Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T13:39:38.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ujamaa Revisited: Indigenous and European Influences in Nyerere's Social and Political Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Viktoria Stöger-Eising
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The debate over the indigenous versus the European roots of ‘African democracy’ has regained importance recently. Using the critical tools of cultural anthropology, the social and political thought of Julius K. Nyerere from Tanzania is examined for its African and European sources. The most recurrent themes in his writings are ‘traditional African values’ and the centrality of ‘the traditional African family’. They constitute the core element of Ujamaa. The aim of this article is to show that Nyerere’s statements on African socialism and on African democracy are not merely rhetorical devices employed by an aspiring politician. Nor are they the romantic appeal of a Westernised university graduate to a mythological or even ‘invented’ African past. Nyerere presented his own specific version of ‘traditional’ African values because he was socialised in a non-hierarchical ‘tribal’ society. He sought to synthesise these ‘traditional’ values with Western elements in order to create a Tanzanian identity that would cut across ethnic lines. In those cases when African and European value systems collided, however, Nyerere’s politics became problematic.

Résumé

Le débat entre racines indigènes et racines européennes de la “démocratie africaine” a récemment regagné de l’importance. Usant des outils critiques de I’anthropologie culturelle, cet article étudie les sources africaines et européennes de la pensée sociale et politique du Tanzanien Julius K. Nyerere. Les thèmes les plus récurrents de ses écrits sont “les valeurs africaines traditionnelles” et la centralité de “la famille africaine traditionnelle”. Ils constituent l’élément central de Ujamaa. Cet article tend à montrer que les propos de Nyerere sur le socialisme africain et sur la démocratie africaine ne sont pas de simples moyens rhétoriques employés par un politicien ambitieux. Ils ne reflètent pas non plus l’attrait romantique d’un diplômé d’université occidentalisée pour un passé africain mythologique, voire même inventé. Nyerere a présenté sa propre version spécifique des valeurs africaines “traditionnelles”, ayant été lui-même socialisé dans une société “tribale” non hiérarchique. Il a cherché à faire une synthèse entre ces valeurs “traditionnelles” et des éléments occidentaux pour créer une identité tanzanienne faisant abstraction des frontières ethniques. La politique de Nyerere devient problématique cependant chaque fois que s’opposent les systèmes de valeurs africain et européen.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , February 2000 , pp. 118 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baumann, O. 1894. Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle. Berlin: Reimer Verlag.Google Scholar
Bischofberger, O. 1969. ‘Die soziale und rituelle Stellung der Schmiede und des Schmiede-Klans bei den Zanaki (Tanzania)’, Paideuma 15, 54–63.Google Scholar
Bischofberger, O. 1972. The Generation Classes of the Zanaki (Tanzania). Fribourg: Studio Ethnographica Friburgensia.Google Scholar
Cohen, R., and Goulbourne, H. (eds). 1991. Democracy and Socialism in Africa. Boulder CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Coulson, A. (ed.). 1979. African Socialism in Practice: the Tanzanian experience. Nottingham: Spokesman.Google Scholar
Evans- Pritchard, E. E., and Fortes, M. (eds). 1940. African Political Systems. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Hatch, J. 1976. Two African Statesmen: Kaunda of Zambia and Nyerere of Tanzania. London: Seeker & Warburg.Google Scholar
Huddleston, T. R. 1995. ‘The person Nyerere’, in Legum, C. and Mmari, G. (eds), Mwalimu: the influence of Nyerere, pp. 1–8. London: James Currey; Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota, Trenton NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Hyden, G. 1980. Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: underdevehpment and an uncaptured peasantry. London, Ibadan and Nairobi: Heinemann.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iliffe, J. 1979. A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishumi, A. G., and Maliyamkono, T. L. 1995. ‘Education for self-reliance’, in Legum, C. and Mmari, G. (eds), Mwalimu: the influence of Nyerere, pp. 46–60. London: James Currey; Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota; Trenton NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Jahn, J. 1970. ‘Négritude und Afrikanität’, in Grohs, G. (ed.), Theoretische Probleme des Sozialismus in Afrika. Négritude und Arusha-Deklaration, pp. 12–20. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.Google Scholar
Kitching, G. 1989. Development and Underdevehpment in Historical Perspective. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Malya, S. (ed.). 1974. HadithiZa Watanzania. Hadithi Za Kizanaki. (Chuo cha Elimu Ya WatuWazima Tanzania). Dar es Salaam, Kampala and Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau.Google Scholar
Mazrui, A. 1967. ‘Tanzaphilia’, Transition 31, 20–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, S. F. 1977. ‘Political meetings and the simulation of unanimity’, in Moore, S. F. and Myerhoff, B.(eds), Secular Ritual, pp. 151–72. Assen and Amsterdam: Van Gorcum.Google Scholar
Koponen, J. 1988. People and Production in late Precolonial Tanzania: history and structures. Helsinki: Finnish Society for Development Studies.Google Scholar
Legum, C., and Mmari, G. 1995. Mwalimu: the influence of Nyerere. London: James Currey; Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota; Trenton NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Levine, K. 1972. ‘The TANU ten-house cell system’, in Cliffe, L. and Saul, J. S. (eds), Socialism in Tanzania, pp. 329–37. Dar es Salaam and Nairobi: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Mkirya, B. 1991. Historia, Mila na Desturi za Wazanaki. Ndanda and Peramiho, Tanzania: Benedictine Publications.Google Scholar
Mohiddin, A. 1972. ‘Ujamaa na Kujitegemea’, in Cliffe, L. and Saul, J. S. (eds), Socialism in Tanzania, pp. 165–76. Dar es Salaam and Nairobi: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Mshana, R. R. 1992. Insisting upon People’s Knowledge to Resist Development- alism: peasant communities as producers of knowledge for social transformation in Tanzania. Frankfurt: Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation.Google Scholar
Nursey- Bray, P. F. (ed.). 1973. Aspects of Africa’s Identity. Kampala: Makerere Institute of Social Research.Google Scholar
Nursey- Bray, P. F. 1980. ‘Tanzania: the development debate’, African Affairs 79 (314), 55–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyang’oro, J. E. (ed.). 1995. Discourses on Democracy: Africa in Comparative Perspective. Dar es Salaam: Dar es Salaam University Press.Google Scholar
Nyerere, J. K. 1960. ‘Will democracy work in Africa?’ Africa Report (5), 4–5.Google Scholar
Nyerere, J. K. 1967. Freedom and Unity, Uhuru na Umoja: a selection from writings and speeches, 1952–65. Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nyerere, J. K. 1968. Freedom and Socialism, Uhuru na Ujamaa: a selection from writings and speeches, 1965–67. Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nyerere, J. K. 1973. Freedom and Development, Uhuru na Maandeleo: a selection from writings and speeches, 1968–73. Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nyerere, J. K. 1974. Man and Development, Binadamu na Maendeleo. Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nyerere, J. K. 1983. ‘The private and public Nyerere: special interview’, Africa Now (32), 97–125.Google Scholar
Nyerere, J. K. 1994. Interview in Africa Report (39), 70–4.Google Scholar
Nyerere, J. K. 1995. Our Leadership and the Destiny of Tanzania. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House.Google Scholar
Omari, C. K. 1995. ‘The management of tribal and religious diversity’, in Legum, C. and Mmari, G. (eds), Mwalimu: the influence of Nyerere, pp. 23–31. London: James Currey; Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota; Trenton NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Pollis, A., and Schwab, P. (eds). 1979. Human Rights: cultural and ideological perspectives. New York, London, Sydney and Toronto: Praeger Publishers.Google Scholar
Pratt, C. R. 1972. ‘The Cabinet and presidential leadership in Tanzania in 1960–66’, in Cliffe, L. and Saul, J. S. (eds), Socialism in Tanzania, pp. 226–40. Dar es Salaam, and Nairobi: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Pratt, C. R. 1976. The Critical Phase in Tanzania, 1945–68: Nyerere and the emergence of a socialist state. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ranger, T. O. 1993a. ‘The invention of tradition in colonial Africa’, in Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. O.(eds), The Invention of Tradition, second edition, pp. 211–62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ranger, T. O. 1993b. ‘The invention of tradition revisited: the case of colonial Africa’, in Ranger, T. O. and Vaughan, O. (eds), Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-century Africa: essays in honour of A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, pp. 62–111. Basingstoke: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samoff, J. 1990. ‘Modernising a socialist vision: education in Tanzania’, in Carnoy, M. and Samoff, J.(eds), Education and Social Transition in the Third World, pp. 209–73. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schlobach, H. 1899. ‘Über eine Expedition nach Magalla, Ntussu, Nassa, Uschaschi bis zum 1. Grad südlicher Breite’, Deutsches Kolonialblatt 10, 124–31.Google Scholar
Shivji, I. G. 1998. Not yet Democracy: reforming land tenure in Tanzania. Dar es Salaam: Hakiardhi.Google Scholar
Smith, W. E. 1972. We must Run while they Walk. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Stöger- Eising, V. 1996. ‘Autochthone Wurzeln und europäische Einflüsse in der Philosophie von Julius Kambarage Nyerere’. Unpublished M.A. thesis; Munich: University of Munich.Google Scholar
TANU 1971. Vijiji vya Ujamaa. Dar es Salaam: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Twaib, F. 1996. ‘The dilemma of the customary landholder: the conflict between customary and statutory rights of occupancy in Tanzania’, in Debusman, R. and Arnold, S.(eds), Land Law and Land Ownership in Africa: case studies from colonial and contemporary Cameroon and Tanzania, pp. 81–112. Bayreuth African Studies, Bayreuth: Breitinger.Google Scholar
Watzal, L. 1982. Ujamaa. Das Ende einer Utopie? Die politische Bedeutung einer philosophisch-anthropologischen Konzeption. Munich: Hochschule der Bundeswehr.Google Scholar