Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
INDEPENDENCE
Initial Optimism
Tanganyikans embraced independence with optimism for the future. However, Tanganyika
embarked on the project of nation-building with few of the resources necessary for the task.
The national treasury was depleted. The economy was weak and undeveloped, with virtually
no industry. The British trustees had made little effort to prepare the territory for statehood.
In 1961, there were a total of 120 African university graduates in the country.
Exhorting his compatriots to work hard, Nyerere quoted a Swahili pro-
verb: 'Treat your guest as a guest for two days; on the third day, give him
a hoe!'
Faced with this set of circumstances, the first autonomous government of Tanganyika, led
by the 39-year-old Julius Nyerere, chose continuity over radical transformation of the eco-
nomic or political structure. TANU accepted the Westminster-style parliament proposed by
the British. It committed to investing in education and a gradual Africanisation of the civil
service. In the meantime, expatriates (often former British colonial officers) would be used
to staff the government bureaucracy.
As detailed by political scientist Cranford Pratt, the Nyerere government's early plans
were drawn up on the assumption that substantial foreign assistance would be forthcoming,
particularly from Britain. This was not the case. Britain pled poverty at the negotiating table.
Then Tanzania's relations with all three of its major donors - Britain, the USA and West
Germany - soured over political issues in the 1960s. The new country was left scrambling
for funds to stay afloat during the first rocky years of liberation. While grappling with fix-
ing roads, running hospitals and educating the country's youth, the government managed to
diffuse an army mutiny over wages in 1964. When Zanzibar erupted in violent revolution in
January 1964, just weeks after achieving independence from Britain, Nyerere skilfully co-
opted its potentially destabilising forces by giving island politicians a prominent role in a
newly proclaimed United Republic of Tanzania, created from the union of Tanganyika with
Zanzibar in April 1964.
Rise of the Urban Elite
Nyerere's political philosophy is set out in two collections of his major
speeches and essays:
Freedom and Unity
(1966) and
Freedom and Social-
ism
(1968).
