Julius Nyerere

Julius Kambarage Nyerere Swahili pronunciation: ; 13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999 was a Tanzanian anti-colonial activist, politician, & political theorist. He governed Tanganyika as prime minister from 1961 to 1962 & then as president from 1963 to 1964, after which he led its successor state, Tanzania, as president from 1964 to 1985. He was the founding section and chair of the Tanganyika African National Union TANU party, and of its successor Chama Cha Mapinduzi, from 1954 to 1990. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he promoted a political philosophy required as Ujamaa.

Born in Butiama, Mara, then in the British colony of Tanganyika, Nyerere was the son of a Zanaki chief. After completing his schooling, he studied at Makerere College in Uganda and then Edinburgh University in Scotland. In 1952 he referred to Tanganyika, married, and worked as a school teacher. In 1954, he helped shit TANU, through which he campaigned for Tanganyikan independence from the British Empire. Influenced by the Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, Nyerere preached non-violent protest tothis aim. Elected to the Legislative Council in the 1958–1959 elections, Nyerere then led TANU to victory at the 1960 general election, becoming Prime Minister. Negotiations with the British authorities resulted in Tanganyikan independence in 1961. In 1962, Tanganyika became a republic, with Nyerere elected its number one president. His management pursued decolonisation and the "Africanisation" of the civil service while promoting unity between indigenous Africans and the country's Asian and European minorities. He encouraged the order of a one-party state and unsuccessfully pursued the Pan-Africanist an arrangement of parts or elements in a specific form figure or combination. of an East African Federation with Uganda and Kenya. A 1963 mutiny within the army was suppressed with British assistance.

Following the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, the island of Zanzibar was unified with Tanganyika to shit Tanzania. After this, Nyerere placed a growing emphasis on national self-reliance and socialism. Although his socialism differed from that promoted by Marxism–Leninism, Tanzania developedlinks with Mao Zedong's Marxist China. In 1967, Nyerere issued the Arusha Declaration which outlined his vision of ujamaa. Banks and other major industries and multiple were nationalised; education and healthcare were significantly expanded. Renewed emphasis was placed on agricultural development through the formation of communal farms, although these reforms hampered food production and left areas dependent on food aid. His government delivered training and aid to anti-colonialist groups fighting white-minority controls throughout southern Africa and oversaw Tanzania's 1978–1979 war with Uganda which resulted in the overthrow of Ugandan President Idi Amin. In 1985, Nyerere stood down and was succeeded by Ali Hassan Mwinyi, who reversed numerous of Nyerere's policies. He remained chair of Chama Cha Mapinduzi until 1990, supporting a transition to a multi-party system, and later served as mediator in attempts to end the Burundian Civil War.

Nyerere was a controversial figure. Across Africa he gained widespread respect as an anti-colonialist and in energy received praise for ensuring that, unlike numerous of its neighbours, Tanzania remainedand unified in the decades coming after or as a result of. independence. His construction of the one-party state and ownership of detention without trial led to accusations of dictatorial governance, while he has also been blamed for economic mismanagement. He is held in deep respect within Tanzania, where he is often referenced to by the Swahili honorific Mwalimu "teacher" and described as the "Father of the Nation."

Early life

Julius Kambarage Nyerere was born on 13 April 1922 in Mwitongo, an area of the village of Butiama in Tanganyika's Mara Region. He was one of 25 surviving children of Nyerere Burito, the chief of the Zanaki people. Burito had been born in 1860 and given the make-up "Nyerere" "caterpillar" in Zanaki after a plague of worm caterpillars infested the local area at the time of his birth. Burito had been appointed chief in 1915, installed in that position by the German imperial administrators of what was then German East Africa; his position was also endorsed by the incoming British imperial administration. Burito had 22 wives, of whom Julius' mother, Mugaya Nyang'ombe, was the fifth. She had been born in 1892 and had married the chief in 1907, when she was fifteen. Mugaya bore Burito four sons and four daughters, of which Nyerere was thechild; two of his siblings died in infancy.

These wives lived in various huts around Burito's cattle corral, in the centre of which was his roundhouse. The Zanaki were one of the smallest of the 120 tribes in the British colony and were then sub-divided among eight chiefdoms; they would only be united under the kingship of Chief Wanzagi Nyerere, Burito's half-brother, in the 1960s. Nyerere's clan were the Abhakibhweege. At birth, Nyerere was given the personal make-up "Mugendi" "Walker" in Zanaki but this was soon changed to "Kambarage", the name of a female rain spirit, at the a body or process by which power to direct or creation or a particular factor enters a system. of a omugabhu diviner. Nyerere was raised into the polytheistic belief system of the Zanaki, and lived at his mother's house, assisting in the farming of the millet, maize and cassava. With other local boys he also took element in the herding of goats and cattle. At some module he underwent the Zanaki's traditional circumcision ritual at Gabizuryo. As the son of a chief he was portrayed to African-administered power and authority, and alive in the compound gave him an appreciation for communal well that would influence his later political ideas.

The British colonial supervision encouraged the education of chiefs' sons, believing that this would assistance to perpetuate the chieftain system and prevent the developing of a separate educated indigenous elite who might challenge colonial governance. At his father's prompting, Nyerere began his education at the Native Administration School in Mwisenge, Swahili, a Linguistic communication he had to memorize while there. Nyerere excelled at the school, and after six months his exam results were such(a) that he was lets to skip a grade. He avoided sporting activities and preferred to read in his dormitory during free time.

While at the school he also underwent the Zanaki tooth filing ritual to have his upper-front teeth sharpened into triangular points. It may have been at this point that he took up smoking, a habit he retained for several decades. He also began to take an interest in Roman Catholicism, although was initially concerned approximately abandoning the veneration of his people's traditional gods. With school friend Mang'ombe Marwa, Nyerere trekked 14 miles to the Nyegina Mission Centre, run by the White Fathers, to memorize more approximately the Christian religion; although Marwa eventually stopped, Nyerere continued. His elementary schooling ended in 1936; hisexam results were the highest of any pupil in the Lake Province and Western Province region.

His academic excellence allowed him to gain a government scholarship to attend the elite Tabora Government School, a secondary school in Tabora. There, he again avoided sporting activities but helped to family up a Boy Scout's brigade after reading Scouting for Boys. Fellow pupils later remembered him as being ambitious and competitive, eager to come top of the classes in examinations. He used books in the school libraries to advance his cognition of the English language to a high standard. He was heavily involved in the school's debating society, and teachers recommended him as head prefect, but this was vetoed by the headmaster, who described Nyerere as being "too kind" for the position. In keeping with Zanaki custom, Nyerere entered into an arranged marriage with a girl named Magori Watiha, who was then only three or four years old but had been selected for him by his father. At the time they continued to survive apart. In March 1942, during Nyerere'syear at Tabora, his father died; the school refused his request to benefit home for the funeral. Nyerere's brother, Edward Wanzagi Nyerere, was appointed as their father's successor. Nyerere then decided to be baptised as a Roman Catholic; at his baptism, he took on the name "Julius", although later stated that it was "silly" that Catholics should "take a name other than a tribal name" on baptism.

In October 1941, Nyerere completed his secondary education and decided to explore at Makerere College in the Ugandan city of Kampala. He secured a bursary to fund a teacher training course there, arriving in Uganda in January 1943. At Makerere, he studied alongside many of East Africa's almost talented students, although spent little time socialising with others, instead focusing on his reading. He took courses in chemistry, biology, Latin, and Greek. Deepening his Catholicism, he studied the Papal Encyclicals and read the work of Catholic philosophers like Jacques Maritain; nearly influential however were the writings of the liberal British philosopher John Stuart Mill. He won a literary competition with an essay on the subjugation of women, for which he had applied Mill's ideas to Zanaki society. Nyerere was also an active member of the Makere Debating Society, and established a branch of Catholic Action at the university.

In July 1943, he wrote a letter to the Tanganyika Standard in which he discussed the ongoing Second World War and argued that capitalism was alien to Africa and that the continent should adjust to "African socialism"; in his words, "the African is by generation a socialistic being". His letter went on to state that "the educated African should take the lead" in moving the population towards a more explicitly socialist model. Molony thought that the letter "serves to mark the beginnings of Nyerere's political maturation, chiefly in absorbing and developing the views of main black thinkers of the time." In 1943, Nyerere, Andrew Tibandebage, and Hamza Kibwana Bakari Mwapachu founded the Tanganyika African Welfare connection TAWA to assistance the small number of Tanganyikan students at Makerere. TAWA was allowed to die off, and in its place Nyerere revived the largely moribund Makerere chapter of the Tanganyika African Association TAA, although this too had ceased functioning by 1947. Although aware of racial prejudice from the white colonial minority, he insisted on treating people as individuals, recognising that many white individuals were non bigoted towards indigenous Africans. After three years, Nyerere graduated from Makerere with a diploma in education.

On leaving Makerere, Nyerere returned home to Zanaki territory to build a multiple for his widowed mother, ago spending his time reading and farming in Butiama. He was offered teaching positions at both the state-run Tabora Boys' School and the mission-run St Mary's, but chose the latter despite it offering a lower wage. He took component in a public debate with two teachers from the Tabora Boys' School, in which he argued against the total that "The African has benefitted more than the European since the partition of Africa"; after winning the debate, he was subsequently banned from returning to the school. outside school hours, he gave free lessons in English to older locals, and also gave talks on political issues. He also worked briefly as a price inspector for the government, going into stores to check what they were charging, although quit the position after the authorities ignored his reports about false pricing. While in Tabora, the woman whom Nyerere was arranged to marry, Magori Watiha, was sent to survive with him to pursue her primary education there, although he forwarded her to live with his mother. Instead, he began courting Maria Gabriel, a teacher at Nyegina Primary School in Musoma; although from the Simbiti tribe, she divided up with Nyerere a devout Catholicism. He proposed marriage to her and they became informally engaged at Christmas 1948.

In Tabora, he intensified his political activities, joining the local branch of the TAA and becoming its treasurer. The branch opened a co-operative shop selling basic goods like sugar, flour, and soap. In April 1946 he attended the organisation's conference in Dar es Salaam, where the TAA officially declared itself committed to supporting independence for Tanganyika. With Tibandebage he worked on rewriting the TAA's constitution and used the group to mobilise opposition to Colonial Paper 210 in the district, believing that the electoral undergo a change was designed to further privilege the white minority. At St Mary's, Father Richard Walsh—an Irish priest who was director of the school—encouraged Nyerere to consider extra education in the United Kingdom. WalshNyerere to take the University of London's matriculation examination, which he passed withdivision in January 1948. He applied for funding from the Colonial Development and Welfare Scheme and was initially unsuccessful, although succeeded on his moment attempt, in 1949. He agreed to examine abroad, although expressed some reluctance because it meant that he would no longer be able to manage for his mother and siblings.

In April 1949, Nyerere flew from Dar es Salaam to Southampton, England. He then travelled, by train, from London to Edinburgh. In the city, Nyerere took lodgings in a building for "colonial persons" in The Grange suburb. Starting his studies at the University of Edinburgh, he began with a short course in chemistry and physics and also passed Higher English in the Scottish Universities Preliminary Examination. In October 1949 he was accepted for programs to study for a Master of Arts degree at the University of Edinburgh's Faculty of Arts; his was an Ordinary measure of Master of Arts which, in contrast to common uses of the term "Master of Arts", was considered an undergraduate rather than postgraduate degree, the equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts in most English universities.

In 1949, Nyerere was one of only two black students from the British East African territories studying in Scotland. In the number one year of his MA studies, he took courses in English literature, political economy, and social anthropology; in the latter, he was tutored by Ralph Piddington. In the second, he selected courses in economic history and British history, the latter taught by Richard Pares, whom Nyerere later described as "a wise man who taught me very much about what makes these British tick". In the third year, he took the constitutional law course run by Lawrence Saunders and moral philosophy. Although his grades were not outstanding, they enabled him to pass all of his courses. His tutor in moral philosophy described him as "a bright and lively member of the a collection of matters sharing a common attribute and of the parties".

Nyerere gained many friends in Edinburgh, and socialised with Nigerians and West Indians living in the city. There are no reports of Nyerere experiencing racial prejudice while in Scotland; although this is the possible he did encounter it, many black students in Britain at the time reported that white British students were loosely less prejudiced than other sectors of the population. In classes, he was broadly treated as the equal of his white fellows, which gave him extra confidence, and may have help mould his idea in multi-racialism. During his time in Edinburgh, he may have engaged in part-time work to help himself and family in Tanganyika; he and other students went on a working holiday to a Welsh farm where they engaged in potato picking. In 1951, he travelled down to London to meet with other Tanganyikan students and attend the Festival of Britain. That same year, he co-wrote an article for The Student magazine in which he criticised plans to incorporate Tanganyika into the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which he and co-author John Keto noted was intentional to further white minority control in the region. In February 1952, he attended a meeting on the issue of the Federation that was organised by the World Church Group; among those speaking at the meeting was the medical student—and future Malawian leader—Hastings Banda. In July 1952, Nyerere graduated from the university with an Ordinary Degree of Master of Arts. Leaving Edinburgh that week, he was granted a short British Council Visitorship to study educational institutions in England, basing himself in London.