Nyerere: Why should we remember him?

A conversation with my father

Nyerere. To some he was a leader, and a visionary. To some he was a teacher, a philosopher, a politician, or an idealist. To most he was the father of the nation who got us our independence. But the question still remains, why should we remember him, and how?

Narration of years, and mention of explorers and missionaries didn’t do much for me, I didn’t excel in my history lessons. In fact I could never get past the non-mention of our Tanzanian heroes. They say history is written by the winners, I really disliked the fact that someone else wrote ours. I didn’t know much about Nyerere or why he is celebrated. I never could understand the phrase “laiti mwalimu angelikuwepo”, so what if he was here today, what would have changed? What would he have done different?

In attempts to understand why, I asked my father the same question — why should we remember Nyerere? He told me to read a bunch of books, and being from a generation that reads text messages, tweets and facebook statuses that was a tough assignment. However, I managed to get a few things out of him.

How did Mwalimu want to be remembered?

When Nyerere was once asked how he wanted the world to remember him, he said, “I want people to remember that I tried my best no matter the odds against me”. His victory was in the struggle. He may not have succeeded, but he put his best effort and commitment to the struggle. The Struggle. For what?

In 1961, we were like an egg that just hatched, and turned into this little chick-the independent Tanganyika. This was the case for every independent African state at the time. Our leaders had the vision to rid Africa of the colonial regime and be independent. The struggle after uhuru was how to operate as independent states and manage our freedom. With our limited knowledge and our unlimited resources, how were we going to develop as Tanganyikans and later as Tanzanians?

Colonialists in their many names did not come here to help us. When they left, they left with their knowledge and left us with inferiority complexes and psychological damages. As Frantz Fanon puts it in his work Black Skins White Masks, “For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white”. Many can argue about this, but I find us striving for things we were told to strive for — civilization, abandonment of our “blackness”, killing and burying our cultural originality.

At a time where the quest for development seemed like attempts to be European, Nyerere’s philosophy attempted to define development taking into account our culture and social structure. Villagelization was an original concept and no doubt very Tanzanian. It was different. It was not a cut and paste concept from the western school of thought. It may not have worked, but the attempt was commendable. Finding African solutions to our African problems.  This is a lesson for our generation — to localize our solutions. For example if we are all told to eat a balanced diet, a society whose main dish is cassava will need to incorporate other foods found in their society to make a balanced diet, same as a community with meat as their main dish needs to find things to incorporate in their diet. The same concept applies for development. Undeniably, there are a variety of approaches that need to be accommodated in order to develop, instead of one uniform way. And whatever approach we take, we should not deny our culture. We need to think as Tanzanians with our own past and traditions. Our fate doesn’t have to be white. That is what Nyerere’s philosophy entailed.

We also remember Nyerere for Ujamaa na Kujitegemea. To most, socialism and self-reliance seem like contradicting ideas but they complement each other. A certain level of development can only be reached by individual effort, and another level can only be reached by cooperation among people. For example you can build your house, but you need to cooperate with your neighbors to build roads and develop your neighborhood. There should be a right balance of individual contribution with cooperative endeavors. Cooperation must be secondary to individual effort. To cooperate, individuals need to bring something to the table to work with. The execution of this philosophy may have failed, but its spirit cannot be missed.  If we ignore self-reliance, then even with our independence we are still not free. As evidence, we have invited colonialists to come back in sugar-coated names: investors, development partners, foreign donors. We have not really transformed, but rather rebranded colonialists with more user-friendly names. Nyerere’s struggle for true independence through self-reliance should be remembered.

He is also remembered for his selfless character. Now even people that dodged history classes know this fact, and perhaps it was his devotion to the people and to Tanzania that touch people the most. There are many leaders that are forgotten, that died for our land and our freedom. For example the 65 chiefs that were hung for fighting the Germans in the Maji Maji war. True Heroes. But there aren’t many leaders that lived and still served the people. In this era of selfishness, Nyerere is most remembered for putting the welfare of the majority first. He did not, though he could have, accumulate wealth for himself. He was honest. He served the people unlike our corrupt, hands in their mouths first, so-called leaders of today. With no vision beyond their own bellies, development ends with their own personal advancement.  They don’t care how many generations they sacrifice when they sell us out. They care in their political talk, but never walk the talk. We remember Nyerere for his devotion to the service of the people.

Nyerere was a smart man. He managed his army well. He was a visionary and perhaps his ideals didn’t translate well in our Tanzanian reality, but he tried his best no matter the odds, and they were many. His selfless character is rare, and truth be told he was no economist. Was life better then, than it is now? I don’t know, I was born way after his time. But he left something we can use in our time, his life. His life is an example this generation can learn from. If he were here, he would have tried his best to serve the people. Therefore, as we remember him, we must all try our best to do our part, as individuals in our own lives, and in our different responsibilities, as part of parastatals, corporations, cooperatives, NGO’s, governmental institutions, local governments, or whatever levels at which we serve the country. When we are supposed to come up with questions or solutions, we should do away with our usual cut and paste from somewhere. Kudesa. When we are voted to lead, we should have a vision. We should work hard and honestly to develop ourselves and our country.

This month, let us remember Nyerere the way he wanted to be remembered, “As a man who tried his best”. Let us remember him for playing his part in the struggle for independence, and weather he failed or not, let us all learn from his legacy and play our part in our current struggle for development.

Related posts and links:

• www.juliusnyerere.info
• Education for Self-reliance
• A Wealth of Knowledge
• This Revolution Will Not Be Televised
• The Life and Times of Hamza Mwapachu
• The Death of A Prime Minister