Five Questions with UDSM’s Natasha Shivji

1. Since when have you had an interest in pursuing academia as a profession?

Academia seemed like the natural profession to pursue after having settled on History as a discipline of focus. Since my days in secondary school I was interested in pursuing history as a subject. My interest continued to take shape until eventually I took it up at the university level. A specialization in history can only be fully utilized if taught, written and read. Academia seemed like the ideal place for this.

While like any other elite institution the “ivory tower” is not exactly the place for the people, so to speak, it does give us the space needed to disseminate and produce ideas. I think the continent has been robbed of many things but the worst theft has been that of our ideas. It is time to resurrect these ideas using all the spaces we have.

2. Where did you pursue your education, and what made you decide to lecture at UDSM?

Well, let me begin with my primary education. This may help to explain where I come from. The first couple of years of my education were spent at Mlimani primary school. So from a young age I lived and was educated on the campus (UDSM). This shaped a lot of my thinking. I remember an incident: I must have been six, my friends called me out to play with them. Excitedly I begged my mother to let me go outside, but she refused because it was 3pm and it was just too hot outside. So I pressed my face against our grilled windows and in a forlorn manner said: “Siwezi kucheza, nimefungwa kama Mandela!” (I can’t play, I’ve been locked up like Mandela!). So I’m trying to say that we were exposed to politics from our parents and their friends at a very young age. The university was a vibrant place with constant discussions. As a child I grew up wanting to be a part of this. Of course I did not know how at the time.

My secondary school was done mostly at Aga-Khan Mzizima Secondary School and Waterford Kamhlaba in Swaziland. Waterford really exposed me to a lot on a personal and intellectual level. We had students from all over the world and I would listen to stories from Spain and France, from Venezuela and Ecuador, from Bangladesh and Korea, from Ethiopia and Cape Town. I think it was at this time that I became humbled by the fact that my formal education meant nothing in the face of the wealth of knowledge the world had to offer.

Nonetheless, I did continue with formal education. I did my undergraduate degree in History and English literature at the University of British Columbia and soon after I pursued a Master’s Degree on Islamic economic history at McGill University in the Indian Ocean World Centre with a focus on the Portuguese invasion of Kilwa in 1498.

During my undergraduate, while I had a yearning to see the world, I knew that my obligation lay in Tanzania. I am not professing patriotic tendencies but rather I believe we can contribute most to the place we know the best. I wanted to make my modest contribution to the country and the continent. Hence my education was always structured with the aim of returning back to Tanzania. I recall a time of some indecision. I wasn’t sure whether to continue with History or English literature. I love literature, I love to read. The metaphors and hyperboles of literature captivate me. While I enjoyed history, the kind of history you do in the undergraduate tends to be dry at times with the exception of a couple of courses. The decision in the end was an easy one to make since at the back of my mind I kept thinking what’s the most useful for Tanzania? What do we, as the youth need the most? Our History. Without our history we are nothing as a people, as a nation, as a continent.

It is for this reason that I studied Kilwa. Kilwa was once a city-state of immense wealth, intellectually and materially, back in the 10th century. Under the influence of Islam Kilwa traded with ports all along the Indian Ocean as far as China and the Middle East. The coming of the Portuguese, marking the first imperialist encounter destroyed Kilwa making it vulnerable to further imperialist attacks. If you go to Kilwa today there is nothing left, perhaps a few ruins of the old mosques which aren’t even looked after. Yes, we may be in a crisis today but our history has a different story to tell. A story of grandeur and a story of independence.

Having completed my Master’s I immediately returned to Tanzania and have since been lecturing at UDSM. Again, UDSM seemed like the natural choice given its history of intellectual vibrancy. Let me add though along the way we face many temptations to stay in the so-called developed West, to teach in their universities and before you know it you’re part of the intellectual African Diaspora if you don’t sell-out completely. But, we must remember historically, the West has developed by virtue of underdeveloping Africa, Asia and Latin America.

3. In your opinion, why do students in Tanzania choose to go to university even though there are many basic employment opportunities available?

Its all in the hope of a better future. I don’t like to generalize humanity and I don’t like to rely on instinct to derive reason, but in this case: I believe we always want to know more, to learn more, to progress. By this I do not mean progress at the expense of others, but ideally progress for others. I like this quote by DuBois-a great African American civil rights activist (1965): “One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and better life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly because, time is long.”

I would like to think that this is what many students are seeking, knowledge. The hard truth however tends to be that many young people are looking to be more sell-able. A degree and a good CV get you better, higher paying jobs. I am aware that this is the bitter truth, but even for those who come in with that thinking the university does provide many opportunities to give individuals the courage to express their ideas and debate the ideas of others. I feel this is important. The problem is not with the students, it is not with their mentality. The problem lies with the way our societies are organized. We are trained to think that life means selling yourself to the market place. Things don’t have to take this path though. There are alternatives. Some students come into university seeking a more human alternative and some find that alternative in the course of their university education and some…well some go on to be rich lawyers and engineers!

4. Does UDSM partner with other institutions of learning to provide education?

Yes it does. It has exchange programs with universities in the West. For instance I know the Department of History and Archeology has programs with the University of Minnesota and a couple of universities in Germany and Norway. Unfortunately though we are not making enough connections with our fellow African universities.

5. What is one recommendation you would make to the Ministry of Education?

I think the only answer I have for this is that the Ministry of Education really ought to prioritize what its title affirms-Education. This may seem obvious, but considering the state of education in our country, I guess it is not!

Natasha Shivji can be reached at shivjini (at) gmail (dot) com.