Hello Ed [Angel] and others,
Two weeks ago, in the meeting of the Mother Church, we had a discussion of racism and the conditions that enhance it. You (ed) I think offered Tanzania as an example of a government that has successfully moved to tamp it down. My friend Jonathan Barker, a [former] Africanist political scientist at University of Toronto, who actually visited at Friam some years back, did his dissertation on Tanzania, so I thought he might have something to say about it. And he did.
Below is his response. Pretty interesting, I say.
Nick
From: Jonathan Barker [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2015 4:12 PM
To: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: FW: Tribalism in Tanzania
Hello Nick,
The people who study Tanzania attribute the success in avoiding ethnic conflict and the political expression of ethnic loyalties and differences to specific cultural-historical conditions and to Nyerere's leadership and policies. The favorable condition most cited is the large number of ethnic groups and the absence of any one or two able to aspire to domination. The existence of Swahili as a widely spoken trade language with some connection to many of the other languages spoken is also mentioned. Key policies cited are several:
Making Swahili the official language and the language of instruction in all primary and, I think, secondary schools. The universities use English. I remember the pleasure student at the University of Dar es Salaam took in speaking Swahili amongst themselves and the resources put into making it a modern language.
Removing all chiefly authorities, although regions often have a leading ethnic group.
Obliging government administrators to serve outside their region of origin.
Forbidding political speeches in local languages.
Spreading schooling evenly through the country in order to end the educational advantage of regions favored by colonial governments and missionary schools. This move went so far as to oblige students from historically favored regions to attend school in other regions.
Nyerere himself came from a small ethnic group and he put tremendous stress on national unity and national symbols. In his time this included his version of social democracy or African socialism that he called Ujamaa.
The first elections were competitive, but only within the single dominant party that Nyerere led. And Nyerere was much revered. That party and its successor have won all elections, but only by 58% most recently.
I think it significant that the 2015 election elected the fifth president since independence and the two-term constitutional limit is respected. Thus losing candidates and their followers need not see the loss as permanent.
There is open warning of the dangers of tribalism and religious division. Here are extracts from an item from the Daily News of Dar es Salaam shortly before the recent election:
"FOUR presidential candidates on Sunday participated in a dialogue where they responded to questions from audiences and from the social media on a number of issues, the most outstanding one being peace, unity and the emerging divisions on the basis of religion, tribe and zone. .....
On several occasions, President Jakaya Kikwete has called on the public to go home and wait for the results after casting their votes, stressing that those who will refuse to leave the precinct of polling stations will not be tolerated and legal action will be taken against them.
The president said the work of protecting the votes should be left to all agents appointed by each political party that has fielded candidates in the general election, noting that it would be chaotic if all (more than 20 million) voters would mill around the polling stations after casting their votes.
He urged that public not to force the government to force them to leave the polling station areas, because the government is indeed prepared to execute its duties.
This is also directives that the National Electoral Commission (NEC) has issued and hopefully the public will comply and go home, so we can have peaceful and conflict free elections and transition to the new government."
There was an intense dispute just before independence over according the Asian, largely merchant, population of Tanzania citizenship. Some powerful leaders and labor unions wanted to restrict citizenship to "Africans". Nyerere said he would resign if the parliament so voted. "A day will come when we will say all people were created equal except the Masai, except the Wagogo, except the Waha, except the polygamists, except the Muslims..... You know what happens when people begin to get drunk with power and glorify their race, the Hitler's, that is what they do. You know where they lead the human race, the Verwoerds of south Africa, that is what they do... I am going to repeat and repeat very firmly that this Government has rejected, and rejected completely, any ideas that citizenship with the duties and rights of citizenship of this country are going to be based on anything except loyalty to this country.
Nyerere had already shown he was willing to take quite authoritarian action to limit conflict.
Overall I think government action at the outset and continuing, especially during elections, has made a real difference.
On another topic, I would love to know what you think of the recent book by Val Curtis of TED talk and Robert Aunger titled Gaining Control: How Human Behavior Evolved. It is brief and systematic.
A touch of snow here, but very bright. (I can't control the text formatting here.)
Jonathan
On 11/20/2015 6:50 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
Jonathan,
These websites were given to me as evidence that government action to reduce the kind of thinking that leads to racism is possible.
I am curious to know what you think about the Tanzania example.
How bout that Trump. Registering moslems? !
Who was it who said, “When they came for the ____, I was silent because _________. Now, they come for me, and there is nobody to defend me.”
N
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-20544021
Lots more if you do a search on “Tanzania tribalism”
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