Julius Nyerere and t..

526 Pages·2008·2.79 MB·English

i
Julius Nyerere and the Establishment
of Sovereignty in Tanganyika

By
Paul Bjerk

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(History)
at the
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
2008
ii

© Copyright by Paul K. Bjerk, 2008
All Rights Reserved
i

Abstract:
Julius Nyerere and the Establishment of Sovereignty in Tanganyika
By Paul Bjerk
Under the supervision of Professor Thomas Spear
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Julius Nyerere is commonly known as an idealistic, if naïve, politician who led
Tanganyika to a peaceful independence in 1961 at the helm of the Tanganyika African
National Union (TANU) and then turned the country into an influential presence on the
international stage with his ideology of African Socialism while driving it into poverty
with misguided economic policies and forced villagization. This ubiquitous narrative is
driven by the modernization thesis, highlighting Nyerere’s failure to bring democracy and
development. A revisisionist thesis is needed. The intellectual vectors of his era suggest
that the first task at hand was to establish a credible sovereignty, and that Nyerere's
success in this task during the first years of independence made possible the half century
of internal peace that has followed.
The establishment of sovereignty in Tanganyika entailed a proactive engagement
with both African and European conceptions of sovereign authority. The consensual urge
toward unified authority that marked pre-colonial politics in the region, the allocation of
land as an attribute of political authority, and the organization of political authority
through age-graded social structures all found expression in Nyerere's policies—in the
ii
one-party system, villagization, and military reform. At the same time, the Utilitarian
philosophy that shaped British colonialism and the United Nations upset textbook notions
of sovereign authority. Nyerere's policies and rhetoric simultaneously addressed both
local cultural concerns as well as the demands of membership in the international
community.
Equally Nyerere understood that the laws and structures established at
independence would serve as a repository for the egalitarian and non-racial ideology that
he believed was the only path towards stable nationhood for Tanganyika. Nyerere
cautiously exercised government authority in support of an energetic political campaign
to marginalize a restive labor movement and bitter racialist sentiment. His most
unabashed use of executive authority, after the army mutiny of 1964, came only after
evidence emerged of a targeted plot by racialist elements within the labor movement to
violently overthrow the government, an act that would have undermined prospects for
both democracy and development.
iii

Dedicated to Emmanuel Mwachang’a
A model citizen of Tanzania
1931 – 2008
iv

The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth,
does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as
though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all
things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted
the times of their existence and the boundaries of where they would live, so they would
search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from
each one of us.1

Acts 17:24-27

We in Tanganyika do not believe that mankind has yet discovered ultimate truth—in any
field. We do not wish to act as if we did have such a belief. We wish to contribute to
Man’s development if we can, but we do not claim to have any ‘solution’; our only claim
is that we intend to grope forward in the dark, towards a goal so distant that even the real
understanding of it is beyond us—towards, in other words, the best that man can
become.2

Julius K. Nyerere

1 The Book of Acts 17: 24-27 [THIS IS NRSV --NEEDS the Revised Standard Version (1946)
2 Julius Nyerere, Speech at the Opening of Kivukoni College, July 29, 1961, reprinted in Julius Nyerere,
Freedom and Unity: A Selection form Writings and Speeches, 1952-65 (London: Oxford University Press,
1967), 119.
v
Table of Contents

ABSTRACT:..........................................................................................................................................................I
TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................................................................................V
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.....................................................................................................................................VII
1. INTRODUCTION: A CITY OF RUMOURS.............................................................................................1
DECOLONIZATION, VIOLENCE, AND THE REGIONAL CONTEXT.......................................................................5
RUMOR AS A THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE..........................................................................................................14
A REVISIONIST THESIS....................................................................................................................................22
THE ADVENT OF INDEPENDENCE IN TANGANYIKA........................................................................................31
INHERITED AUTHORITIES.........................................................................................................................35
2. THE QUESTION OF POST-COLONIAL SOVEREIGNTY.................................................................37
LOCAL IMAGES OF SOVEREIGNTY...................................................................................................................38
THE UNSTABLE IDEOLOGY OF SOVEREIGNTY................................................................................................50
TRUSTEESHIP AND NATIONHOOD....................................................................................................................57
DISCIPLINING THE NATION..............................................................................................................................61
3. LAND AS AN ARCHIVE FOR GOVERNANCE....................................................................................81
RUMORS OF FREEHOLD IN COLONIAL TANGANYIKA.....................................................................................90
PHYSICAL SPACE AS A TOKEN OF SOCIAL PLACE........................................................................................100
“THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DISCUSSION ABOUT THE NYARUBANJA TENURE”..........................................105
THE CHIEF AND THE DISTRICT COMMISSIONER...........................................................................................114
4. A PERSONAL EKYARO...........................................................................................................................125
AN EVOLVING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY........................................................................................................128
THE POLICEMAN IN PICCADILLY CIRCUS.....................................................................................................136
TO PREPARE AFRICANS FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT........................................................................................142
THE TRANSITION TO INDEPENDENCE...............................................................................................149
5. THE ANIMAL CALLED INDEPENDENCE.........................................................................................151
GOVERNING LABOR.......................................................................................................................................161
RESIGNATION.................................................................................................................................................176
BUREAUCRATIC AUTHORITY.........................................................................................................................184
6. UNITY AND OBLIGATION.....................................................................................................................191
UNITY AND PARTY POLITICS.........................................................................................................................194
THE ETHIC OF TRIBE......................................................................................................................................203
CITIZEN AND STATE.......................................................................................................................................215
SUPPRESSING RACIALISM AND OPPOSITION.................................................................................................219
7. CULTIVATING A NATIONAL ETHIC.................................................................................................231
LAND AT THE HEART OF FAMILYHOOD........................................................................................................237
UJAMAA AND THE IDEOLOGICAL UPPER HAND............................................................................................245
UJAMAA AS SACRAMENTAL SOVEREIGNTY..................................................................................................252
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SOVEREIGNTY.........................................................................................261
8. FEDERATION FOR LIBERATION........................................................................................................263
vi
TANZANIA AND AFRICAN FOREIGN POLICY.................................................................................................266
THE LIBERATION OF SOUTHERN AFRICA......................................................................................................271
South Africa..............................................................................................................................................272
Mozambique..............................................................................................................................................276
Northern and Southern Rhodesia............................................................................................................280
RUANDA-URUNDI AND EAST AFRICAN FEDERATION..................................................................................290
FOREIGN AID AND DIPLOMACY....................................................................................................................301
CHAMPION OF AFRICAN RIGHTS AND UNITY...............................................................................................310
9. A COUP D’ETAT AND A COUP DE GRÂCE......................................................................................317
AFRICANIZATION IN THE TANGANYIKA RIFLES...........................................................................................318
A WEEK IN THE BALANCE.............................................................................................................................326
January 20................................................................................................................................................326
January 21................................................................................................................................................333
January 22................................................................................................................................................339
January 23................................................................................................................................................343
January 24................................................................................................................................................346
January 25................................................................................................................................................351
THE COUNTRY OF THE NATION OF TANGANYIKA........................................................................................355
10. POLICE OF THE NATION....................................................................................................................363
YOUTH AND THE SOCIALIZATION OF GOVERNANCE....................................................................................370
AN ARMY IN EMBRYO...................................................................................................................................379
THE ARMY TO BUILD THE NATION...............................................................................................................390
11. SETTLEMENT SCHEMES AND THE SEEDS OF GOVERNANCE.............................................403
VIHAMBA AND VIJIJI......................................................................................................................................417
THE MODEL OF THE ISRAELI MOSHAV.........................................................................................................425
12. CONCLUSION: THE CREATION OF TANZANIA..........................................................................431
THE PRICE OF SOCIAL LIVING.......................................................................................................................446
APPENDIX I: THE TANZANIAN STATE IN SCHOLARSHIP............................................................459
THE POLITICS OF GOVERNANCE....................................................................................................................469
FRAMING POST-COLONIAL HISTORY............................................................................................................487
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................................................................495
ARCHIVAL SOURCES......................................................................................................................................495
Portugal....................................................................................................................................................495
Tanzania....................................................................................................................................................495
United Kingdom.......................................................................................................................................495
United States.............................................................................................................................................495
WORKS CITED................................................................................................................................................495
vii
Acknowledgments
A PhD degree is a long journey prone to isolation, and I would like to thank
everyone who walked with me. It’s hard to know where to start. Perhaps apologies are
in order, I’ve not been a very civilized person during these years. But I am proud of the
result; this is what I aimed to do, and I do wish to thank all those who made it possible.
My parents deserve thanks for raising a young man both studious and
adventurous, and just cautious enough to manage them both and destroy neither. They
guided me on a good path and caught me when I fell. Secondly I might thank Gary
Langness and the other folks at Augustana Lutheran Church who put me on the path to
Tanzania in the first place. It was a life-changing journey that has blessed me a million
times over. The community of people I encountered in Iringa showed me a glimpse of
heaven, the kingdom that is in our midst. I wish to thank the scholars and students of
Tumaini University; it was a privilege to be a part of those early years. I wish to thank
Arne and Mary Blomquist and Bishop Owdenburg Mdegella who were the motive force
of that institution and the seed of the international friendship established there. Shukrani
Mbena became a good friend and and through his eyes I caught a glimpse of earthy and
laughing force of life that was Julius Nyerere. The family of Emmanuel Mwa’chang’a
seemed to be the world in which we lived in Iringa; their confident faith and generosity
were the embodiment of God’s grace. In particular I should thank Elikana Ngogo and
Mercy Chang’a and their wonderful children. It was Elikana’s bold ability to dream
pushed this project from idea to reality, and it was Mercy’s warm wisdom that brought
me through. They opened their lives to me.
viii
Wanting to write a worthwhile commentary on Nyerere put me on the path of the
PhD, knowing that I needed training to do it right. I could not have found a better place
than the University of Wisconsin and its storied department of African history. My
fellow students were people I admired greatly for their hearts as much as their minds, and
their commitment not to take themselves too seriously. Of all of these I am indebted
most to Robyn Autry, whose sensitive intelligence and unerring sense of taste made me a
better person, and whose unadulterated love for friends and family is the reality of
holiness in this world. I could not have asked for a better adviser than Thomas Spear, a
profound scholar and a great guy who bears his renoun like a rucksack flung upon a
shoulder while tromping through the Meru hills. He always recognized the best in my
work and efficiently dissected the rest to find out how to best put it back together.
Florence Bernault and Michael Schatzberg likewise “slashed and burned” their way
through first drafts during my coursework there, and both deserve sympathy and thanks
for the task. Finally, the community at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Madison kept me
grounded through six bruising years of having my head in the clouds.
Joseph Butiku, Johnson Rugoye, Hon. Nimrod Mkono, and all the staff of the
Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation took me in as one of their own and encouraged me
morally, materially, and vocationally on this project. They shared their time, thoughts,
and laughter with me and I hope that this work is a fitting tribute to their hopes and
dreams for their country. Through them I was able to speak to dozens of their colleagues
who had worked closely with Mwalimu Nyerere, and I wish to thank each one of them
who was willing to speak to me. It has been a privilege to work with each one of them,