Prime
Mwalimu, we weep and pray for you!
Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere on October 10, 1997 during a news conference in Arusha. FILE PHOTO | AP
What you need to know:
- Since the time Tanzanians learnt about the chronic cancer that is consuming our beloved Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, our country has been gripped in grief, agony and a feeling of emptiness.
Dar es Salaam. On Tuesday, October 5, 1999, I published an article in a daily newspaper titled ‘The African’ reproduced below. It was published nine days before Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere passed on. I have decided to ask ‘The Citizen’ to republish the article because, to my mind, it illustrates the enduring deep respect and affection many of us, Tanzanians and other people around the world, had for Mwalimu. I still pray to God to bless and rest Mwalimu’s soul in peace.
Since the time Tanzanians learnt about the chronic cancer that is consuming our beloved Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, our country has been gripped in grief, agony and a feeling of emptiness. Our energies are suddenly sapped, and our strengths are weakened. There looms a strange state of anxiety, bordering on fear. Yet, isn’t death natural—an ultimate consequence that we humans expect and endure? Indeed, Caesar, in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, boldly reflects upon this state of mortality when he muses:
“It seems to me strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it comes.”
But it is not as if Tanzanians lack the courage to face death amongst themselves. Rather, it is the demise of Mwalimu that they cannot face; they even fear to think about it. Being ready or prepared to face such an eventuality is thus beside the point. In fact, it is probable that Tanzanians may never be ready for such an eventuality. No; the reality is that Mwalimu is loved and adored so much that his death, at any time, would be grave and untimely. This is why the Tanzanian nation and its people are praying. And pray we must and more.
Our prayers are not simply to wish Mwalimu well; they go beyond that. There is a deeper context and meaning to these prayers. Mwalimu is obviously no ordinary mortal to most Tanzanians. The emotional frenzy is thus inevitable. But we pray for Mwalimu’s recovery precisely because it is our nation that we are praying for: our peace and stability; our social cohesion and harmony; our unity; our dignity as equal citizens irrespective of colour, tribe, race, creed, religion, gender, age, and being disabled; and our future as a fulfilling social and economic system.
Mwalimu Nyerere is the embodiment of Tanzania; he characterises and epitomises all that is good and cherishable for our country. In other words, he is the symbol of our unity and peace, our very nationhood. That is why he is indeed the Father of our Nation, the only and the last.
For all that we may think about ourselves as a nation, we are still a fragile polity. We are new to the dynamics of democracy and political pluralism that we have recently embraced. Already, even before we enter the second phase of multiparty general elections, our country is experiencing the emergence of forces of conservatism, racial prejudices and religious bigotry. Mwalimu Nyerere has liberated us from all these prejudices that once stratified our society. He truly set us free, not just from colonialism but, more critically, from our own inherent prejudices. Can we risk a reversal?
And as we now embrace and experiment with the market in a globalising world, the basic philosophy that Mwalimu Nyerere advocated, “for the many, not the few”, is slowly getting undermined. Is this inevitable? In recent years, Mwalimu has often jolted us from the exuberance of the market, reminding us to stay the course to liberate the mass of Tanzanian people from the scourges of poverty, disease, and illiteracy.
This has always been a wake-up call to our leadership and to all of us alike. Yet we face stark economic realities, and it is not proving easy to strike a balance. Mwalimu, however, remains the master in this game. His presence, his prodding, and his cursory but unmistakably consistent frontal remarks have never escaped the ears of those who seek the sustenance of peace and stability in Tanzania. Mwalimu remains our teacher! Our guiding spirit; our counsel; our voice of wisdom; our fortitude.
This is why we pray for Mwalimu; this is why you must intensify our prayers. Tensing will never be the same without Mwalimu. My late father, Hamza, is said to have been the closest friend that Nyerere had at the time of independence. Hamza (may God rest him in peace) died at the ‘tender’ age of 48.
My father was a pragmatist, Mwalimu, an idealist. And my father used to say that he did not agree with Kambarage on a few key issues, particularly democratisation and popular will. Yet he believed that no other person could give our country his type of leadership and vision. And it is that leadership and that vision that have made our country what it is and what it can be. The rest has to be our responsibility.
In many parts of this peaceful country, there are people, especially in rural areas, who continue to regard Mwalimu Nyerere as their leader. The change of guard is 1985, the entry of multiparty politics, the collapse of public ownership—none of those have changed the state of mind of ordinary poor people about Mwalimu Nyerere. They still await salvation—an almost divine deliverance from Mwalimu! Do you, in these circumstances, even begin to ponder what Mwalimu’s death can portend for these people? No. Mwalimu will live for us and for our country. Almighty God, give Mwalimu a new lease of life. Allow us time to transit the difficult transition that is before us—a transition that, with the help of Mwalimu, we should cross without sacrificing our identity as a nation, our unity, and our peace and stability.
Mwalimu: You shaped our lives as a nation because you knew that if you did not, life would have shaped us. Today, globalisation is trying to shape our lives. Of course, we are not, as a people, resistant to change. But we surely want to muster change—to shape it to our needs and our expectations. However, do we have the courage and boldness, the wit and resilience, and the creativity to respond effectively to its challenges? Can we rise to your level of mastery, our teacher?
It is said that the heart of leadership is the promise of major change for the better. Tanzanians, even today, are in a different economic environment from the one that you, Mwalimu, created and sought to use as the platform for creating a new society. Tanzanians believe that it is your envisioned society that is being strived for. If they believed otherwise, Tanzania would be gripped by instability and conflict. And this is because you were able to inspire and align the people around a vision that they found credible and in their interests. Are we at a stage where we can inspire and galvanise people around a new vision, different from yours, global changes notwithstanding? Or do we still need your presence, your role, your intervention, and your inspiration to help us reach out to the masses of Tanzania and make them understand and appreciate the new realities that are now engulfing us?
You are Mwalimu, a man of the people. You have shown us what the leadership of the people is all about. It is leadership that is prepared to give up power to revert to the ordinary people—where they live, where they sweat, and where they struggle for existence. How many leaders in poor countries would retire from presidential positions, return to their forsaken villages, and lead ordinary village lives? Granted, you are looked after by the State, but the more reason others would choose to live in the hustle and bustle of city life!. But not you, Mwalimu. This is why we weep for you and pray for you. Because you are one with the poor of the poor.
God Almighty, bless Mwalimu. Give him a new lease of life as our country still needs his leadership.
“But whosoever broketh into the perfect law of liberty and continued therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man is blessed in his deed” (James 1:25).
This is our Mwalimu.
God, give us strength, the will, and the spirit of togetherness to endure this period of uncertainty and anxiety. Fortify Mwalimu’s wife, Mama Maria, his sons and daughters and his whole family. In your name, bless this country to survive the ordeal that confronts us. Amin and Amen.
