Tanzania in Transition: From Nyerere to Mkapa

CHAPTER FOUR. AGRARIAN FUNDAMENTALISM OR FORESIGHT REVISITING NYERERE’S VISION FOR RURAL TANZANIA

CHAPTER FOUR AGRARIAN FUNDAMENTALISM OR FORESIGHT? REVISITING NYERERE’S VISION FOR RURAL TANZANIA Deborah Fahy Bryceson In looking back over the past half-century, it is abundantly evident that Julius Nyerere, more than any other, shaped Tanzania’s developmental path. From the 1950s, when he first led the struggle for independence, to 1985, when he finally stepped down from the national presidency, he was the country’s agenda-setter. He continued to exert political influence until his death in 1999. His legacy as mwalimu, the teacher, lives on in people’s minds – foundational to national identity, political unity and a sense of moral idealism - despite a general repudiation of Nyerere’s economic policies over the last two decades. This chapter attempts to go beyond the controversy surrounding Nyerere ’s charisma as a ‘successful’ political nation-builder who nonetheless is deemed to have ‘failed’ to achieve his national economic welfare objectives . While many commentators have remarked about Nyerere’s thwarted agrarian socialist plans, would Nyerere himself have seen it in this way? What elements of the Nyerere vision continue? What elements have sunk to oblivion? As the founding father of the nation, was Nyerere an idealistic agrarian fundamentalist or a pragmatist who saw agriculture as the starting point and foundation for future national development? Following a review of the Nyerere agrarian-based blueprint for national development and the obstacles encountered in its implementation, this chapter considers what has evolved in place of Nyerere’s vision - the unforeseen reality of 21st centuryTanzania. Illustration of the contradictory nature of today’s rural Tanzania will be provided by an examination of the development trajectory of Katoro-Buseresere, an agrarian-cum-sprawling-multi-purpose urbanizing settlement in northwestern Tanzania, which reflects the Nyerere legacy and recent unpredicted economic and political trends in the country. Nyerere’s Blueprint: Kilimo na Ujamaa During the first decade of independence, the question of whether agricultural or industrial investment would take the leading role in 72 Chapter Four Tanzanian development was not at issue (Rweyemamu 1973, Seidman 1973, Bryceson 2000). Nyerere saw no need for debate. This truth is said so often that people forget it….Yet it remains true. Agricultural progress is indeed the basis of Tanzanian development -and thus of a better standard of living for the people of Tanzania. (Nyerere’s speech at the Morogoro Agricultural College, 18 November 1965, in Nyerere 1968a: 104) In choosing agriculture, specifically peasant smallholder agriculture, other developmental options were circumvented. At independence, Tanzania’s major peasant-produced crops coffee, cotton and cashew exports, valued at UK£ 18.4 million, were not overly dominant as foreign exchange earners relative to the plantation crop, sisal (UK£15.4 million) and diamond and gold exports (UK£ 5.8 million), but the economic potential of the latter two were politically tainted (Tanganyika 1961). The 1950s had been a period of considerable mine prospecting. South Africa’s Anglo American mining giant had emerged as an attentive investor. However, relations between apartheid South Africa and Tanzania were not surprisingly strained1 and in the aftermath of the Arusha Declaration, the government’s nationalisation policy deterred foreign investors. Very little mining survey work was undertaken during the Nyerere years. Tanzania’s mining wealth remained buried securely for the future. Meanwhile, the future of Tanzania’s large-scale plantation agricultural sector was increasingly less certain. During the independence struggle, TANU had been committed to raising plantation remuneration beyond the abysmal level of bachelor wages and finally delivered on their promise in 1963 with the establishment of a territorial minimum wage. Employers retaliated by reducing the size of their labour force. The collapse of sisal prices in the world market in reaction to the growing importance of rival synthetic materials compounded shrinking rural wage labour opportunities (Bryceson 1990). These circumstances reinforced Nyerere’s conviction that: For the foreseeable future the vast majority of our people will continue to spend their lives in the rural areas and continue to work on the land. The land is the only basis for Tanzania’s development ; we have no other. (Nyerere 1967: 118) Unambiguously Nyerere prioritized kilimo. During the independence struggle, the peasantry had served as the springboard for nationalists’ successful seizure of political power. Peasant grievances against the colo1 At independence Nyerere refused Tanganyika’s entry into the British Commonwealth unless South Africa was expelled from membership in light of its apartheid policies (Kaunda 1985). Agrarian Fundamentalism or Foresight? 73 nial state...