Shivji,+Race+and+Politics+is+an+explosive+mix

Saturday Palaver, 04.06.05
=Race and Politics is an explosive mix=


 * Issa Shivji**

In 1961, the National Assembly of the self-governing Tanganyika was discussing the Government’s White Paper on citizenship. Under the leadership of Mwalimu Nyerere, who was then the prime minister, the Government proposed to give all residents of Tanganyika, regardless of their race or origin, equal citizenship rights. There was a fierce opposition from some members of parliament. They argued that only indigenous people of Tanganyika should be recognised as citizens. Calling such people ‘potential Verwoerds’ (Verwoerd was then the prime minister of apartheid South Africa) Mwalimu argued vigorously against these demands “to divorce citizenship from loyalty and marry it to colour”. He said:

“If we are going to base citizenship on colour, we will commit a crime. I cannot change my colour. Ideology ... Religion ... I can change. I still don’t like people being persecuted or discriminated against because of their ideology or because of their religion ... Discrimination against human beings because of their colour, is exactly what we have been fighting against. That is what we have formed TANU for ... and so soon, Sir, so soon before even 9th of December some of my friends have forgotten it. Now they are preaching discrimination, colour discrimination as a religion to us. And they stand like Hitlers and begin to glorify the race. We glorify human beings, Sir, not colour ... I am going to repeat, and repeat very firmly, that this government has rejected, and rejected completely, any ideas that citizenship, with the duties and the rights of citizenship of this country, are going to be based on anything except loyalty to this country.”

Mwalimu opposed discrimination based on the pigment of the skin on principle although he could, if he wanted, have used racial prejudice to make himself popular. Much later, in an international conference at Arusha in 1991, he engaged in a dialogue with the participants after delivering a keynote speech. One Tanzanian scholar pointedly asked Mwalimu why he was so against ethnicity when ethnic identities are real and cannot be wished away or ignored. After all, the participant said, “you personally have always been a proud Mzanaki”. “And, yes,” Mwalimu interjected, “after this when I return to Butiama I’ll drink local brew with my fellow Wazanaki elders!”.

Mwalimu’s answer to the comment was instructive. He made a distinction between ethnicity as a cultural identity and use of ethnicity for a political purpose.

“I’m a good Mzanaki”, he said, “but I won’t advocate a Kizanaki-based political party. ... So I’m a Tanzanian, and of course I am Mzanaki; politically I’m a Tanzanian, culturally I’m Mzanaki”.

The message was clear. ‘Don’t politicize ethnicity or race. Politicization of ethnicity or race or religion is playing with fire.’ This is the message which needs to be reiterated again and again. It is not that during Mwalimu’s time there weren’t people amongst us, particularly among the elite, ready to exploit “tribe” or race but Mwalimu as a leader of the party and the state never allowed such sentiments to gain respectability. He shamed ‘potentail Verwoerds’ without hesitation.

But non-discrimination in the country’s public life was not the result of only Mwalimu’s zero tolerance of discrimination. It was also the result of a strong, radical nationalist ideology based on Ujamaa. The national ideology cemented the people together regardless of their ethnic or racial origins. Socialist ideology did not admit politicization of racial or ethnic identities. Exploitation and oppression have no colour.

Thus under Mwalimu it would have been shameful for any political leader to advocate racism or even tolerate it in public life by keeping quiet. No one could afford not to take sides against racism, ethnicism and discrimination. But with abandonment of the national ideology and marketisation of politics, there is no bar to the manipulation by the political elite of all kinds of social prejudices in the interest of acquiring or keeping political power.

Regrettably, racialism and ethnicism are beginning to rear their ugly head in public life. This is a dangerous trend. The earlier it is nipped in the bud the better. Kosovos and Ivory Coasts and Rwandese genocides did not just happen. They happened because the seeds of discrimination were watered by power-hungry politicians while others simply kept quiet or pleaded ignorance. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” A good leader cannot plead to be neutral on the issue of race. He or she can only take one side, against racism.

Racial and ethnic strife are more often than not the handyman of political elites, not ordinary folks. The situation becomes even more dangerous when educated elites begin to give such prejudices respectability by justifying and rationalizing them.

A recent incidence at the University of Dar es Salaam when some students protested at the victory of a Zanzibari of mixed origin in a Mr. University contest tells it all. ‘How can a mwaarabu be Mr University?’ It is shameful. It shows how far down the road of discrimination we have gone.

I remember an incidence from the late 60s. We, young radicals from the TANU Youth League, were visiting Mwalimu in his modest Msasani home. One of us raised an issue against White leftist expatriates. Mwalimu listened. Then suddenly he burst into a volley of questions:

“Where was Che [Che Guevera] born?”

“Argentina”, one of us answered proudly.

“Where did he fight?”

“Cuba.” another chimed in.

“Where did he die?”

By this time the message was clear.

“Bolivia”, one of us said tepidly.

“You young fellows”, Mwalimu chided, “I expected you to be internationalists; not petty nationalists!”

We hung our heads in shame!


 * © Issa Shivji**