Will the Reintroduction of Compulsory National Service Meet Its Objectives

[Gumiye]

Towards Mid 1990s, the Tanzanian government suspended Compulsory National Service which recruited mainly the young Tanzanians from high schools and colleges. In 1964, after the independence of Tanganyika, the government created the National Service army (known as Jeshi la Kujenga Taifa in Kiswahili , JKT) and later in 1966 required all youths graduating from secondary schools and colleges to join the army for military training and other national service activities. Our counterpart, Zanzibar created their own known as Jeshi la Kujenga Uchumi,JKU. By the time the compulsory enrollment was suspended, the service period had dropped to six months from the usual one year period. It is known that the late Mwalimu Nyerere himself and other leaders of the time served in the army though at shorter periods than in the following years. No wonder that some of us who joined the army fresh from schools happened to see older recruits who were forced to join the army from workplaces because for one reason or another did not join the army just after finishing schools or colleges. No vivid reasons were given by the government for the suspension of the compulsory recruitment programme. However, one obvious fact was clear that, the cost of operating the military camps were running higher each year with ever increasing number of school and college leavers joining the army while the government budget allocation to the army was gradually shrinking as the country economy started doing bad since 1980s. By 1988, when I was in the JKT, talks among military commanders at the camp I served were that, JKT was generating only about 400 Mil TZS from its production projects while spending many times than the amount each year. In the end, it seems that, the international donor community which was heavily financing the government budget exerted pressure on the government to suspend the compulsory recruitment or face cuts in donor funding. The JKT was created with objectives, among others to instill the spirit of unity, discipline, patriotism and physical fitness among the youths, serve as a reserve army and teach the young recruits skills of self reliance and generally contribute towards the national economy through productive activities at various military camps. These activities included mainly farming, livestock keeping, and the like, reflecting the policy that, Tanzania was relying on agriculture as the backbone of her economy. In 2007, when the current army chief was appointed, he told the press that, he would modernize the JKT. When asked on how he will do it, he did not elaborate further. I have no recollection if he later ever elaborated on his statement. However, having been the commander of the JKT before being appointed the Chief of the Defense Forces, it appears that he was obliged to say something on JKT. We may speculate that, he meant making JKT a modern combat army which would be a duplication of the main objective of the TPDF (JWTZ). Perhaps he meant to improve the efficiency and productivity of JKT in economic projects it undertakes thus make it an excellent institution to teach the youths the spirit and skills that would make them self reliant (enterprising) after passing out of the army. One may comment that, the rest of the objectives were achieved to varying recommendable degrees but have doubt on levels of achievement of the last two namely imparting the spirit and skills of self reliance and make JKT an efficiency productive force in its production projects. This is because even after passing out, the majority of compulsory JKT graduates continued to be job seekers and not job creators. They either went to colleges for further studies and later on sought employment in the government, its institutions and the private sector or jointed the later directly after JKT service If one has to do a postmortem of the past JKT performance, may discover that, low productivity in many of the JKT production projects in the camps was evident due to many reasons among others, big corrupt practices and small ones (popularly known as pororos), mismanagement of the energetic young labour force ( young recruits), and generally lack of clear policy guidelines to streamline the production projects in the camps. In an exclusive interview, with the daily news in past years, the Israel ambassador to Kenya who also served the rest of the East African Countries, while answering a question on why Israel which helped Tanzania in the creation of JKT similar to what Israel had, succeeded in its productive activities while we failed, he responded by explained that, after improvement of Israel relations with its Arab neighbours, they decided to separate the two efforts i.e Military training and the Production activities. He added that, we made a mistake by continuing to mix the two. It seems that it is the cooperative groups in Israel and other civil programmes that contributed largely in making the Israel youths and the community at large self reliant which was crucial in early years of the nation‘s life since its birth in1947. Later on, the military service was to a large extent meant to create a reserve army. In recent years, there had been a big push, within the government and from some of the members of Parliament to reintroduce the compulsory JKT recruitment for almost the same reasons that created this army. According to the plan recruitment will start March 2013, with some 5000 high school leavers from public schools. The other argument has also been to discipline the current educated youths who in the eyes of the older people in the government and parliament, do not have respect for the authorities and the old. Whether, the government will have enough money or not to meet and sustain the high cost of running the camps with the current huge numbers of school and college graduates who would be required to join the JKT, the question is left to be answered. However, some may argue that, though making the educated youths go through JKT is equally important but it is not the only way to instill the above qualities in our young generation. Patriotism, solidarity, equality, physical fitness, spirit and skills of self reliance are built from childhood through schools, religious institutions and colleges and are shaped by the existing social, political and economic pressures surrounding the youths. The Ujamaa and self reliance policy of Nyerere era created a sense of equality among the youths as the majority from different tribes and regions studied in same public schools of equal teaching standards and environment. The majority of bright minds went through these schools as they had the best teachers of the day who even committed extra hours of free tuitions just to make sure their students excel in the examinations. The youths learnt patriotism from the examples of their teachers. Today no parent with enough money to pay the high fees in private primary or secondary schools can opt to let his/her child join a public school because she/he knows that generally the teaching environment is poor and teachers are no so committed for reasons well known such as low salaries, bad working environment, lack of recognition etc. This disparity between youths studying in the private schools which are well equipped and have motivated teachers against public schools is eroding a sense of solidarity among youths and will in future create classes in the society. A six month military training will perhaps bridge the gap temporarily as they will be treated equally during the training but after that they may continue in different paths depending on the financial affluence of their parents. The youths also learned patriotism from the civil servants and leaders of the day who did not live luxurious lives while being accused of participating in big corrupting practices that involved hefty contracts, embezzlement of public funds, theft of natural resources, etc as we hear today. Some of these people involved in the above malpractices today are the ones who boast to have passed through the JKT in the past. So what went wrong with the patriotic and nationalistic spirit they leant in JKT. The answer are the changes in the social-political, and economical situation in our country after trade liberation which begun 1985 culminating in the abolition of the Arusha declaration and the ushering of the plural politics in 1992 without putting in place another mechanism to check the practices of civil servants and political leaders. As we embraced the so called liberal economic reforms, opportunities for making money came in knocking at the office doors of the civil and political leaders who make the decisions to give permits for investors and businessmen to invest and open businesses and exploit our natural resources. Without a system to check them the devil to make quick money and make life easy and comfortable for yourself and your family prevailed over the angel of patriotism and nationalism. Seeing what befell most of their fellows who retired diligently and honestly and endured poor life on meager pensions, they had to grab the chances by taking big bribes and bypass the regulations, get shares in the investing companies, open businesses themselves and do all sort of ill practices. On the other hand the wrong implementation of the Ujamaa policy in the long run had created a young generation that only hoped to be employed in the public sector. Creativity and self reliance is a concept of the past few years after serious political and economic reforms started to take place since 1992. Today things are starting to take shape as youths have begun to create self employment through sports and arts, opening small workshops and manufacturing factories, participating in businesses by importing goods from China, Malysia etc Participating in Physical sports and exercises that help to maintain physical fitness through mid and old age largely comes from one having been participating in such sports since his childhood through schools, colleges and in the home environment. If various physical sports are not made available and taught in our neighborhoods, schools and colleges and the right environment is not provided, how do we expect the majority of our youths to participate in sports and other physical exercises even after leaving schools and colleges and joining the work force and continue to do so in their mid and old age. A 4-6 month basic military drill will create a temporary physical combat being ready for battle. There is no guarantee that, this service man or woman will remain physically fit after passing out and joining the society in different places. The environment for military drill is not available in civil society. The frog jumping, pushups, crawling, rolling, long walks with backpacks, and running , hurdle crossing etc that are part of the physical exercises during military training are done under military orders and not voluntarily. Even if there will be sports opportunities in the camps, the majority may not participate fully unless they had the habit in their school or college life that may largely make them continue to do so in their civil life provided also that the right environment is there in the areas they live. How many JKT service men and women of the 1980s who are in the society still do exercises and participate in sports unless they are either in the military where there are regular drills or forced to do so because of health conditions. I believe there are very few and those who do so it is because it was their sport culture since childhood and school days. President Obama plays Basket ball as an entertainment and physical exercise because it is his culture since childhood through school and college life. It takes one year to train a skilled craftsman by VETA and yet he will need to get more years of experience to master his vocation. Yet this alone does not make him self-reliant but he is forced by the existing lack of direct employment to go out and set a workshop under a tree. Youths in Kenya and Uganda are said to be highly creative, confident and daring in attempting everything to survive as compared to Tanzanian youths. It is the social-, political and economic factors that have forced them to be so. Better education, Land scarcity and unbiased distribution in Kenya, years of capitalist policy since independence had made them understand that hard work and creativity will make you survive in the capitalist world. You will then find youths from these countries in Juba working and opening small business, In Rwanda teaching Kiswahili and opening businesses, in the Kalahari desert as teachers and running small businesses, In Iraq and Afghanistan as security guards working with private contractors. In Tanzania buying timber and woodpiles and exporting them to Eritrea and Ethiopia, exporting onions from Mang’ora in Karatu, making pool tables apart from being employed big multinational companies and international organizations and as teachers in many private schools . The civil unrest in Uganda in the past years exposed many Ugandans as refuges in the capitalist world and therefore they learnt the competitive skills of that part of the world which in turn they imparted them to their youths who are now doing various businesses in the country. The expulsion of the Indian business community in the early 1970s from Uganda created a vacuum which in the long run the Ugandans filled. The fact that since its independence Uganda’s economic policy had never been purely socialist, it gave the chance for the youths to be competitive. This means while we agree that JKT is also an essential institution in all these efforts, other stakeholders need to do their part in imparting the values we need from the youths which are also shaped by the surrounding environment. We hope that, with the reintroduction of compulsory JKT service, the government learns from the reasons for the failure of JKT in areas of productivity in production projects and imparting the spirit and skills of self reliance among the young recruits and put in place clear policies and strategies to achieve the above. Patriotism, nationalism need to be fostered from childhood throughout the youth’s adulthood enhanced and checked by the existing systems operating in the country. As for physical fitness, the military will do but does not guarantee that, the JTK graduates will continue to maintain the fitness in civil life through mid and old age. Building a culture of participating in sports and exercises across the whole society from childhood will create a healthy society which in turn create a sense of discipline, patriotism, nationalism, friendship and solidarity among the youths and people of all ages. .

 

[Iron Lady]

ndefuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

 

[Kitumbo]

ni makala nzuli lakini haileti raha kuisoma, kwanini usii-edit?

 

[dist111]

Mkuu ndio uandishi gani huo!