Mwalimu Nyerere: What of his contemporaries?

His political heirs have named countless things in his honour.

However, each passing year, there is little to nothing that is said of his contemporaries.

This informs our collective failure to properly appreciate the past, the man that he was and the times that he lived in.

This has not done justice to the complexity of his character, and certainly it does very little to inform and excite new generations in learning about him because the stories told and the way they are told turn into tedious, repetitive narratives.

As it happens, the Salim Ahmed Salim digital archive was launched, to celebrate the life of a distinguished career in public service, both at home and abroad.

Though it still leaves much to be desired, it is another chapter that enriches the stories of our past. Dr. Salim lived and worked closely with Mwalimu, in some ways he is a president that the country never had, leaving behind many ‘what ifs’.

At least, with him, part of what he did for the country during the time of Mwalimu has been digitized for eternity.

What of the others?

Consider some few momentous individuals and events from our past.        

Minus history aficionados, the rest will struggle understanding beyond the official narratives of why Tanganyika African Association (TAA) turned into Tanganyika African National Union (TANU).

The stories of the individuals who made this change possible are poorly understood or completely unknown.

Their names barely register to an ordinary person in the street.

What of the decision to launch Azimio la Arusha na Kujitegemea in 1967?

The country has never moved past the shadow cast by that momentous decision and yet we barely understand it and the forces and individuals behind that decision which has continued to shape us as a country decades after the country officially adopted the ‘market economy’.

Telling stories about Mwalimu should go hand in hand with the stories of the characters and circumstances that shaped him. The individuals who supported his ideas and those who opposed them.

The heroes of his times and the villains of the era. All these are part of the stories that shaped Mwalimu and profoundly affected this country well beyond his time in power.

What of the consequential decision to turn the country into a single party state, in politics and in law?

What differentiated that decision and similar decisions taken by other African countries soon after attaining political independence?

The majority of Mwalimu’s contemporaries are no longer with us which means that some of them never had the opportunity to share their stories beyond few individuals they trusted.

Much of what is known about them and their lives is through secondary sources.

Mwalimu was not a political character operating in a vacuum. There were many individuals who served during his time in office who, for better or for worse, played their parts in shaping the country they bequeathed to those who came after them.

Why many of them never wrote any books or shared much about their lives in service of their country is a matter of conjecture.

Mwalimu himself wrote nothing about his life. Shared little about what happened behind the curtains of Party and State power.

What was it about him and his contemporaries that they shared very little about their service to the country? Were they just humble people? Was it the times they lived in?

Celebrating Mwalimu will always be incomplete and misleading without a better understanding of his contemporaries.

We need more digital archives, more books, and more documentaries about the lives of the people who lived and worked with Mwalimu.

Anything less, and we will continue to be a country stuck in the past like a broken radio cassette.