Introduction

Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties

Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile

Paperback: 418 pages

Publisher: New Africa Press (16 November 2009)

ISBN-10: 9987160123

ISBN-13: 9789987160129

Introduction

DURING a period when many people in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – as well as in Rwanda and Burundi – are talking about forming an East African federation under one government, with Arusha in Tanzania as its capital, it may sound anachronistic when some of us in Tanzania are nostalgic about the good old days as life was in Tanganyika before the union with Zanzibar which led to the creation of the United Republic of Tanzania in 1964.

But that is indeed the case. And in many fundamental respects, they were the good ol' days! And we remember those days with nostalgia. And that is where we now turn to.

This work focuses on life in Tanganyika in the fifties. My focus was partly dictated by my interest in the autobiographical aspect of this enquiry because the fifties were some of the most important years of my life.

They were my formative years, as were the early sixties, and had a great impact on the development of my personality. What I am today has a lot to do with what happened, and what I learned, in those years.

The fifties were also a turning point in another respect. The years signalled the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.

It was the decade in which colonial rule was finally coming to an end. It was also the decade in which direct European influence reached it peak after decades of colonial rule since the 1890s when the Germans acquired the territory which came to be known as German East Africa or Deutsch Ostafrika as the Germans called it.

The years before the fifties also witnessed a transformation in the lives of Africans because of the political, social and economic impact colonial rule and European influence had on them.

Roughly speaking, it was a transition from the traditional to the modern way of life. The people basically lived the same way as they did before the coming of Europeans but there were some changes in their lives which had never been witnessed before.

Therefore the years before the fifties provide an important background which helps us better understand what happened during that very important decade which is remembered, probably more than anything else, as the last years of colonial rule in Tanganyika.

The social transformation of Tanganyika had been a gradual process through the years. Although it began in most parts of the country with the advent of colonial rule when the country was first colonized by Germany, there is no question that most of the changes which took place occurred during the British colonial period.

The British ruled Tanganyika longer than the Germans did, and they had an impact on the country which last longer. Even today British influence is clearly evident in what is now Tanzania.

Probably the only exception in terms of early penetration by foreigners was along the coast where Africans had been in contact with the Arabs and other foreigners mainly from Asia for centuries long before colonization by Europeans.

The Portuguese also had early contacts with the coastal people in the 1500s but their impact was minimal compared to that of the Arabs whose culture became dominant especially after the introduction of Islam.

But my focus is on the fifties not only because of the significance of the decade as an integral part of my life but also as a very important period in the history of Tanganyika which witnessed the beginning of the end of colonial rule in the largest country in East Africa.

It is a bygone era, yet relevant to my life today as it was back then.

The perspectives I have on things and how I look at the world and other people all have their beginning in the fifties more than in any other period in my life.

It is a crucible in which my personality began to develop and in which it was shaped; it is also a decade, especially the late fifties, which was the beginning of my political awakening even though I did not have any firm political beliefs because of my young age.

But I began to see things, although from the perspective of a child, in a way I did not before because I listened to the news on the radio and read some newspapers published in Kiswahili. The kind of awakening or awareness I had was mainly about important historical events and current affairs we were taught in primary school and which my father also taught me and told me about at home.

It was not the kind of awareness which entailed analysis of those events and the news. That is why, for example, when independence came on 9 December 1961, it was just another day of celebration for me, as much as it was for other children, since I did not understand and did not have the political maturity to comprehend the significance of this momentous event in the history of our country.

All I heard was that we were now free. We were going to rule ourselves. The British were no longer our colonial rulers. Fine words indeed! But what next? I had no answer to that; nor did many others including adults.

Apart from the autobiographical aspect, the fifties were also very important in another respect. It was a landmark on the road towards independence for most African countries. It was in the fifties that political agitation was most intense, and sustained, across the continent in the quest for freedom from colonial rule. And Tanganyika was no exception.

The fifties were also critical in yet another fundamental respect. As the struggle for independence gained momentum not only in Tanganyika but in other African countries as well, race relations came into sharp focus because it was a period of reflection and introspection. It was also a period of transition involving whites who monopolized power as the colonial masters and non-whites, especially black Africans, who were determined to end such monopoly.

Thus, the struggle for independence had unintended consequences and sometimes conveyed the wrong message as if it was a conflict between whites and blacks or between whites and non-whites; which was not the case. It was simply a struggle for equality transcending race.

Yet, important as this struggle was for all those involved regardless of race, I decided not to focus on that in this study but instead chose to highlight stories of human interest from the fifties if for no other reason than that as human beings we have a lot of things in common, far more than we want to admit, and which we sometimes ignore or overlook when we focus on our differences or when we have arguments.

We share the same emotions, we feel the same pain, we all cry and laugh and know how to love and hate. No race has a monopoly on that. It is a common denominator which unites and defines us as human beings and as mere mortals with frailties.

While politics and ideologies, religions and cultures can and do divide us, human emotions and common feelings unites us. And while man has an almost infinite capacity for evil, the opposite is equally true that he has an enormous capacity to do good. That is one of the most significant things about Tanganyika in the fifties.

Even if only in a limited way, there is no question that Tanganyika in the fifties demonstrated the brighter side of human nature, for, with all the differences we had as Tanganyikans during colonial rule in a society that was defined and structured on the basis of race by the colonial authorities, we were still able to find common ground on which we recognized each other as fellow human beings even if some people felt that they were better than others.

But the mere fact that the people usually – although not always – got along fine shows that there was a recognition on the part of all the races that there was something inherently good in every human being and it could bring us together provided there was a will to do so.

I remember Nelson Mandela saying that even some of the most racist whites in South Africa – or anywhere else for that matter – had some good in them; a point he underscores in his autobiographical work Long Walk to Freedom. I would also hate to believe that all the bigots we had in Tanganyika among all the races were pure evil like Hitler!

Although Tanganyika was a colonial society, it was definitely not apartheid South Africa. There were no laws prohibiting racial intermingling, although this was rare by choice and because the colonial authorities – which does not mean all whites – did not encourage it. Racial separation was also sanctioned by custom, not by legal strictures, and many people of all races in Tanganyika were more comfortable living with their own kind, although there is really only one kind, and that is mankind.

And because Tanganyika was a UN Trusteeship territory, the British colonial rulers knew that they were obligated to guide the country towards independence even if they dragged their feet for various reasons including the desire to maintain the privileged status of the white settlers as long as they could.

But even under the worst of circumstances in terms of race relations as was the case in apartheid South Africa before that abominable institution was abolished, there were people of all races who worked together to create a better world in which all human beings would be treated as equals.

It happened in South Africa; it happened in Kenya where in spite of Mau Mau there were whites and blacks who worked together; and it happened in my own home country, Tanganyika, where we did not even have racial tensions and animosities which could have driven the races even further apart and plunged the country into chaos.

Paradoxically, we were so close yet so far apart.

All that was needed was to break down racial barriers, accept each other as fellow human beings on equal basis, and end colonial rule which had instituted a hierarchical society based on race to the detriment of race relations; although, I must concede, there were people who were not interested in improving race relations even under the best of circumstances because they were bigots, and so blinded by prejudice that they couldn't even see that the different races united us, more than they divided us, as fellow human beings. Tanganyika in the fifties demonstrated this simple truth in both ways but, ultimately, justice prevailed.

The bigots even among whites were outnumbered by people of goodwill in the white settler community. Many of them saw the coming of independence not as a triumph of black supremacy over white supremacy – both of which are equally evil – but as a victory for equality and justice for all. In fact, the majority of whites stayed in Tanganyika after the country won independence.

Many of them left in the following years but usually for reasons other than race, although the policy of Africanization was interpreted, or misinterpreted, as a racial assault on whites. Still, among all the East African countries, Africanization was slowest in Tanganyika, and deliberately so, under the leadership of Julius Nyerere. And his definition of Africanization included people of all races who were citizens of Tanganyika, therefore African, just like the rest of us with a black skin.

The biggest disincentive to staying in Tanganyika among most whites and other people – including many black Tanganyikans – was economic when the country started implementing socialist policies and enforcing stringent measures to achieve nationalization.

But it is also true that there were bigots among Africans who made their position very clear during the struggle for independence, especially after they broke away from the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) in 1958 to form the African National Congress (ANC) which, in spite of sharing the same name with the ANC of South Africa, was radically different from its counterpart.

The South African ANC embraced people of races like TANU did under Nyerere in Tanganyika; while the ANC in Tanganyika did not. And there was a battle between these two competing visions for the future of Tanganyika.

But the bigots who wanted Tanganyika to be the exclusive domain of blacks, like their counterparts among the white settlers who wanted to perpetuate white domination, also lost under sustained assault by true multi-racialist leaders such as Julius Nyerere and other stalwarts in TANU, the party which led the campaign for independence on the basis of racial equality and which was open to members of all races even in the leadership positions of the party at the national level.

All this happened in the late fifties, years which became a defining moment in the history of Tanganyika, charting out a new course and pointing where the country was headed in the future after winning independence.

It was also an important lesson in human relations, not just in race relations, since there were differences among whites themselves, bigots versus non-bigots, as much as there were among blacks who also had their own share of bigots. And from all this emerged a vision focusing on humanity transcending race.

And it is a vision that sustains us today wherever we are as human beings. For, whether we like it or not, we are all bound by our humanity regardless of the differences we may have in terms of background, outlook and beliefs which have caused so much misery and suffering throughout history when people choose to focus on their differences instead of focusing on what they have in common. As Dr. Martin Luther King said: "We must all learn to live together as brothers (and sisters) or we will all perish together as fools."

Life in Tanganyika in The Fifties

Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile

Paperback: 418 pages

Publisher: New Africa Press (16 November 2009)

ISBN-10: 9987160123

ISBN-13: 9789987160129