1. Very few people in Tanzania use the internet compared to our neighbors. Should we be alarmed by this trend? Is there any butterfly-effect from the discussions in portals like Jamii-forums with regards to a Tanzanian in Kilwa for example?
To me, this is a concern for long term plans, not a worry for immediate action, at least the infrastructural part of it. There is a big distinction. Before you get alarmed by the small number of internet users in Tanzania, you have to be alarmed by the number of people with access to computers. And before that the number of people with electricity, and before that, an education that could make a meaningful use of the internet. I used to work for an ISP in Dar, so I know people use the net mostly for email and surfing, basically people do not use the internet, mostly the web (the web is a subset of the internet). And the web is dying (Wired Magazine September 2010 has an interesting and audacious article declaring the web dead already).
People are using the internet for automated information transfer. Maybe you may say that is for developed countries with Wall Street infrastructures, but the Ghanaians are setting up call centers, the Kenyans are doing the same, Google decided to use the Kenyan shilling as it’s currency of choice in Africa, Paypal just extended it’s financial services to Kenya. How will opening up our country to internetworking help make Tanzania more competitive in the world market? How will the Dar Stock Exchange benefit? These are the things we should be making long term plans to address. If we make some bold investments to gradually increase internet accessibility, is there an actual demand? Or are we just doing a Dubai kind of investment in a manner of taking a wild leap of hope in the manner of “build it and they will come”? Keeping up with the Joneses? Where does the internet fall in our immediate priority? Do we educate our youngsters so that we can engage in the world economy with a skilled workforce and utilize the internet better? Or do we want to increase internet access while our people are ill equipped to use it?
I personally think there are things we can do immediately without prematurely throwing a lot of money to this specific enterprise. We (our government) can do a lot of things to promote our internet presence without directly engaging in funding wildly expensive infrastructural projects. We can start with education, especially promoting a technical education that will support and innovate the internet infrastructure, building investor confidence by passing cyber security laws and adopting a more investment friendly ITC policy. Some of these things do not have to cost us much, some confidence boosting moves could be as little as insignificant gestures on our part.
As far as a butterfly effect from online to offline, if there is one I don’t see it. I mostly see a disconnect. JamiiForums (JF) has a poll showing Slaa leading Jakaya Kikwete (JK). Slaa has 80% JK about 15%. And some believe this to be a realistic picture, representating the opinions on the ground, not realizing the JF picture is more like a negative (JK 80% to Slaa 15% is more likely than the other way around). Like you pointed out, most Tanzanians do not have internet access. I would go further and say less than 3% read daily newspapers in a way that will make them conversant with current affairs. Literacy rates are actually declining. Tanzania’s literacy rate is hovering around 68%, three people of age out of ten are illiterate. At one point we were nearing eradicating illiteracy, we even had classes for adult education. So we need to address that before we worry about anything coming from online.
Do not get me wrong, I totally subscribe to the idea of a new citizenship, crushing the gatekeepers, setting the narratives etc. But first you need to have an educated audience. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of one of the most influential political blog in America ( namely “Daily Kos”, up there with “The Huffington Post” and “Politico”) detailed all this in his book “Taking on The System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era”. But Tanzania can hardly claim to be in the digital era, and so all his nice blueprints are not applicable in a country where the radio is still a luxury to some.
Having layed that in perspective, I would acknowledge the unique position of new media and online blogs/ forums. The era of gatekeepers is over, and while Tanzania cannot make a radical change simply due to our educational and economical challenges, that doesn’t mean we should despair. That is far from my meaning. Print journalism could take cues from online media and be more bold, take leads and better gauge what irks the people – or in the case where the people have no clue, what ought to- so in that light there should be a butterfly-effect. I am seeing a couple of issues in print a few days after a vehement discussion at JF, I am not sure whether this is a small beginning of that effect, and that print journalists are taking cue, or pure coincidence. But if it is, it is too little and they should put to good use the best minds available online.
2. Why should a farmer living in Nsongwa Village in Tukuyu bother going to the polls this time around while this could be another year of politician yada-yada?
While there is a lot of political yada-yada, there is also a real chance to end that, or at least to send some shockwaves that the people are not so dumb. Our democratic process is not irredeemably lost (although it is going that way) we could still rescue it. To say that voters should abscond and abdicate their civic duty is to promote voter apathy, and I am not about that. I am not a quitter and I will not advocate for quitting that easily. While I don’t believe in a radical revolution, that does not mean that the people cannot take ownership of their country by voting and instituting organic changes. The Ghanaians did it, complete with a regime change. Wade won the elections in Senegal and changed Senegal forever. So the people have a chance to change their MP if not the entire power structure. So even if one does not believe in a regime change at this point (personally I don’t, although CCM doesn’t deliver there is no evidence that a CHADEMA administration will do any better for example, and there is some evidence that it will bungle matters due to inexperience and not having an adequate number of administrators) so even if one does not believe in a regime change, there is no reason why one should not vote CCM on the presidential ballot and choose an abled opposition MP to replace an incompetent CCM MP. My beef is that there are a lot of constituents where a thinking voter doesn’t have any real choice, it comes down to a Regia Mtema vs Sophia Simba type of contest, a lose lose situation. That is when your question becomes really relevant. But still in this type of situation I would urge people to vote, and vote opposition if only to increase the number of opposition MP in the parliament. But I would really want to see a bigger number of serious opposition candidates, and a more balanced power structure in the parliament. This will be better even for CCM in the long run, because the country will run based on competence and competition. The sad thing is I am not convinced CCM sees it this way, many people, even those who should know better are too steeped in “cheap politics”, completely with Machiavellian sweet talking, instead of focusing on the bigger picture.
So voting is crucial, if only in order to rescue competitive democracy, should all other indicators prove equally disappointing between the candidates. I wish the elections was like Pulitzer Prize Award, if there is no worthy book in a particular year, the award is not given, but that is not the case and one has to work with the limited options given.
3. Should personal matters (love-life) of an electoral candidate be an issue for voters to judge his/her work-ethic or character?
Generally I tend to be liberal, at least socially. So for example I wouldn’t say an unmarried person is not qualified to be president. Marital status is fundamentally immaterial to the execution of the office of the president. I personally think Mr. Ibrahim Lipumba has a lot of economic acumen that could do the country good, I just don’t think he has the right organizational skills and the party he is running under does not have clout in Tanzania mainland.
Having said that, there are matters of common decency which would cloud a candidate’s chances with me. I am having a lot of trouble with the recent developments revealing that Dr. Slaa is in a familial situation with a married woman, worse still there are reports that he introduced her as his wife. The moral question is damaging enough, but then there is the added dimension of honesty to his constituents. One simply cannot ignore these things. And even if one wanted to ignore these matters as “personal matters” they clearly show that the candidate “is not ready for the prime time”.
I realize there is an element of politics in the manner and timing these issues are brought up, but all the same, the question at hand is are these things true ? What kind of value system is a certain candidate purpoting to represent? What is the one he is actually living?
There is always a chance to turn apologetic on behalf of someone you idolize on his personal transgression. When Elijah Muhammad, leader of “The Nation of Islam” was revealed to have fathered a number of children with his female congregants, Malcolm X was ready to invoke a prophetic and predestined fate and excuse Muhammad scott free, but further examinations enabled him to see the hypocrisy.
I am more outraged by the hypocrisy than the moral shortcoming. Give me a presidential candidate that acknowledges upfront that he is not married and cannot promise to follow his Christian / Islamic vows, and I will not hold him responsible for things he did not purport to uphold. Give me a candidate who claims he is married while he is not, I will begin to question whether all of his election promises and declarations are genuine or part of the same Machiavellian scheme.
4. How can Tanzania break-from the usual party-based politics and focus on issues and facts at the foremost and party loyalty last?
I can argue that Tanzania does not have this issue, simply because it does not have a functioning opposition. Which parties ? Did you take a look at the parliament ( exclude the Zanzibari CCM/ CUF even split, there you have a genuine issue, not mainland).
The problem is, you hear a few intellectuals here, a few urbanites there, and you think you have a partisanship issue. How can you say you have a partisanship issue when you don’t even have a problem passing your issues in the parliament? If you want to see partisanship issues look at Obama and the Democratic party. The Republicans are against him, the Tea Party is wildly against him, even the liberals are against him because they think he is not doing enough. You see a lot of his supporters who actually voted for him backing away now (even Ariana Huffington has a recent piece ripping him apart with scant praise). It support. The days of single party are over and this is a fact of life.
Party-based politics are the engine driving multi-party politics. I am more concerned by the fact that we do not have genuine party based politics (politics in the positive sense of a philosophy of governance), because we don’t have a strong opposition, and we are not policy based. If this was your question, then we need to gravitate more towards establishing institutions than going through the motions of doing so. We need to build a middle class that will take ownership of issues and pioneer grassroot organizations. And no we cannot revolve in this classless society utopia any longer, the only classless society is one in which everybody is poor, and I would rather see a balanced inequality that is slowly pulling people out of poverty than a classless society that is in abject poverty. If one person in the village builds a good house, the aspiration should be to have more people build equally good houses, not tear that one down so everybody is in a mudhouse.
So we need to build a middle class, which will be adequately educated to engage in the issues and adopt a wide range of positions which will necessitate some true bottom up parties, not the current top down charades.
5. What would a great statesman do had Tanzania have one?
If I knew the answer to that I would be a great statesman myself.
I think top on the list is to build self sufficiency and a competitive edge. Mainly through tackling graft and the now rampant corruption, and putting the funds into a self sustaining economy. Building an infrastructure that will tap the potentials of our country, take away all the jokers and build a disciplined merit based system. Rebuild confidence among the people – by actions, not words – is key. I talked a lot about education, so I would like to see we build the capacity to further our nations workforce. We also have to stop playing around with this “Ujamaa” hypocrisy and stop sitting on the fences, the cold war is over and this is only serving to send ambiguous signals to foreign investors. We need a whole lot of reforms, from land reforms to leadership ethics reforms that are clouded by the spectre of ujamaa to the detriment of our economy.
Above all, no merit based system is complete without accountability and a bottom-up system. When a statesman gives the people real power, the people’s confidence in that statesman increases and they are bound to entrust more to that statesman.
You are most likely to find Kiranga’s posts in the Siasa page of JamiiForums. Click here to follow one of them.
Thank you for your thoughts, Kiranga. I am interested in your comments about Tanzania’s technical capacity in comparision to her neighbors. True, if we examine internet proliferation, we also need to eventually critically assess education, but what about creating “hubs” for the small number of software developers that graduate out of institutions such as DIT, for example?
As you’ve mentioned, Kenya has been successful in attracting the likes of Google and its investors, but I think this is because of the access Kenya provides to its budding programmers and developers to create on-the-ground solutions. Can we say the same for Tanzania? If not, what are the costs associated with the creation of a “hub” that incubates small-scale software development?
Excellent idea. I am for tapping whatever talent we can find within our country. At the same time, the amount of investment and commitment, especially from the central government, should be proportionate to the level of commitment and excellence demonstrated by the beneficiaries.It is only right since our meagre resources are in so much demand. So the questions arise, what can be done by these hubs on their own without outside assistance ? What needs outside assistance? The government has already demonstrated it’s fair share of commitment to ICT by slashing taxes on ICT products, this will feature prominently in advancing these hubs. I do not expect the central government to meddle in the organization of these hubs. I expect these hubs to organize themselves, attract sufficiently attractive contracts, and if a need arise to get governmental backing e.g, affiliation with governmental technology forums to lend them legitimacy, securing government ICT contracts etc, this can be arranged. In turn once the adequate capacity is built, these hubs could also function as advisory bodies to the government and institute a useful ICT and e-government at home, and further influence policies and implementation from an experts point of view. The government of the state of Massachussets decided to opt to use only open source software, replacing commercially available Microsoft Office suite of software with OpenOffice, in the process saving millions of US dollars in license fees, I don’t see why can’t Tanzania, whose resources are in a tighter budget, should not adopt something similar. If you have an advisory body with on the ground expertise, you can cut costs like these as well as introduce a more investment centred government through the use of technology.
There are a lot of upgrades and customization to be made. And surely, if the capacity is built and demonstrated, if at all our age old problems of resisting changes can belong to the past, a lot of these projects could be catered for with our local expertise. Our police is hugely under-computerized, and the situation is no different elsewhere.
My concern is, do we have this talent ? And is it sufficient in terms of numbers of people needed to tackle these issues?
Kiranga, mahojiano na mawazo mazuri — good arguments kama kawaida. Tumeshawahi kupigana vikumbo JF!
I would like to dig into the last question/your answer. Looking around, do we have a ‘potential leader’ who could take Tanzania at least a step further? I mean, we are at least 10-15 years away from policy-based politics; where we can hold our MPs, ministers and even the President accountable… Or am I just too optimistic to even start thinking CCM would be coming up with ideas to make significant (constitutional) amendments?
Being a typical pragmatist man, it’s the last question which really caught my eye, Kiranga pulled no punches by stressing on accountability, people’s power and building on infrastructure so we can tap on it.
Without these, our people will continue to struggle and drag their feet’s to the next millennium. Sometimes we forget and take for granted how poor and sad our infrastructures are, we tend to look at those nice buildings and houses around the country and think that we are punching above our weight, our roads are poorly made with no consideration for pedestrians, commuter buses, taxis or cyclists. Water pipes, electricity wires and poles can be hazardly seen dangerously hanging around us, drainage system and sewage system is so horrible that it’s a surprise people don’t get poorly as we would expect. I have heard and read in most western countries, electricity poles, water pipes and drainage pipes are not seen at all, the west have dug them underground. I ask when will we do that? In fact we are still struggling to make them visible!
The sad thing as well is the diwanis, MP’s and Ministers see this daily, they live among us and still they are doing nothing about it! Apart from buying shangingis and 4X4 to counter that!
Sometimes I wonder whether they have selective hearing and eyesight!
Brilliant stuff Kiranga!
@Kiranga: I appreciate that you mentioned open-source software. What’s everyone’s big deal about using OpenOffice? It’s just as efficient as packages that cost money. I’m afraid IT departments across institutions in TZ are not confident about using open-source software.