Greetings Gambia-l,
I am sending this mail again because I was informed that part of the text
was missing in the one I fowarded two days ago.
My apologies to those with slow modems.

regards,
Momodou Camara

              Published in FOROYAA of 25-28 October 1999.



                      THE BURIAL OF JULIUS NYERERE

                      The Criticisms and the Facts

On 14 October 1999, Julius Nyerere departed. He was 77 years old and he
died at St Thomas Hospital in London. Many heads of state paid respect
to him. Eventually, his body was flown to Musoma and transported by road
to his home in Butiama for a family burial.

Prior to his burial, critics and admirers utilised all forms of media to
state their various opinions about him.

It is important to emphasise that individuals do not make history. It is
people who build political, economic and social systems. Individuals can
influence the history makers either by giving them inspiration and
clarity to ensure that they carve a destiny under the sun that can
guarantee them liberty in prosperity or serve to fetter their awareness
and thus deprive them of the ability to be the architects of their own
destiny. Individuals can either be part of the problem or part of the
solution.

Hence, if we want to judge Nyerere fairly, we must identify his proper
place in the struggle for the liberation of the African people to
achieve liberty, dignity and prosperity.

We must, therefore, ask the question: Was Nyerere part of the problem or
part of the solution? In order to answer this question, we must enter
into dialogue with Nyerere. Unfortunately for many critics, like one Dr
George B.N. Ayiteh, a Ghanaian Associate Professor of Economics at
American University, Washington DC, and Ludovick Shirama, a Tanzanian
and Research Assistant at the Free Africa Foundation, Washington D.C.,
history is interpreted without relying on the facts which provide for
its basis.

To them, the Nyereres and the Kwame Nkrumahs constituted the problem of
Africa and were not part of the solution. They do not see society in its
process of change and development, but see reality as fixed; concepts
which lack contextual framework. Consequently, they could easily pass
judgment after assuming the posture of prosecutor, judge and jury.

It is, therefore, important to revisit African history and put the facts
in their proper context. In order to do that, we must also contextualise
the history of the world. Those who focus on Africa without focusing on
the world outside of Africa at each given historical period can neither
understand Africa nor the world.

It is very important to bear in mind that liberation has been a process.
It started with a process of identity formation with many Pan African
Congresses being held. The Fifth Pan African Congress of 1945 laid the
basis for the national liberation struggle which culminated in the
attainment of political independence of most African countries in the
1960s.

While the African peoples were struggling for independence, the
colonialists were struggling to impose their domination. They imposed
monarchies on the African people and were ready to go to war to maintain
their domination. It stands to reason that the will of the people could
not be the determinant of African Governments under colonialism.
Colonialism was a fetter to democracy and progress. Hence, the
establishment of democratic states was inconceivable as long as
colonialism existed. Hence, those who were the architects of African
independence achieved the first stage of the liberation of the African
people, that is, liberation from colonial domination.

Once liberation was achieved, the African governments were confronted
with the task of economic emancipation and the establishment of
governments which will give authority to the people and ensure that
authority derived from the people is utilised to achieve their aims and
aspirations.

The problem which these early liberators faced should be fully
understood before they could be properly judged. Take the two people we
mentioned, who claim that stadia, streets and all sorts of monuments
were erected in the name of the Nyereres and the Kwame Nkrumahs. Yet
they are writing their analysis from Washington D.C. forgetting that
monuments, capitals, streets of all sorts are named after the
Washingtons, the Thomas Jeffersons. They, who may be students of
American government, could have read about concepts like Jeffersonian
Democracy; yet history teaches us that George Washington was opposed to
the establishment of many parties in the United States and refused to
continue leading when it was clear that a multiparty system was
emerging.

Suffice it to say, he was never directly elected by the people, but was
elected by an Electoral College for two terms, yet he is considered the
father of the American nation and his memory is celebrated everywhere in
the United States.

Needless to say, George Washington owned slaves. The same thing with
Thomas Jefferson, who was the author of the famous Declaration of
American Independence. Kwame Nkrumah and Nyerere never owned slaves.
However, history permits us to judge George Washington and Thomas
Jefferson in a good light for having struggled for the liberation of
America according to the limit set by their time and circumstances. If
we judge them outside the bounds of their times and circumstances, we
will begin to question their greatness for he or she who transforms
one's fellow human being into a slave cannot be considered to be a
defender of liberty and humanity.

We must say at the time that the Kwame Nkrumahs and Nyereres were
fighting for independence, people in Germany were just emerging from
fascism and were trying to redefine their own identity. The Fourth
Republic in France also came into being in 1945 and in the elections for
a National Assembly women in France voted for the first time.

History teaches that De Gaulle resigned as President in January 1946
because of his disagreement with the Assembly. De Gaulle opposed the new
constitution which did not provide him with the strong executive powers
he wanted to assume. A bloody war was imposed on the Algerian people by
France and the French army which was being defeated in Algeria in 1958
rebelled and threatened to overthrow the government unless De Gaulle was
called back to power. History teaches us that de Gaulle became Prime
Minister and imposed emergency powers in France for six months. He also
gave birth to a new constitution which gave him greater powers and the
powers of parliament were reduced. In December 1958, an Electoral
College elected De Gaulle as President to a 7 year term.

When De Gaulle was imposing his absolute power on the French people by
the threats of arms, Kwame Nkrumah was organising in 1958 conferences of
independent African states in April, 1958 and all-African peoples
conferences comprising liberation movements and political parties
throughout the continent to prepare the ground for the total liberation
of the African continent from colonialism.

De Gaulle is, however, seen as a great leader by the French people.
However, our Dr George Ayiteh wants to consign the Nkrumahs and the
Nyereres to the camp of political bandits who robbed Africa of a future.

They say in their paper that it is criminally irresponsible for people
to accord the Nkrumahs and Nyereres the respect that is being given to
them by those who knew their contributions. We must assert that nothing
can be more criminally irresponsible than to give the impression that
the Kwames and the Nyereres were enemies of Africa without comparing
their contribution with those who were the original inspirers of
liberation movements in other countries or comparing them with other
leaders of their times.

In order to understand the Kwame Nkrumahs, the nyereres and Lumumbas,
one must understand the type of world that existed in the late 1950s and
early 1960s. It was a world of covert and overt actions to suppress the
colonised peoples from achieving liberation. It was a world of terror; a
world of plots; a world of sinister plans to promote the selfish
interests of those who controlled the world economy. They had
disinformation at their services to be able to manipulate the minds of
the people who were struggling for liberation.

In 1958, when Kwame Nkrumah was transforming Ghana to be a bridgehead
for the total liberation of the African Continent, the Ku Klux Klan
reigned in the United States. Black people could not ride the same buses
with white people. They could not sit in the restaurants or drink from
the same water fountain. In fact, Mrs Rosa Parks' defiance of the City's
Segregation Ordinance of Montgomery, Alabama led to a trial and
conviction.

Kennedy is seen as a saint. However, he presided over a nation where the
Ku Klux Klan murdered black people with impunity. U.S. Congress served
the humiliating role of debating whether to pass legislations outlawing
discrimination on the basis of race.

In short, whilst Kennedy was the President of the United States, there
were laws which barred black people from holding certain employment in
the conduct of voter registration and access to public accommodation.
Police dogs, batons, suppression of all sorts followed the civil rights
protest movement.

The world in which Kwame and Nyerere lived when they assumed office was
a world where people in the North and South were all kept ignorant. They
did not know what democratic rights were. All of them worshipped their
leaders. Narrow nationalism was the order of the day, and each nation
was trying to impose its power on the world.

The task which confronted the Nkrumahs and Nyereres were two-fold. How
to quickly deliver economic prosperity to a marginalised people who were
kept completely ignorant under colonialism and had no sense of
nationhood, but were in fact divided into tribal groupings and were
living under local authorities who behaved like monarchs above them.

How was democracy to be brought to such a people? By declaration from
above? Clearly, the task was a great one and required the decolonisation
of minds.

Furthermore, how were they to build independent national economies when
colonialism had reduced their individual countries into cocoa producers,
groundnut producers, tea producers and importers of everything else.
They were confronted with a situation where the colonialists had not
created any avenue for the local population to become owners of capital
so as to invest in a local economy.

On the contrary, it was the colonial multinational corporations which
controlled imports and exports, mines, plantations and industrial
establishments. What could such people do to create a national economy?
This was the rationale behind nationalization ventures, be they
ill-fated or not. If one studies the economies of Taiwan, of Singapore,
one would see that the state intervened in all these countries because
of the lack of wealthy capitalists who would take control of the
productive enterprises of their economies.

Our Dr George Ayiteh talks about economic failures. It seems that he has
not read Nkrumah who declared from the very beginning that all African
governments were going to fail if they failed to build a union of
African states. He told them that all their economies were controlled by
multinational corporations which controlled mines, factories,
communication networks, all the institutions which make a nation
economically viable, and that individual economies would not be able to
compete with these multinational corporations. They would invest where
they want to invest and deprive countries which they want to deprive. No
wonder foreign direct investment of 90 billion dollars in 1997 which
went to developing countries, only 2 million went to Africa.

Hence, what has happened in Tanzania constituted mere coping strategies
in the face of economic domination by the former colonial masters.

So-called intellectuals like Dr George Ayiteh have the responsibility of
examining this net in which Africa finds itself and come up with ideas
which can facilitate the liberation of the African continent rather than
engage in this empty quackery which those who controlled us yesterday
still occupy us with, thus depriving us of being the architects of our
own destiny.

Kwame Nkrumah had indicated that the economic Commission for Africa
should have been the depository of research findings and should have
been the embodiment of the highest intellectual standard that could be
produced on the African Continent; that it could have mobilised African
intellectuals who would be able to continuously provide knowledge and
guidance for the development of the African Continent.

The circumstances which surrounded these people limited their own
contributions not because they did not have the heart and the vision to
contribute every ounce of their strength for the liberation of the
African Continent. We, therefore, recognise the honourable aspirations
and our heart cries with them that they have gone to their graves
without seeing them fulfilled.

However, as Lumumba said, the history of Africa must be re-written. We
can assure them that a new generation is emerging which will never be
found guilty of not empowering the people; a new generation which will
eradicate the conception that the people need political messiahs in
order to attain liberation; a new generation which will teach the people
that they are their own saviours; that the role of leaders is to provide
them with knowledge, clarity so that they will know where they are going
and how to get there; a generation which will not only be satisfied in
establishing systems where people will determine their manner of
government, but will also give them power to participate in the
administrative life of their societies by forming village committees
which will take part in planning projects, developments of all sorts, as
well as monitor the finances, the resources, the tendering and the
implementation of those very projects on their behalf.

We will come back to this very analysis of the economic strategy that
Kwame Nkrumah had which was foiled in another analysis.

For the purpose of paying our respect to Nyerere, it is important to do
what we said should be done, that is, to engage in a dialogue with him.

                              ON LEADERSHIP

"Let me emphasize that this leadership I am now talking about does not
imply control, any more than it implies bullying or intimidating people.
A good leader will explain, teach, and inspire. In an ujamaa village he
will do more; he will lead by doing. He is in front of the people,
showing them what can be done, guiding them, and encouraging them. But
he is with them. You do not lead people by being so far in front or so
theoretical in your teaching that the people cannot see what you are
doing or saying. You do not lead people by yapping at their heels like a
dog herding cattle. You can lead the people only by being one of them,
by just being more active as well as more thoughtful, and more willing
to teach as well as more willing to learn from them and others."

This is what Nyerere said on 1 January 1968 at a seminar organised by
university students. Now, may we ask: Can this be the words of a tyrant?

                           NYERERE ON FREEDOM

"And equally, it is impossible for one people to free another people, or
even to defend the freedom of another people. Freedom won for a people
by outsiders is lost to those outsiders, however good their intentions,
or however much the outsiders had desired to free their oppressed
brothers. That is the nature of freedom; it has to be won, and
protected, by those who desire it.

"Of course others can help a people who are struggling for freedom; they
can give refuge, facilities for action, and they can give moral and
diplomatic support to an oppressed people. But no group or nation -
however powerful - can make another group or another nation free. The
struggle must be waged by those who expect to benefit from it. If the
persecuted and the oppressed have really been denied their human rights,
and if there really is no peaceful means of progress available to them,
then they have the right to demand of the rest of us that we should
support their struggle - and not join their oppressors on the grounds of
maintaining peace. But we cannot replace their struggle, and we should
not try. For if we do so we are not trying to free our brother; we are
simply trying to replace one oppression by a different one. It may be
less harsh, it may take different forms; but it will not mean freedom
for those who now lack it."

Now, may we ask: Can someone who wanted to be a megalomaniac utter such
statements.

                         NYERERE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

"There is a continuing need for an extension of human rights throughout
the world; that surely is incontrovertible. We cannot rest where we are
because some of us are comfortable or content. Those of us who are free
to develop ourselves and our nation have no right to demand that the
oppressed, the victims of discrimination, the starving, and the
persecuted, should acquiesce in their present condition. If we do make
such a demand we are ourselves becoming their prosecutors and their
oppressors. The peace which exists while such human conditions prevail
is neither secure nor justifiable. We have no right to be patient with
the wrongs suffered by others.

"Yet peace is of vital importance to us all; social change and the
improvement of the human condition must, therefore be made possible by
other means - means which do not involve killing and destruction. For we
do have a right to demand of our fellow human beings that they should
secure change by peaceful means if these are open to them. We do have a
right to demand that those who seek change should use every opportunity
which exists for peaceful change, even if this appears to mean the
slower progress of adapting the society in which they live rather than
the excitement of pulling it down upon the bodies of all - including
themselves. We must insist upon this. But if every avenue of peaceful
change has been closed; if people are made outcasts in their own
society, and denied any possibility of securing change through
participation - do we then have any right to demand our peace at the
price of their slavery?"

"Surely peace under such circumstances is neither to be expected, nor to
be justified?

"This recognition of the ultimate paramountcy of human rights if not a
justification for national interventionism, nor a call for some people
to attempt to free other peoples. No nation has the right to make
decisions for another nation; no people for another people. Some of us,
like Tanzania, may fervently believe in a socialist organisation of our
society as being both morally right and economically practicable. Others
may believe equally fervently in capitalism, or in Communism. But none
of us could or should, assume that what we have decided to be right for
ourselves must automatically be right for others. For the truth is that
it is what a people want for themselves at a particular time which is
right for them; no one else is justified in trying to impose a different
way of life."

          NYERERE ON JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY OF GOVERNMENTS

"Yet I wonder if there is any country in the world where it can be truly
said that no citizen is ever humiliated by the agents of this
government, and no injustice is ever perpetrated against the people? I
certainly could not make such a claim for Tanzania. In fact, I believe
that all of us, everywhere, have to wage a constant struggle to support
the supremacy of the people. We have to be constantly vigilant to ensure
that the people are not used by the individuals to whom they have
entrusted power, and are neither stifled by bureaucracy and
inefficiency, nor misled by their own ignorance."

                  NYERERE ON PEOPLE-CENTRED DEVELOPMENT

".... a man (woman) is developing himself (herself) when he (she) grows,
or earns, enough to provide decent conditions for himself (herself) and
his (her) family; he (she) is not being developed if someone gives him
(her) these things. A man (woman) is developing himself (herself) when
he (she) improves his (her) education - whatever he (she) learns about;
he (she) is not being developed if he (she) simply carries out orders
from someone better educated than himself (herself) without
understanding why those orders have been given. A man (woman) develops
himself (herself) by joining in free discussion of a new venture, and
participating in the subsequent decision; he (she) is not being
developed if he (she) is herded like an animal into the new venture.
Development of a man (woman) can, in fact, only be effected by that man
(woman), development of the people can only be effected by the people."

                  NYERERE ON THE ESSENCE OF LIBERATION

"For what do we mean when we talk of freedom/ First, there is national
freedom; that is, the ability of the citizens of Tanzania to determine
their own future, and to govern themselves without interference from
non-Tanzanians. Second, there is freedom from hunger, disease, poverty.
And third, there is personal freedom for the individual; that is, his
(her) right to live in dignity and equality with all other, his (her)
right to freedom of speech, freedom to participate in the making of all
decisions which affect his (her) life, and freedom from arbitrary arrest
because he (she) happens to annoy someone in authority - and so on. All
these things are aspects of freedom, and the citizens of Tanzania cannot
be said to be truly free until all of them are assured."

                          NYERERE ON DEMOCRACY

"There are, however, two essential elements of democracy without which
it cannot work. First, is that everyone must be allowed to speak freely,
and everyone must be listened to. It does not matter how unpopular a
man's (woman) ideas, or how mistaken the majority think him (her). It
does not make any difference whether he (she) is liked or disliked for
his (her) personal qualities. Every Tanzanian, every member of a
community, every member of a district council, every member of
parliament, and so on, must have the freedom to speak without fear of
intimidation - either inside or outside the meeting place. The majority
in any debate must have the right to speak without fear of persecution;
it must be defeated in argument, not by threat of force. The debates
leading to a decision must be free debates. And even after a decision
has been made free discussion about it should be allowed to continue."

Secondly, Nyerere also wrote: "Discipline must exist in every aspect of
our lives. And it must be willingly accepted discipline. For it is an
essential part of both freedom and development. The greater freedom
which comes from working together, and achieving things by cooperation
which none of us could achieve alone, is, only possible if there is
disciplined acceptance of joint decisions....

"Yet provided decisions are made after free and friendly discussion, and
by majority will, the essential discipline should be freely accepted,
and should in fact, be largely self discipline....

"An ujamaa village is a voluntary association of people who decide of
their own free will to live together and work together for their common
good. They, and no one else, will decide how much of their land they
will cultivate together from the beginning, and how much they will
cultivate individually. They, and no one else will decide how to use the
money they earn jointly - whether to buy an ox-plough, install water, or
do something else. They, and no one else, will make all the decisions
about their working and living arrangements."

We can go on and on to show the honourable aspirations of the earlier
pioneers of the national liberation struggle. We now challenge Dr George
Ayiteh and Ludovick Sherima to give us examples in Africa of leaders who
have made success of their countries. Menghistu called himself a
Marxist. Mobutu, a capitalist; a capitalist, but both maintained tyranny
over their people. This shows that the classification of leaders into
Marxists and capitalists is all meaningless. Claims and practices do not
necessarily amount to the same things.

What is clear is that these two people cannot give us examples in Ghana
of people who have done more to enlighten the African people to be the
architects of their own destiny than Kwame Nkrumah. We challenge them to
prove us wrong. Ghana served as the bridgehead for the liberation of the
African continent. Tanzania served as a bridgehead for the liberation of
the peoples in Southern Africa. This is incontrovertible and no one has
done more to educate the African people to become the architects of
their own destiny in Southern Africa than Nyerere.

The problem is that African scholars are reading the works of those who
have plagiarized what has been written by many pioneers of the national
liberation movement and who are critics of them instead of going back to
the source. It is better to remove the books produced by Kwame, Nyerere,
Frantz Fanon, Cabral and so on and so forth from the dusty shelves and
read them with sincerity and honesty.

We hope that the person who has posted the article produced by Dr Ayiteh
and Ludovick Shirama would also post them our article and tell them that
we are ready to engage in polemics. They can show their acceptance by
doing a critique of what we have just published.



                              HALIFA SALLAH

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