Liberating development? Rule and liberation in post-independence Tanzania

Abstract

Tanzania was a critical ally to the independence movements of Southern Africa, and its post-independence experiences of nation-building became an important model for them. The country was a pioneer in the transformation of liberation movements into governing parties, the formation of the single-party state, the introduction of heterodox socialism cum economic nationalism and the rapid emergence of illiberal and authoritarian tendencies in newly liberated countries. This article argues that in Tanzania such authoritarian tendencies were intimately and paradoxically tied up with a principally benevolent commitment to transforming society along egalitarian lines and the rapid advancement of rural development. This commitment bore repressive fruits, however, when it combined with Nyerere's and other politicians' paternalistic view of the peasantry and their belief that they knew best; a framing of postcolonial politics as an ongoing struggle against neo-colonial enemies; and a parallel suspicion that counter-revolutionary, reactionary forces lurked behind a lack of popular enthusiasm for the single-party state's project of establishing Tanzania's particular brand of ‘ujamaa’ socialism. The Tanzanian case suggests a complex picture of the nature of authoritarian tendencies in former liberation movements in post-independence Southern Africa; Tanzania's experience shows that there is more, sometimes significantly more, to such tendencies than just the self-serving motives of ruling elites.