Judith Mhina - Maelezo.
The highest democracy in the world was made and lived by the
first President of the United Republic of Tanzania the late Mwalimu Julius
Kambarage Nyerere, immediately after launching the policy of socialism and
self-reliance on 5th February 1967 in Arusha region.
This statement was
made by the first organizing secretary of the campaign against racial
discrimination and a founding member of the black regional action movement and
general editor of Crossroad books, during presenting her paper to a World
congress of Activist, Sexiest and Racism 2014 in London, Mrs Salem James.
Mrs Salem James said, Nyerere, on his book
of Arusha Declaration he foresee what we need to develop is people, not the
things, and that people can only develop themselves. The question to ask where they
are? At the village, villagers as a starting point of development let have
Ujamaa village in order to empower the people, Nyerere he said,
Quote
Ujamaa village are
intended to be socialist organizations created by the people, and governed by
those who live and work in them. They cannot be created from outside, or
governed by outside .No one can be forced into an Ujamaa village, and no
official at any level –can go and tell the members of Ujamaa village what they
should do together and what they should continue to do as individual farmers.
Mrs. James said this is a very big surprise
to me, we never heard such kind of democracy in our government even and nobody
wants to accept the reality. This is self government of the people and it is
pure democracy which never happens elsewhere in our government or in our
society but Nyerere does.
Most of people in Tanganyika were Illiterate
when Nyerere comes to power, therefore Dr Nyerere emphasis on how to establish
Ujamaa village by saying,
‘To make ujamaa
villages to be established and to make them to succeed we need education and
leadership’s are required. TANU has to provide, it is our jobs to must explain
what ujamaa village is and keep explaining until people understand. But
decision to start must made by individual themselves and decide to be part of
Ujamaa village must be made by each individual.”
This is entirely different concept the
world we know that from Dr. Nyerere. It is so desperate; it needed this
document of that idea of what we should be demanding and how we should be
relating to the authority.
Mrs James continues to explain that, my task especially on
Nyerere ideology was very difficult, because there is so much to say and be
documented I feel so in emptied in a sense there so much to say and I know
little about Africa, Tanzania and Dr Nyerere.
Since we went, we knew in 1995 we already published a book
call Strangers and Sister Women Race Migration. We didn’t know that Dr. Nyerere
has said a lot about women, until when I came across this document of Arusha
Declaration knowing an extraordinary man Dr. Nyerere, has said a lot about
women and gender.
To me it is astonishing, so many people call them feminist
they never notice what this extraordinary man had said about gender and this is
what he wrote in his book;
“It would be
appropriate to ask our farmers, especially the men, how many hours a week and
how many weeks a year they work. Many do not even work for half as many hours
as the wage-earner does. The truth is that in the villages the women work very
hard. At times they work for 12 or 14 hours a day. They even work on Sundays
and public holidays. Women who live in the villages work harder than anybody
else in Tanzania. But the men who live in villages (and some of the women in
towns) are on leave for half of their life. The energies of the millions of men
in the villages and thousands of women in the towns which are at present wasted
in gossip, dancing and drinking, are a great treasure which could contribute
more towards the development of our country than anything we could get from
rich nations.
Then Dr. Nyerere made a conclusion for
whole country of Tanganyika to take action he said
“We would be doing something very beneficial to our
country if we went to the villages and told our people that they hold this
treasure and that it is up to them to use it for their own benefit and the
benefit of our whole nation.”
‘I don’t know any head of state who talk about women works in
the world, through Arusha Declaration book I understood, these are the people who
most work in Tanzania. Mrs”, Selma states
Mrs James insists by said that, Mwalimu was
part of villagers, so he reel feels how difficulty the society is facing, historically
Mwalimu’s father was a Chief who married eleven wife’s and he saw his mothers
what they have been doing. This perception is very different from the world
thinking towards Nyerere ideas of Ujamaa villages. He introduces self
government of the villagers to do what they want in terms of using land for
production and development.
Nyerere in 1967 put forward quite a different formula for
development of Tanzania, he said
“We recognized we don’t
have enough money to bring the kind of development in each village which will
benefit everyone; we also know we cannot establish an industry in each village”
And this is true, it means he recognize the income of the
people.
Most political sciences experts said that, the
reason for the villagers not to develop is because they never decide for their
own things to do and the reason for development was not clear to them. Instead
some official government and party decide on behalf of them what they must grow.
Therefore the Nyerere concept added;
“No official or
government party in any level was needed to interfere what to do instead they
are supposed to decide for their own under it is leadership”.
What was done, in fact was thinking development in terms of
things and not people, as a result there have been very many cases where heavy
capital investment has resulted in no increase in output where the investments
has been wasted. And in most of the official sponsored or supported schemes the
majority of people who went to settle lost their interest, and either left the
scheme altogether, or failed to carry
out the orders to the outsiders who were put in charge and who were not
themselves involved in the success or failure of the project.
To support the statement made above Mrs. James explains that
Mwalimu perceived the poor women at village level in Tanzania who do
not have time to rest, he said”
“Although when we talk
of exploitation we usually think of capitalists, we should not forget that
there are many fish in the sea. They eat each other. The large ones eat the
small ones, and small ones eat those who are even smaller. There are two
possible ways of dividing the people in our country. We can put the capitalists
and feudalists on one side, and the farmers and workers on the other. But we
can also divide the people into urban dwellers on one side and those who live
in the rural areas on the other. If we are not careful we might get to the
position where the real exploitation in Tanzania is that of the town dwellers
exploiting the peasants.”
What a surprise the statement truly concurs
with the effort of Honorable President Dr John Pombe Magufuli who said;
“It is very
embarrassing we left women and elders to work in the village, while young blood
are roaming in town without work, I am not allowing them to play pull table during working hours. Let them
work for themselves and nation at large”.
Honorable President insists Tanzanians to
work hard, with intelligence for their own development and Tanzania at large.
HAPA KAZI TU. This is purely the policy of Self-Reliance which set; condition
of development.
“Everybody
wants development; but not everybody understands and accepts the basic
requirements for development. The biggest requirement is hard work. Let us go
to the villages and talk to our people and see whether or not it is possible
for them to work harder”.
Moreover, Mrs. James states we should remember Mwalimu for
being faithful for telling the truth even if a person might affect his life especially
Tanzanians, but due to his/her guilty ended to support Mwalimu. She was trying
to explain one of the interview Mwalimu had at United Nation after retired,
when a journalist asked him how he felt after failed of his policy of Socialism
and Self- Reliance on villagelization, Mwalimu replied as follow:
“When I left the leadership in my country 1985
the education system was better than now the illiteracy was 91% but now 1995 are
63%”.Also look at the Tanzania currency with all the aids from World bank and
your assistance who is the failure?
However, to support Mwalimu Nyerere statement, recently United
Nation Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has said Tanzania was an exemplary nation
in making education available to all. The UN chief made the remarks on 18th
September 2016 when launching the International Commission Financing Global
Education Opportunity report titled The Learning Generation Investing in
Education for a challenging world.
It
is very important to have a political will, together with opportunities and
financial resources something positive can be done in education.
Mwalimu will remain to be remembered by all Tanzanians, She
said. I meet met Nyerere family in
Butiama 2002 and surprise again the nature of Tanzania society is extraordinary
peaceful country, it is peaceful everywhere ,we didn’t know why was so, then we
started to find out .
May God help Tanzania to continue be extraordinary peaceful;
peaceful everywhere let them admire this gifted prize, which is the unique icon
maintained by the founder of this county, the late Father of the nation, Mwalimu
Julius Kambarage Nyerere and Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume rest in peace; Amen
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