multilateral financial institutions truly nurse and promote sound development in the whole world - including the Third World.
There can be no running away from the logic of interdependence....The Commission...will therefore have to take a hard look at evolving North-South relations. In doing this it will have to recognise that unless the South organises and improves its bargaining power, its pleas for a restructuring of the international economic system are unlikely to be heeded. This is a struggle for independence and genuine independence is never given given on a platter. It is only when the South realises and develops its own potential, through national and collective self-reliance, that it will find an adequate response to the North....
The South is tired of being the world's taker - whether of import and export prices; of interest rates and political conditionality for financial and commercial transactions; of technology; of ideology and self-interested advice; and even of charity and benevolence. It is also tired of having its agenda set for it. It is therefore proposing to set its own agenda for its own action.19
In his subsequent speeches and lectures, as in previous ones about the relationship between the developed and the developing nations, Nyerere underscored the imperative need for fundamental change in the international system which perpetuated the exploitation of the Third World by the industrialized world. He was also painfully aware of the chronic dependency by the countries of the South - most of which are poor and underdeveloped - on the industrial North. These are some of the subjects he addressed in his speech to the summit conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade in September 1989 where he also said that some countries in the North have even resorted to military means to pursue their political and economic interests in a number of countries in the underdeveloped South.
He went on to say that the acute economic crisis in Third World countries forced them to be dependent on the North and made them very vulnerable to all sorts of pressures exerted by the industrialized nations; and were virtually held to ransom by threats of withholding credit, investment, economic assistance, and even denied them access to markets in the developed world, thus making it impossible for underdeveloped countries to sell their commodities and earn the capital and foreign exchange they desperately need. As sovereign entities, they were thus caught in a predicament which made their independence meaningless. And that is one of the main reasons why Nyerere talked so much about the need for self-reliance, not only within countries such as Tanzania, but also in the entire Third World.
Yet, in spite of the urgency for self-reliance within and among Third World countries, working with each other, Nyerere was also fully aware of the industrial and military might of the North, as he aptly demonstrated in his lecture, "The Developing Countries and the World of Tomorrow," to the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva in January 1990:
We live in a divided world. Until now the division which has received most attention has been the East-West division. The division is basically a European division, and the two so-called World Wars were basically European wars; but Europe is such an important region of the world that European wars spread throughout the globe and profoundly affect all countries. Therefore, although the East-West division is so European that until very recently it could be symbolised by a wall in Berlin, it is rightly regarded as a world division. And because of Europe's power and history, it is a very dangerous division. For this reason alone, I would welcome the current signs that this East-West division and confrontation is coming to an end.
But I want to welcome the likely end to the East-West division in particular because it could bring into better focus a more fundamental and more truly world division. That is the economic division between North and South, and the near-monopoly of international, economic, and military power possessed by the North.
The Economic North is rich, industrialised and powerful. It is organised - in the Group of Seven, in OECD, in the European Community and so on. Its members have the veto in the United Nations Security Council; only China from the South does so, and that is a historical accident arising from the second world war. Countries of the North control the IMF, the World Bank, and other powerful international institutions where the vote is determined by wealth. The countries of the South, on the other hand, all have in common, underdevelopment, powerlessness to influence the world economy, and - with a few exceptions - poverty.
While largely dependent on commodity prices, the countries of the South cannot determine them or, individually, even greatly influence them; these prices are set in the North. With economies which are highly import dependent for both capital goods and basic inputs, they cannot determine the prices of those goods either; these too are set in the North. The prices of both what they sell and what they buy are set in the North.
While needing to obtain capital for development, the South is exporting capital because of interest rates and international exchange rates set in the North. And even in this age when military power has largely been replaced by economic power as a means of domination, the countries of the South are subject to invasion, Northern-financed-and-controlled subversion and rebellion, and constant threats to their sovereign integrity. I only have to mention Vietnam, Grenada, Libya, Nicaragua, Angola, Cuba, the Comoros and Panama to illustrate that point. Can anyone imagine any nation of the South invading Luxemburg, or bombing the White House to kill its occupant, or planning the assassination of a European president, or financing the equivalent of the Contras?...
This dominance in all fields is now maintained and protected through the workings of the international economic structures and practices; these evolved and were designed in the North to meet its own interests and needs, and the North therefore fiercely protects them. But these structures and practices also help to perpetuate the underdevelopment of the South and its offshoots - poverty, ignorance, malnutrition and disease.20
He went on to say that for hundreds of millions of people in the Third World, hunger had simply become a way of life; basic education and health care beyond reach. While the North had now begun to talk even in terms of a new post-industrial era in which it would make even more advances, industrialization in most parts of the South had hardly begun. Basic communications and social structure, especially in Africa, doesn't exist in most cases, and the capital needed to overcome these handicaps is not available.
But he also warned that such division between the haves and the have-nots is potential for instability, and this instability can be maintained only by force. And that is the case within countries and in the international system dominated by the developed nations. He further warned that despite attempts by the North to create a new international economic order of its liking, the North alone cannot bring order - any kind of order - to the world. Genuine order is a product of justice, and no system imposed on the majority for the benefit of a few can be either viable or stable in the long run. "And change leading towards an end to poverty is now possible. The world has the resources and the knowledge to eliminate malnutrition and hunger, preventable disease, ignorance, and hopelessness. There is no excuse for the indignity of absolute poverty existing in 'tomorrow's world.'"21
Nyerere further stated that change was already taking place in the world, and was inevitable, because of advances in science and technology, and through structural arrangements by the industrialized countries backed by the power they have over the rest of mankind. The changes now taking place are a result of what are called the blind forces of the market, which is the prevailing orthodoxy in the North but which has also been considerably and, in many cases successfully, propagated in the South. Opposition to this ideology or doctrine by some Third World governments and humanitarian agencies because of its rapacious nature is strongly condemned by the North which even uses military might - let alone economic and political power - against small and weak countries which try to control and manage the inevitable impact of such global change in the interests of their own people.
He went on to say that even science and technology which could be used for the benefit of the entire mankind was being used as a weapon against the poor in the South because it was concentrated in the North. And the industrialized countries had no interest in developing technology which would benefit Third World countries and poor people because it was not profitable for them.
It is also for the same reason that they don't try to find cures for tropical diseases. They are not going to earn a lot of money for such cures in Third World countries. Therefore research in tropical medicine is not a priority for the West or any other industrialized part of the world. And Africa's chronic dependency on the West and other industrialized parts of the world, including mid-level countries in the industrial hierarchy such as India, for medicine and other supplies is a source of constant embarrassment and humiliation for us in the world's least developed and poorest continent.
It is also such a shame that African doctors and scientists have done little to alleviate our plight; they hardly do any research and have produced very little in that area and are partly responsible for our deplorable condition. Therefore we will continue to beg for medicine from the developed countries, as we also continue to blame them for their refusal and unwillingness to find cures for diseases which kill millions of Africans every year.
But much of the blame lies on the industrialized world which is also partly, not solely, responsible for the brain drain Africa suffers every year; African governments also have to accept responsibility for this probably more than anybody else because of their unwillingness to provide incentives and create conditions which would enable most of the professionals to stay in their countries instead of forcing them to emigrate to other countries seeking greener pastures and better working conditions especially in the industrialized West. The benefits, and multiplier effect, of the technological advances made by the industrialized nations are beyond dispute.
But this technological advantage enjoyed by the West also has had devastating consequences in Third World countries in myriad ways. And the prime motive behind any research done in the industrialized countries is profit. There is nothing altruistic about it. Billions of people in Third World countries are left on their own without hardly any help from the developed nations to help alleviate their plight. The logic of the market forces dictates that whatever is done in science and technology must be concentrated in areas which generate wealth and consolidate the dominant position the rich and developed North has over the poor and underdeveloped South. The industrialized countries have such enormous power and influence over the Third World that their hegemonic control has become an omnipresent phenomenon virtually on a global scale. As Nyerere pointed out, "even seeds collected without charge from the South are subjected to research and then patented - and sold to the South."21
And because of the dominant position the North has over the South, the underdeveloped countries do not have, and cannot raise, enough capital to fund research let alone invest in their economies to achieve progress. As Nyerere stated:
It is the poor South which transfers massive amounts of capital to the rich North. This has happened through various mechanisms. Thus, for example, the adverse movements in terms of trade between primary commodities and manufactured goods has meant immense loss to the majority of countries in the South, which rely heavily on the export of primary commodities for their export earnings. One estimate gives a loss for sub-Saharan Africa of 42 billion US dollars between 1980 and 1987! This is money lost by the poorest countries of the world.
Not concealed through the workings of 'market determined prices' are transfers during the 1980s from South to North through debt-servicing. Including both long term and short term debt, World Bank figures show a net transfer of 164 billion US dollars in five years, 1984 - 1988. The amount of this transfer in anyone year is not determined solely by the amount which the countries of the South have borrowed in the past. For, as Northern countries try to fight their domestic inflation by raising interest rates, they increase the debt servicing obligations of the indebted countries. For every percentage increase in interest rates, the debt service obligations of the 17 most indebted countries goes up by 5 billion US dollars.
And thirdly, instability among the exchange rates of Northern currencies which are used as international media of exchange has caused great losses to the developing countries, with the importance of this factor varying according to their debt and trade patterns. Visiting Indonesia in November 1989, I was told that the country had in the previous twelve months, made a net loss of one and a half billion US dollars as a result of international exchange rate instabilities.
All these transfers from South to North are carried out through the workings of systems and institutions. Questions of morality are consequently not applicable, for, systems and institutions are impersonal and cannot commit any sin. Completely honest people can therefore live with, and even participate in, these massive robberies by the rich from the poor without as much as a suspicion that they are doing anything wrong, and indeed while being upset and concerned about the persistence of poverty and injustice in the world.
Yet the immorality is there, in the injustices and the thefts of value from the poor. A bearable and sustainable world of tomorrow demands an end to this sin by changing the systems and institutions which act as the instruments of robbery. The Bretton Woods institutions and GATT are prominent among the international instruments used in support of these iniquitous capital transfers from poor to rich, or to place further handicaps on the efforts of the developing countries to overcome their poverty.
Thus, for example, the Bretton Woods institutions, intended according to their initially declared purposes to promote stability and growing prosperity in the world, are themselves now net recipients of capital transfers from the South. Further, - from the viewpoint of the South - they appear to have become effective Northern instruments of control over developing countries, as dominant voting power is used for political and ideological purposes.
GATT has a different kind of institutional structure, but in practice it too is used to serve the rich and developed. Its declared purpose is to promote 'free trade' and 'liberalisation,' in accordance with the economic theory of comparative advantage. I do not challenge that theory - applied among equals. But if I am put in a boxing ring with a Mohammed Ali, and both of us are told that we must play according to the rules of the game, the result will be murder, not a boxing match....
Human survival on this planet is incompatible with reckless exploitation of the world's resources, regardless of whether this happens as a result of poverty or as a method of maintaining and expanding existing lifestyles of affluence. Equally important: peace and security on a single and closely integrated planet is incompatible with continuous and institutionalised injustice.22
Although Nyerere blamed the North for the South's stunted economic growth because of massive exploitation of its resources by the industrialized nations, perpetuated by the structural imbalance in multilateral institutions dominated by the metropolitan powers, he did not absolve the South of all responsibility for its deplorable condition; emphatically stating that responsibility for development of the South is the responsibility of the South.
He stressed the need for Third World countries to work in solidarity and end their dependency on the North, yet made it clear that there was a need to work and cooperate with the North in areas of mutual interest and for the benefit of all mankind to end institutionalized injustice resulting from domination of the international system by the industrialized nations. As he bluntly stated, "I am not making an absurd call for xenophobic self-sufficiency. I am simply saying that the South can, and must, overcome its widespread sense of hopelessness and reduce its current dependence upon the North - particularly the North West."23
He also warned developing countries of the danger they faced in a unipolar world dominated by the United States after the end of the Cold War in which the West emerged victorious because of the economic collapse of the Eastern bloc countries. The developed North, especially the North West led by the United States, now felt that it was free to dictate terms to other countries, using its economic clout to force them to adopt its political philosophy and free market policies even if this was not always in their best interest. With the Soviet Union no longer on the global scene to act as a counter-weight against the West, there was no other power to challenge the United States, with the former communist countries themselves including Russia having adopted free market policies and other Western doctrines to develop their economies.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites meant that the North was now no longer divided between East and West but had become one and even more powerful. As he stated in his speech at the Non-Aligned Movement summit conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, in September 1992:
The East-West confrontation within the North has come to an end. But this was not the result of deliberate mutual accommodation among the Cold War opponents, for the sake of world peace and building a more just and peaceful world. On the contrary, it resulted from a complete economic and political collapse in the Eastern bloc within the North....
These events have had two very important consequences for all the countries of the South. First, they increase the urgency for developing countries to build national self-reliance and increase their economic cooperation in all fields. There was never enough money in the North for all the aid, credit, or even direct foreign investment which the Southern countries in total were hoping (and indeed competing) for. And now, such limited resources as the countries of the market economies of the North are willing to use abroad are being, and will be, directed more towards meeting the huge demands of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe than towards developing countries of the South....
Secondly, the triumphant West now believes that its success in the Cold War gives it the right (as well as the untrammelled power) aggressively to promote its economic and and political philosophy throughout the South. Directly, and through international finance and trade institutions controlled by the wealthy states, and sometimes by embargoes or even political intervention, the North is therefore forcing developing countries of the South to conform to the patterns which it designs.
Ever increasing 'conditionality' is applied to aid, credit, and even normal trade relations of developing countries; increasingly, conditionalities are being used to force us to adopt Western political systems, exclusively individualistic definitions of 'human rights,' and national economic management policies prescribed by the West. At the same time protectionism of different kinds is increasing in the North, and our separate weakness is being used to ride roughshod over our opinions in international negotiations as well as bilateral South-North discussions.
The reality is that the widening North-South gap in income and technological capacity is being used to secure Northern control over our development strategies, our political structures, our economic policies, and our military defences. And North-South dialogue on matters related to world governance - which requires equal and mutual respect among countries - is rapidly being superseded by Northern power confronting and dominating over the separate nations of the South....
Now that we are no longer faced by a divided North, nor subjected to rival pressures from East or West, let us invite all the countries of the South to join us so that together we become really a Movement of the whole South....The end of the Cold War means that a hitherto divided North is now becoming a united North. There is no earthly reason why the end of division among the rich should lead to disunity among the poor.24
Nyerere conceded that the development options for the Third World were constrained by the exercise of international power politics. Yet he saw prospects for a countervailing force if the developing countries used their combined strength - remember, there is dignity in numbers - to extract concessions from the developed North.
With all its might, political and economic as well as military, the industrial North could not afford to sever ties with the South. The South is the source of the world's largest amount of raw materials; it is also a market for manufactured goods from the North. And the countries of the South can use that as leverage in negotiations with the industrialized nations to get meaningful concessions from them.
But Third World countries have not been able to do that, or they have had only little success in that area, because of external forces and internal factors. Their fate even in this post-Cold War era is determined by dynamics of power in the international arena where they remain peripheral actors despite their status as sovereign entities entitled to the same rights as the industrialized nations.
Although the end of the Cold War ended the rivalry between the two super powers and ideological camps of East and West, which had direct impact on Third World countries where Western powers and Eastern-bloc countries competed for client states, thus dividing the South; the South itself was also partly responsible for the division within itself because Southern countries competed for economic aid and other forms of assistance from the developed North, especially from the North West which is the richest and most industrialized part of the world. And they still do so today, even without the Soviet Union on the international scene where many Third World countries played one super power against the other for attention and assistance.
The competition among them now is for aid from the North West, especially from the United States and other highly developed countries such as Britain, Germany, France and Canada. This competition among Third World countries for investments and other resources from the West is exacerbated by the interference in their internal affairs by the metropolitan powers which dictate terms to them on what kind of policies they must follow if they are to qualify for aid.
And as long as the countries of the South put their own interests first, as they all inevitably do, without coordinated action in a number of areas of mutual interest when dealing with the North, they will remain divided and make it even much easier for the Western powers and other industrialized countries of the North to continue to exploit them. Nyerere was fully aware of this danger probably more than any other leader in the Third World, besides Fidel Castro, and often stood out as a lone voice in the wilderness crying for equality and justice for the world's poorest countries.
When he spoke, the world listened. When he acted, Africa followed. When he died, the world mourned. He was not only an African and a Third World leader, but a world leader. As Newsweek stated when he died: "The world has lost a man of principle."25
He was not only "The Conscience of Africa" but of the entire world, and one of the most eloquent spokesmen for the poor who ever lived.
Source: Godfrey Mwakikagile, "Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era," 744 pages, Fourth Edition, 2008, pp. 438 - 478.
Soulbrother
JF-Expert Member
- Apr 14, 2009
- 405
- 17
It's evident, even a decade after his death that Nyerere's place in history was defined not only by his actions in this great nation but also in his efforts to liberate other african nations as well as unite East Africa.
Kwa kweli Mwalimu alikuwa kiongozi wenye upeo mkubwa.
Nina fahari nikisoma articles kama hii niliyoipaste kutoka The Citizen.
Kwame Nkrumah versus East African Federation
By Prof Ali A. Mazrui
One major area in which Julius K. Nyerere was a rival to Kwame Nkrumah was the arena of regional integration.
For years Nkrumah had been virtually the unrivalled voice of Pan-Africanism and the symbol of the continent's quest for greater integration.
On a more modest scale, Nkrumah had even attempted to forge a union between Guinea, Ghana and Mali. But these attempts at unification proved abortive.
Then in 1961 and 1962, it appeared that Nyerere was going to succeed in leading the East African countries to a regional federation.
By June 1963, the three heads of government in East Africa � Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Milton Obote of Uganda and Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika� felt confident enough to announce plans to form an East African federation before the end of the year.
But earlier in 1960, Nyerere had already stolen the thunder on federalism in Africa by announcing his readiness to delay Tanganyika�s independence until Kenya and Uganda became independent, if that would facilitate the formation of an East African federation.
In June 1963, Kenya was still not independent, but the other two had attained theirs. This time the clarion call was not for Tanzania to delay its independence but for Kenya�s timetable of decolonisation to be speeded up.
Britain was called upon to grant Kenya independence by December 1963 to enable it to federate with the other two sister states.
In this context Nyerere had become a symbol of African unification. Indeed he appeared to stand a greater chance of success in effective inter-territorial integration than Nkrumah had stood in his own West African ventures.
Predictably, Nkrumah�s reaction to the Pan-African developments in Eastern Africa was not polite or subtle.
He propounded a new thesis that sub-regional unification of the kind envisaged by Nyerere and his contemporaries in East Africa was in fact simply �balkanisation writ large.' Further, the enterprise was likely to compromise the bigger ambition of a continental African union.
It was a case of the good being the enemy of the best. And East Africans who accepted the minimally good achievement of sub-regional federation would no longer have the incentive to embark on continental union as a more effective bulwark against neo-colonialism and poverty.
Nkrumah pointed out that, by virtue of physical realities his own country, Ghana, could not join an East African federation.
In his view, this illustrated dramatically how discriminatory and divisive Nyerere's strategy was for the continent of Africa.
Nyerere responded to Nkrumah's counter-thesis with contempt.
He asserted that to urge Africa to remain in small bits than form bigger entities was 'an attempt to rationalise absurdity.
He denounced Nkrumah�s attempt to deflate the East African federation movement as petty mischief-making arising from Nkrumah's sense of frustration in his own failed Pan-African ventures.
But Nyerere was becoming increasingly sensitive to the danger of having his credentials questioned as a result of Nkrumah's attacks.
So, when in January 1964 he was compelled by circumstances to invite British troops to re-enter his country in order to disarm his own military mutineers, the Mwalimu was so conscious of his vulnerability to critics like Nkrumah that he immediately invited the OAU to Dar es Salaam to hear his explanation for inviting British troops.
So keen was Nyerere to protect his country from the stigma of neo-dependency that he was prepared to risk incurring the displeasure of Kenya and Uganda by going the OAU route alone, rather than compromise his Pan-African credentials.
Nyerere's unilateral initiative to invite the OAU to Dar es Salaam did in fact irritate the two other East African countries who had been similarly forced to invite British troops to disarm their own mutinous soldiers.
Uganda's Obote in fact expressed publicly skepticism about the utility of the cleansing ceremony in Dar es Salaam. Was the Dar es Salaam ceremony effective in cleansing Nyerere's African reputation? Keep an eye trained on this space.
Prof Mazrui teaches political science and African studies at State University, New York
http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=15785
Kwa kweli Mwalimu alikuwa kiongozi wenye upeo mkubwa.
Nina fahari nikisoma articles kama hii niliyoipaste kutoka The Citizen.
Kwame Nkrumah versus East African Federation
By Prof Ali A. Mazrui
One major area in which Julius K. Nyerere was a rival to Kwame Nkrumah was the arena of regional integration.
For years Nkrumah had been virtually the unrivalled voice of Pan-Africanism and the symbol of the continent's quest for greater integration.
On a more modest scale, Nkrumah had even attempted to forge a union between Guinea, Ghana and Mali. But these attempts at unification proved abortive.
Then in 1961 and 1962, it appeared that Nyerere was going to succeed in leading the East African countries to a regional federation.
By June 1963, the three heads of government in East Africa � Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Milton Obote of Uganda and Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika� felt confident enough to announce plans to form an East African federation before the end of the year.
But earlier in 1960, Nyerere had already stolen the thunder on federalism in Africa by announcing his readiness to delay Tanganyika�s independence until Kenya and Uganda became independent, if that would facilitate the formation of an East African federation.
In June 1963, Kenya was still not independent, but the other two had attained theirs. This time the clarion call was not for Tanzania to delay its independence but for Kenya�s timetable of decolonisation to be speeded up.
Britain was called upon to grant Kenya independence by December 1963 to enable it to federate with the other two sister states.
In this context Nyerere had become a symbol of African unification. Indeed he appeared to stand a greater chance of success in effective inter-territorial integration than Nkrumah had stood in his own West African ventures.
Predictably, Nkrumah�s reaction to the Pan-African developments in Eastern Africa was not polite or subtle.
He propounded a new thesis that sub-regional unification of the kind envisaged by Nyerere and his contemporaries in East Africa was in fact simply �balkanisation writ large.' Further, the enterprise was likely to compromise the bigger ambition of a continental African union.
It was a case of the good being the enemy of the best. And East Africans who accepted the minimally good achievement of sub-regional federation would no longer have the incentive to embark on continental union as a more effective bulwark against neo-colonialism and poverty.
Nkrumah pointed out that, by virtue of physical realities his own country, Ghana, could not join an East African federation.
In his view, this illustrated dramatically how discriminatory and divisive Nyerere's strategy was for the continent of Africa.
Nyerere responded to Nkrumah's counter-thesis with contempt.
He asserted that to urge Africa to remain in small bits than form bigger entities was 'an attempt to rationalise absurdity.
He denounced Nkrumah�s attempt to deflate the East African federation movement as petty mischief-making arising from Nkrumah's sense of frustration in his own failed Pan-African ventures.
But Nyerere was becoming increasingly sensitive to the danger of having his credentials questioned as a result of Nkrumah's attacks.
So, when in January 1964 he was compelled by circumstances to invite British troops to re-enter his country in order to disarm his own military mutineers, the Mwalimu was so conscious of his vulnerability to critics like Nkrumah that he immediately invited the OAU to Dar es Salaam to hear his explanation for inviting British troops.
So keen was Nyerere to protect his country from the stigma of neo-dependency that he was prepared to risk incurring the displeasure of Kenya and Uganda by going the OAU route alone, rather than compromise his Pan-African credentials.
Nyerere's unilateral initiative to invite the OAU to Dar es Salaam did in fact irritate the two other East African countries who had been similarly forced to invite British troops to disarm their own mutinous soldiers.
Uganda's Obote in fact expressed publicly skepticism about the utility of the cleansing ceremony in Dar es Salaam. Was the Dar es Salaam ceremony effective in cleansing Nyerere's African reputation? Keep an eye trained on this space.
Prof Mazrui teaches political science and African studies at State University, New York
http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=15785
Muibua hoja amejitahidi sana kuelezea katika upeo wake juu ya mapungufu na mazuri ya mwalimu J. K. Nyerere na kwa hilo namsifu hakika.
Na mtiririko wa kujibiana kwa hoja ulikuwa 'very fascinating' ambao ulikuwa unaimiza ujibuji wa hoja kwa vithibitisho nadhani tunaelekea pazuri kama watanzania, kwa maana ya kuwa asiye msomaji wa vitabu anawajibika kuwa msomaji ili mtiririko wake wa ujibuji hoja na uibuaji hoja uwe ni wa kimantiki.
Unajua kiongozi yoyote yule hili aweze kamili lazima atakuwa na mazuri yake na mapungufu yake. Mapungufu ya kiongozi yanasawazishwa na jopo lake la washauri, sasa katika hili tujiulize jopo la washauri wa nyerere katika nyanja zote za jamii zilikuwa na watu wa aina gani?
Labda kwa kuanza tumtazame gavana wetu wa kwanza wa benki kuu Mr. Edwin Mtei 'founder' of CHADEMA and aurthor of "from gotheard to governor" kupishana kwake na mwalimu katika mambo ya kitaalamu kulimfanya achukue uamuzi wa kujiuzuru. Hii haikuchukua muda mrefu kabla ya mwalimu Jk kurecommend kwenye taasisi ya fedha duniani (kama kumbukumbu zangu zipo sawa). Vilevile mwalimu alimuapreciate huyu gavana kwa umakini wake na kutoteteleka katika maamuzi yake.
Je ni kweli mwalimu JK alikuwa "haambiliki" kama wanasiasa wenzeka walivyokuwa wanasema, sidhani hila nachoweza kusema ni wachache waliokuwapo ambao waliweza kuibua hoja yakinifu na ushauri wa uhakika wa namna mambo yanavyopaswa kuendeshwa katika serikali.
Na kama alikuwa haambiliki basi ilikuwa ni katika hoja ambazo zilikuwa hazina uzito wowote wa kimantiki.
Cha msingi sasa tusiangalie namna tulivyojikwaa bali tuangalia tutainukaje kwa maana ya kuaddress issues ambazo kila zinapoibuliwa tunatishiwa na suala la kuvunja umoja wa kitaifa. Nadhani tukianzia (pasipo kuruhusu jazba zetu kututawala) hapa tutafika mahali i.e national dialogue
Na mtiririko wa kujibiana kwa hoja ulikuwa 'very fascinating' ambao ulikuwa unaimiza ujibuji wa hoja kwa vithibitisho nadhani tunaelekea pazuri kama watanzania, kwa maana ya kuwa asiye msomaji wa vitabu anawajibika kuwa msomaji ili mtiririko wake wa ujibuji hoja na uibuaji hoja uwe ni wa kimantiki.
Unajua kiongozi yoyote yule hili aweze kamili lazima atakuwa na mazuri yake na mapungufu yake. Mapungufu ya kiongozi yanasawazishwa na jopo lake la washauri, sasa katika hili tujiulize jopo la washauri wa nyerere katika nyanja zote za jamii zilikuwa na watu wa aina gani?
Labda kwa kuanza tumtazame gavana wetu wa kwanza wa benki kuu Mr. Edwin Mtei 'founder' of CHADEMA and aurthor of "from gotheard to governor" kupishana kwake na mwalimu katika mambo ya kitaalamu kulimfanya achukue uamuzi wa kujiuzuru. Hii haikuchukua muda mrefu kabla ya mwalimu Jk kurecommend kwenye taasisi ya fedha duniani (kama kumbukumbu zangu zipo sawa). Vilevile mwalimu alimuapreciate huyu gavana kwa umakini wake na kutoteteleka katika maamuzi yake.
Je ni kweli mwalimu JK alikuwa "haambiliki" kama wanasiasa wenzeka walivyokuwa wanasema, sidhani hila nachoweza kusema ni wachache waliokuwapo ambao waliweza kuibua hoja yakinifu na ushauri wa uhakika wa namna mambo yanavyopaswa kuendeshwa katika serikali.
Na kama alikuwa haambiliki basi ilikuwa ni katika hoja ambazo zilikuwa hazina uzito wowote wa kimantiki.
Cha msingi sasa tusiangalie namna tulivyojikwaa bali tuangalia tutainukaje kwa maana ya kuaddress issues ambazo kila zinapoibuliwa tunatishiwa na suala la kuvunja umoja wa kitaifa. Nadhani tukianzia (pasipo kuruhusu jazba zetu kututawala) hapa tutafika mahali i.e national dialogue
MrFroasty
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 23, 2009
- 1,195
- 596
Quote from the CIA report which you can find on my library on this link http://www.scribd.com/full/27004121?access_key=key-gxlq5460prmh25f5nst.
Mtakatifu Mwalimu ndio aliekuwa Master mind wa kupindua Zanzibar?Huyu si alidai havipendi na kama angelikuwa na uwezo angevisukuma visiwa hivyo kwenye bahari ya Hindi?
Waberoya
Platinum Member
- Aug 3, 2008
- 15,157
- 10,828
what was so special in that revolution??? there a lots of them in this planet people are talking about Zanzibar!
However, your article has no proof that was written by CIA, citing those references and the name of writer does not proof was the case in Zanzibar.
Leave Nyerere alone, if Zanzibar wants a 'divorce' just say it and it will be granted her accordingly
However, your article has no proof that was written by CIA, citing those references and the name of writer does not proof was the case in Zanzibar.
Leave Nyerere alone, if Zanzibar wants a 'divorce' just say it and it will be granted her accordingly
MrFroasty
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 23, 2009
- 1,195
- 596
Did I say there was a problem?...For a long time in my head, I was suspecting that Nyerere was behind that revolution.
I started suspecting due to the fact that most of those guys like Hanga, were linked to him.But as you can see that you already started leave Nyerere alone!
I cant leave him alone, the truth has to be told we are talking about a murderer here...he is not the so called "Baba wa taifa" ...Atleast not to me... 🙄
If he was still alive...he belong to jail.
I started suspecting due to the fact that most of those guys like Hanga, were linked to him.But as you can see that you already started leave Nyerere alone!
I cant leave him alone, the truth has to be told we are talking about a murderer here...he is not the so called "Baba wa taifa" ...Atleast not to me... 🙄
If he was still alive...he belong to jail.
Mzee Mwanakijiji
Platinum Member
- Mar 10, 2006
- 34,237
- 44,463
MrFroasty... matatizo ya Zanzibar yalisababishwa na Sultani; karne kadhaa za ukandamizaji ndiyo zilizopanda mbegu za mapinduzi. Nyerere na wale wote walioshiriki katika Mapinduzi walifanya kile ambacho kilipaswa kufanywa. Ndiyo maana yanaitwa mapinduzi.. siyo harusi!
Ndahani
Platinum Member
- Jun 3, 2008
- 18,158
- 9,181
Mkuu, dawa ya tatizo siyo kulisukumia chini ya kapeti...ni kulishughulikia.
Mtu kama Nyerere alikuwa anafikiria mbali na asingekubali aone matatizo makubwa zaidi yanatokea Zanzibar.
Ni rahisi kudharau leo yale waliofanya wazee hawa katika kipindi kile.Ila hata kama ungelikuwa wewe, unapoona hakuna tumaini lolote la maana mbele, ungeliweza kabisa kufanya vile walivyofanya wakina Nyerere, Karume na wenzake.
Kwabahati mbaya tunaweza kumaliza miaka mingi tukijadili kwanini hawa watu walifanya waliofanya na isitusaidie kitu. Tuna tunaloweza kulifanya sisi kama sisi maana enzi za Nyerere na Karume, zimeshapita.
Wewe mkuu unataka kuona nini kinatokea leo Zanzibar ili kuandika historia nyingine maana kuifuta ile iliyoandikwa hutaweza hata tukikupa miaka elfu na elfu.
Pascal Mayalla
Platinum Member
- Sep 22, 2008
- 59,019
- 132,759
MrFroasty, kama ulizaliwa kabla ya 64, nitakuelewa na kukuvumilia, lakini kama umezaliwa baada ya 64, kutomtambua Nyerere kama Baba wa Taifa, ni sawa tuu na kumtusi mzazi aliyekuzaa, na kama hilo liko moyoni mwako kwa dhati, basi una laana weye, na ukiendelea na msimamo huo, nakuhakikishia asilimia 100% utaishia kuokota makopo!.
Waliiongoza mapinduzi ni binadamu, nao wanawatoto wao ambapo wanastahili kuita baba, sambamba na waliangamia pia wanastahili zao.
Cheo cha baba au mama sio favour, ni stahiki, hivyo Baba wa Taifa la Tanzania liiloasisiwa April 26, 1964 baada ya muungano wa iliyokuwa Tanganyika na Zanzibar, na kuunda taifa moja la Tanzania. This is a fact haina ubishi, uutambue muungano au usiutambue, muungano upo na Zanzibar ni sehemu ya Muungano huo. Waasisi ni Nyerere na Karume, na Baba wa Taifa la Tanzania ni Nyerere, umtambue, usimtambue, that is a fact, na haina mjadala.
Wee endelea tuu, na siku nitakapofika tena hapo forodhani, nikaonyeshwa miongoni mwa waokota makopo watarajiwa, nitakupiga picha na kuibandika humu wana bodi wamshuhudie aliyekuwa MrFroasty akiokota makopo kuelekea MrFroagy!.
MrFroasty
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 23, 2009
- 1,195
- 596
Mie sikuwepo wala sioni kama wazanzibari walikandamizwa na sultani, kwangu mie sultani ni uongozi wa asili visiwani Zanzibar...hakuna tofauti yoyote ya uongozi uliokuwepo huko Tanganyika na sehemu zengine ambao ulijulikana kama "uchifu".
MrFroasty
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 23, 2009
- 1,195
- 596
Sasa mtu aliesababisha mauji ya halaiki kwa raia wasio na hatia, bado unahisi kuwa anastahiki kuitwa baba wa taifa?
Na hicho ndio ninachokijadili, Nyerere ametufanyia nini hata astahiki kupewa cheo cha baba wa taifa?Kama kuunganisha na kutengeneza muungano, basi muungano huo ulifanywa na watu 2.Sasa kipi alichokifanya cha kuitwa yeye baba wa taifa, Karume mama wa taifa???😕
Ndahani
Platinum Member
- Jun 3, 2008
- 18,158
- 9,181
Now you are talking...kumbe ni sympathizer wa sultan! Ungeenda straight kwenye point kuliko kuendelea kuzunguka zunguka na kumtuhumu Nyerere as if Nyerere ndio alikuwa amebeba bunduki za kufanya mapinduzi ya Zanzibar. Ile ilikuwa team work which shows ilikuwa na support kubwa ya wazanzibar.
MrFroasty
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 23, 2009
- 1,195
- 596
Home work for you:
Soma utafiti uliofanywa na Lula kupata majina na asili ya walioshiriki kwenye hayo mapinduzi...halafu utapata jibu lako kama walioshiriki walikuwa ni wazanzibari wengi au walikuwa ni gurupu dogo na wengi hawana asili ya Zanzibar au kukuwekea sawa si wazanzibari asilia kwa maana ya kuzaliwa visiwani humo.
Kiongozi mkuu nitakusaidia Okello ni mganda, huyu hana asili ya Zanzibar na wala sifikirii kama alizaliwa visiwani...sasa ikiwa yeye mwenyewe hakuzaliwa visiwani, wazee na familia yake itakuwa yote haikutokea visiwani Zanzibar.
Wewe lia piga mayoe na uniweke unapotaka kama nilikuwa kipenzi cha sultani au mimi ni cuf...mimi mwarabu au nilipenda utumwa...ukimaliza kulia rudia tena kwenye ukweli wa report hiyo ya CIA inayoonesha kama Mwalimu alishiriki, na kutokana na position yake kuwa ni kiongozi....ATABEBA LAWAMA KUBWA ZAIDI KUSHINDA HAO WABEBA MAPANGA!!
bernardp
JF-Expert Member
- Mar 23, 2009
- 619
- 918
Google result of the title.
Is this book really available? Kama kuna ambaye aneshapata copy!!
Results 1-10 of about 1,050 for SECRETS OF LATE MWALIMU NYERERE (0.35 seconds)
TANZANIA: SECRETS OF LATE MWALIMU NYERERE...BEST SELLER...(Brief ...
TANZANIA: SECRETS OF LATE MWALIMU NYERERE...BEST SELLER...(Brief Article) -
According to the Arusha Times, a book threatening to include all "sec ...
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-59877577.html - 47k - Similar pages
Is this book really available? Kama kuna ambaye aneshapata copy!!
Results 1-10 of about 1,050 for SECRETS OF LATE MWALIMU NYERERE (0.35 seconds)
TANZANIA: SECRETS OF LATE MWALIMU NYERERE...BEST SELLER...(Brief ...
TANZANIA: SECRETS OF LATE MWALIMU NYERERE...BEST SELLER...(Brief Article) -
According to the Arusha Times, a book threatening to include all "sec ...
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-59877577.html - 47k - Similar pages
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