The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Dr. Azaveli Feza Lwaitama
30 January 2008
opinion
Media footage is currently dominated by talk about Dr Daudi Ballali, who was sacked recently as Governor of the Bank of Tanzania, as well news of the impending visit to Tanzania by American President George W. Bush.
In the conversations about these two human beings, one has the feeling that there are some distinct voices in Tanzania expressing good reasons to justify harbouring intense hatred for these two individuals.
Among the valid reasons advanced for the hostility towards these two individuals is that they both are great believers in the supposed virtues of neo-liberalism, with its stress on leaving the economies of all the countries, including poor ones like Tanzania, to be run on principles that are euphemistically called market forces.
The "I hate Bush and Ballali" voices claim that running an economy like Tanzania's on neo-liberalist principles invariably means that individuals representing big multinationals are often allowed to make non-transparent decisions on how the natural and human resources of all countries are utilised.
Often, these decisions end up advancing the interests of individuals in the world and within poor countries who happen to have lots of money and property but who hardly ever use the wealth to solve the basic problems relating to the health and education of the majority of the people in those countries.
These individuals are also said to always want to continue accumulating even more money and property no matter who gets hurt in the process.
As Mwalimu Julius Nyerere taught, there are good-hearted capitalists, who are Wajamaa (Social Democrats) in spirit, like the Kennedys in the 1960s and today's America as well as the Rupias and Somaias in the then Tanganyika and the Mengis in today's Tanzania.
There are also greedy hard-hearted capitalists, who are Manyang'au (hyenas) in spirit, like the Bushes in today's US as well as all these capitalists in Tanzania, who have benefited from the fraudulent deals at the Bank of Tanzania, which are now being unearthed.
Dr Ballali is hated because he is alleged to have participated willingly in sordid banking schemes that resulted in lots of public money being transferred to a few individuals and their companies.
He is even alleged to have allowed himself to be used by some powerful politicians to make available to some businesspeople lots of money that they then used to promote their preferred candidates in various political contests.
Some Tanzanians are, indeed, very angry with Dr Ballali.
They are comparing his laxity in adhering to professional ethics to Mr Samuel Kivuitu, the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, whose doggy decisions in managing the December 2007 elections in Kenya have now landed that poor neighbouring country into a political limbo.
Mr Bush, on his part, is said to have caused a lot of hardships to many Muslims in the world from Iraq to Afghanistan.
There is even a Tanzanian by the name of Ghaitan, who is said to have had his basic human rights violated by detaining him for years in the USA's notorious Guatanamo Bay jail without taking him to court.
Mr Bush is alleged to have no permanent friends but, instead, to have the nerve to befriend whoever serves what are considered to be the permanent strategic interests of the US.
It is said that Mr Bush is out to make sure that those who own oil money continue to make more oil money.
This said to be the underlying reason why Mr Bush supports the continued use of inhumane extrajudicial detentions and even torture at Guatanamo Bay.
This is said to be part of Bush's global effort implemented under the innocently sounding slogan of "war on terror", whose goal is to stifle the growth of resources nationalism in the Muslim world where US oil money makers make most money.
I wish to encourage those who may be tempted to wish to hate Dr Ballali and Mr Bush to resist that temptation. It is more humanistic learning to love them.
This is because learning to love them is in line with the Ujamaa principles articulated by Mwalimu Nyerere and the wise Christian adage of "love your enemy".
Ballali and Bush are, after all, not the problem; they are mere individuals like you and I, whose worldview you happen NOT to share.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Citizen. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
