UAMUZI WA BUSARA WA TABORA: A BOOK ON TANGANYIKA’S STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

UAMUZI WA BUSARA WA TABORA

A BOOK ON TANGANYIKA’S STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

by Mohamed Said

What is saddening about the history of Tanganyika’s struggle for independence is the fact that more than four decades since achieving freedom that important period of a people’s resistance against foreign domination remains unwritten. Few attempts to write that history focused more on hero worship and idolising Nyerere rather than telling the truth. Local historians have tried to out do each other in praising those in power and by so doing have completely distorted the true history of Tanganyika’s struggle for independence. What we have is a one sided official history full of distortions and not even half truths. This history has been ignored for so long that vital documents, and photographs of the times still remains in private hands and will soon be destroyed or be lost for ever. It is now 50 years since TANU the party for Tanganyika’s independence made what came to be known as Uamuzi wa Busara – a wise decision when in Tabora in 1958 TANU voted to take part in the first general election to the Legislative Council under extremely discriminatory conditions. In that election seats were contested not only on racial lines but by contestants who have been properly educated and are employed in recognised profession. But what incensed the people more was the condition that Africans would have to vote for a European, an Asian and an African. The book tells the story of that election.                                                                                                                 The conditions set by the colonial government were stiff and seemingly unacceptable conditions for TANU to accept and consequently contest the election. The conference deliberations in Tabora, a small town on Western Province threatened to split TANU into two contending hostile camps - that of moderates in favour of participating in the elections; and that of radicals calling for a total boycott of the election. TANU and indeed Nyerere survived what could have been an internal crisis dominated by strong religious and racial undertones which would have led radicals like Sheikh Suleiman Takadir, Chairman of TANU Elders Council at the headquarters, and Zuberi Mtemvu then TANU Organising Secretary to stage a coup against Mwalimu Nyerere and take over the party, were it not for the ingenuity of Nyerere, the President of TANU and a group of TANU members from Tanga handpicked by Nyerere himself to confront the onslaught.

There are no existing records which can give an insight into Nyerere’s own position on the tripartite voting nor is there any indication that he had even discussed the issue at the headquarters privately with some of his close associates like Sheikh Suleiman Takadir, Zuberi Mtemvu, Idd Faiz, Haidar Mwinyimvua, Dossa Aziz or Bibi Titi Mohamed or the TANU columnist and propagandist Ramadhani Mashado Plantan owner of the radical paper Zuhra – Nyererere’s mouthpiece. It is therefore impossible to know how committed Nyerere was for TANU to contest the election on those conditions.

In that issue of tripartite voting Nyerere had played his cards close to his chest. The book brings to light Nyerere’s strategy which was a very close guarded secret which Mwalimu Nyerere never even revealed privately in even in his later life. The book uncovers this mystery. Through interviews with TANU veterans the book contains narrations from the horses mouth on how Nyerere was able to ride the wave of opposition within TANU, how he neutralised radicals like Mtemvu and Sheikh Takadir, short changed all his opponents and emerged victorious. That was his first test of his capabilities as a leader of a mass party and young Nyerere though untested passed his examination hands down.

The writer takes the reader through a labyrinth of intrigues, plots and counter plots within TANU which eventually led to the formation of two political parties soon after the tripartite voting of which TANU and Nyerere triumphed over Tanganyika United Party (UTP) a party formed by the government to counter weight TANU and mainly dominated by whites. The tripartite opponents resigned from TANU and Zuberi Mtemvu formed the African National Congress and Ramadhani Mashado Plantan and a group of Muslims formed All Muslim National Union of Tanganyika (AMNUT). Both parties were dangerously partisan threatening to engulf Tanganyika into a racial and religious conflict. Mtemvu’s policy was Africa for Africans while AMNUT wanted to have assurance about the future of Muslims in free Tanganyika. These players in the Tanganyika politics long forgotten seem to be alive in the pages of this book.

The book has moving stories of patriotism and sacrifice hitherto untold and unknown even to the present leadership in power. The writer gives voice to these heroes and heroines as they come alive to talk and walk in the pages of this book. The writer in a skilful narration of events and analysis stops short of calling those who have attempted to write on Tanganyika’s political history as sheer liars. There is a moving and saddening story of one of the TANU stalwart, Mzee Mshume Kiyate whose contribution as party financier and close friend of Nyerere’s family has not been requited. The writer narrates how Mshume Kiyate a prominent fish monger at the Kariakoo Market Dar es Salaam met Nyerere in early 1950s and they became more than friends. Mwalimu Nyerere was like a son to Mzee Mshume Kiyate.

The book also narrates contributions and sacrifice made by other patriots like Said Chamwenyewe who presented TANU’s appeal to the United Nations Visiting Missions to the Mandate Territories when it visited Tanganyika in 1955. Chamwenyewe was a very radical, brave and honest patriot. He was the one who mobilised the first TANU members from Rufiji in 1954 visiting villages campaigning for TANU on a bicycle collecting funds from members and turning the money over to TANU treasurer Idd Faiz Mafongo without asking anything in return. The book laments over these patriots as nothing is today known about these people. The book though belatedly has managed to resurrect these patriots from their graves.

But interesting are the rare photographs in the book of the times collected from private hands. These photographs of young Mwalimu Nyerere surrounded by Muslims townsman in kanzu and other Muslim paraphernalia add flavour into the author’s narrations. In the photograph are patriots like Issa Nassir, Sheikh Haidar Mwinyimvua, Mwinjuma Mwinyikambi, Jumbe Tambaza, Sheikh Suleiman Takadir, Mshume Kiyate, Said Chamwenyewe and many others most of them  forgotten. There is one very touching photograph of Mwalimu Nyerere with Mzee Mshume Kiyate taken soon after the army mutiny of 20^th January, 1964  showing Mzee Mshume covering Mwalimu Nyerere with a piece of cloth traditionally won by people from the coast known as “kitambi” or “msuli.”  The gesture of covering Nyerere with that cloth was a show of support to him by TANU elders presented by Mzee Mshume Kiyate when the army almost overthrew Nyerere’s goverment. Mzee Mshume died in early 1970s alone, poor and forgotten.

The book encroaches into the scary terrain of Islam as an ideology of colonial resistance by revealing the central role of Muslims in the struggle against the British a topic which is considered a taboo and a no go zone in Tanzania. The writer portrays Nyerere in a posture unknown even by his fervent admires and CCM the party he founded. The writer narrates how during the tripartite voting campaigns Nyerere participated in Islamic rituals specifically conducted to safeguard him and the movement against enemies. 

Mohamed Said deserves a pat on the back for documenting this important chapter in the history of nationalism in Tanganyika. This book is important to students of African history as well as to up coming politicians because it is from the past that our leaders can understand the present. But what is important is the fact that the book puts some meat into the skeleton of TANU’s history and indeed that of Nyerere. It is a book which once one starts reading will not put down until reaching the end. There is no indication which shows that the country is in any way interested in preserving its own history and that of its heroes. This book by Mohamed Said has therefore come just about the right moment and time.

Thursday, 05 March 2009