Historically and in the Present.
By Takura Zhangazha*
In a very recent online discussion concerning democracy and
governance with colleagues based in the Diaspora I was asked to talk about the
Southern African Development Community (SADC).
This was in relation to the historical role the regional body had in the
liberation struggles of as its name suggests of Southern Africa.
It was a difficult question given the fact that we are no
longer fighting liberation wars in the same said Southern African region.
We are now more electoral in our political questions and
contestations for power. History may remain
important but it is no longer central to any notions of retaining popular
political support during elections.
Ditto Tanzania.
That is one of the most liberatory countries in Southern and
broader Africa. There is no singular Southern
African country that cannot claim that it did not receive help in both civilian
and military struggles against direct settler colonialism from the people of
the then Tanganyika which became the United Peoples Republic of Tanzania and
Zanzibar. Under the leadership of the
now still ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCMP) party and through the years from
Julius Nyerere, Al Hassan Mwinyi, Benjamin Mkapa, Jakaya Kikwete and John
Magufuli.
Not only was it one
of the founding countries of the the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU)
now the African Union (AU). It was also
a founding member of the Southern African liberation oriented Frontline States
(FS) together with Zambia and Mozambique.
The FS were to eventually become the historical precursor to two regional
organizations. These were the Southern
African Development Coordination Committee (SADCC) and eventually what we now
know as SADC.
So whenever Tanzania politically sneezes the rest of
Southern and broader Africa coughs.
This has been the case in the most recent disputed Tanzanian
general election that saw the still controversial election of incumbent president
Samia Saluhu and the parliamentary victory of the CCMP in both the mainland
and also the island of Zanzibar.
A decent number of Pan Africanists like myself are in shock
at how the narrative of these recent elections have turned out. Their elections have never been this
controversial. But as argued by some it
was always going to come to a head. At some point. Particularly after the discovery of rare
earth minerals, gas and oil in the country and the death of former president John
Magufuli who was keen on centralized control of the state.
The key question that is emerging is that what has changed
in Tanzania beyond what we already knew about its electoral tendencies.
The reality of the matter is that it is a society that has
changed in its political outlook mainly based, as most African states are now,
on a change of national consciousness. Contrived (foreign economic interests)
or even if by default. With the default element
relating more to urban and rural divides and the rise of not only a new African
cultural materialism.
But more importantly a generational praxis gap about the
liberation struggle and contemporary lived political and economic realities of
many young Africans.
Three things therefore come back into vogue when we reflect
in a Pan Africanist sense on Tanzania and its recent political events and
elections.
The first one is how its founding president Julius Nyerere
once argued about the ambiguity of the meaning of democracy. He once intoned, writing a Foreword for
Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni’s biography that the ‘mechanisms of democracy
are not the meaning of democracy’. He
also, in an address to the South Africna Parliament as invited by Nelson Mandela
that ‘democracy is not like Coca Cola’. And I am paraphrasing here, he probably said
something that it cannot just be exported everywhere like a commodity.
In the second instance we have to reflect on our own
continually disputed African elections and their cycles. Or in South Africa’s case, their increasing
conservatism despite having fought a protracted African liberation
struggle.
As Nyerere argued, we have to think beyond elections in
their occurrence. What matters most is
what happens in-between them.
We cant think of elections as weather cyclones that occur
every five or six years simply in order to share a populist national cake. We
have to reflect more deeply on this and how younger generations understand the
meaning of elections beyond mimicry of what happens in the global north that
creates the likes of Trump and chainsaw totting Argentinian president Javier
Milei.
In the third and final instance, we have to understand the
internal complexities of each our Southern African countries. Tanzania
included. Beyond the internet and globalized media narratives. For example I do not speak Swahili, nor if I
was to go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lingala. What the majority
of cdes in these two aforementioned countries perceive as democratic progress
may not be as universal as we deem. Or prefer.
Not because we are better educated not only in English languages but
because we are sadly increasingly ahistorical in our understanding of
universalism.
To conclude, the recent elections in Tanzania are indeed a
blight on Southern Africa. Not only
because of the significant historicity of that country to the region and the
African continent. They can and should
have been done better. But it will never
take away the importance of Tanzania and its iconic role in a people centered
Pan Africanism. No matter the
undercurrents of global international relations, geo-political private capital
economic interests.
All that matters for now, and it is sad it has come to this,
is that Tanzania recovers. And that its people return to safety, security,
solidarity across rural and urban divides.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
