Tanzania foreign policy review: Resetting the button?-II

President Samia Suluhu Hassan in launching foreign policy review, like most of her predecessors, did not think that the country had turned into a hermit. However, such views have persisted in the region.

The blame for this 'obstructionism' or overly cautious approach to regional and global matters has been placed on many doors.

Some think that it is due to the heartache caused by the collapse of the EAC-I with some of those who lived through that experience being in positions of influence today or capable of influencing current domestic actors, others point to an exhausted country after decades of involvement in liberation struggles across the continent.

Yet, others see the cause in the changing individuals at the top of the country's leadership and their interpretation of regional and global affairs in relation to their country.

These reasons are insightful in that they point to some of the underlying causes for the current state affairs.

The 1990s was a decade of transition and momentous changes in the region and on the global stage.

Closer to home, political convulsions had blanketed the entire region.

The political and security fires which consumed the region then, are yet to be extinguished to this day.

Political instabilities and civil wars which had raged for decades led to the assassination of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, leading to the horrors of the genocide in the former and continued instability and a coup in the latter.

Before the decade was out, Zaire's former strongman Mobutu Sese Seko was ousted by a rebellion from the east of that vast country.

The government that replaced him in Kinshasa was to end up fighting its own comrades barely a year since coming to power.

Even though the country was heavily involved in many peace efforts, it never intervened militarily in any of the conflicts which raged in the region.

The psyche of the country's political leadership concluded that the country was better served with a containment approach; preventing those raging fires to cross its borders.

They had far more pressing matters at home with an economy in a terrible shape.

Economic liberalisation was the preferred solution to tackle many economic challenges the country was facing.

In terms of diplomacy, the avenue was to be economic diplomacy.

The country was now open to reviving the collapsed regional bloc and opted to privatise many aspects of the economy.

With debatable, and times questionable outcomes of this process, the 'new' foreign policy was associated with 'dispossessing' its own people of their natural resources in favour of multinational companies.

Privatisation spearheaded the ‘new’ foreign policy goals of economic growth.

To this end, the country was now open to reviving the collapsed regional bloc and liberalising its economy.

The state which had a monopoly of the economy opted out by privatising many of its parastatals and encouraging foreign direct investment.

The numbers of economic success did not fully translate into the lives of the communities around such resources.

This led to a foreign policy which was at odds with the domestic reality.

The country had spent nearly two decades under Ujamaa na Kujitegemea, it was poorly prepared to embrace the new political and economic realities.

The majority of its people still held dear the values which turned them into a peaceful country.

As a balancing act, there are half-hearted efforts at some aspects of regional integration on some of the issues like land ownership, freedom of movement of labour, goods and capital, as well as military cooperation.

The ‘new’ foreign policy did not have the allure of noble pursuits like the ‘traditional’ one had.

The current review is unlikely to change this anytime soon because those in charge have yet to find a working formula to harmonise the foreign and the domestic.