Washington, DC — Issa Shivji, one of Tanzania's premier scholars, has published a new book which provides an introspective look at contemporary politics and social change in Tanzania during a critical period in the nation's history. Let the People Speak: Tanzania Down the Road to Neo-Liberalism, is a collection of 90 of the more than 150 writings which Shivji published between 1990 and 2005. Shivji has published a number of scholarly works on politics, economics, development, and law in Tanzania and Africa, including his well-known book Class Struggles in Tanzania (1976). He is still an active commentator on African politics, writing several columns for national newspapers in Tanzania.
The period covered by Let the People Speak was a time of transition in Tanzania. The nation's first President, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, stepped down in 1985, but he was still influential in national politics. Nyerere, an avid proponent of African socialism, gave his blessing to plans to liberalize Tanzania's economy. The era thus became an era of economic liberalization and privatization in the country.
Tanzania was once the symbol of Pan Africanism and African nationalism in East Africa. However, since Nyerere's death in 1999, many of the nation's Pan African values have been abandoned, evidenced in part by the nation's decision to expel Rwandan and Burundian refugees from its borders. The abandonment of these values coincided with the nation's embrace of neo-liberal social and economic policies and its campaign of privatization. The adoption of the policies brought distinct changes to Tanzania, including increased corruption and crime, higher school fees, and larger gaps between the wealthy and the poor. During this era political parties were introduced, media expanded, and the number of NGO's increased.
Tanzania has always benefited from peace and a sense of national identity, even while its citizens in neighboring countries lived through civil wars, coups, and dictatorships. This stability aided Tanzania's transition toward neo-liberalism, but the transition strained the nation's unity as religious, ethnic, and racial cleavages appeared.
During the regime of Benjamin Mkapa, Tanzania's third president, Nyerere passed away, and with him his influence. The nation's socialist policies were not only completely abandoned, but also those who profited under the new system openly criticized his socialist policies. According to Shivji, President
Mkapa's “world view was essentially that of a technician who saw the economy through the eyes of the IMF or World Bank: society as an object of engineering and leadership as a process of admonishing, rather than persuading, the people.”
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Let the People Speak: Tanzania Down the Road to Neo-Liberalism covers the most important milestones of the period with which he deals: the transition to a multi-party system; debates on, and changes to Tanzania's constitution; the endless debates surrounding the union with Zanzibar; Tanzania's path to neo-liberalism; social cleavages in Tanzanian society; press freedom; and in the words of the title of his final chapter, “Pan-Africanism or Imperialism?”
Let the People Speak: Tanzania Down the Road to Neo-Liberalism
By Issa G. Shivji
African Books Collective, Oxford
Published by CODESRIA, Senegal
316 pp., June 2006, Paper, $34.95
http://www.africanbookscollective.com/
Issa G. Shivji is a Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam where he has been teaching since 1970. He has also served as advocate of the high court and the Court of Appeal of Tanzania since 1977, and advocate of the high court in Zanzibar since 1989. He is a prolific writer and researcher, producing books, monographs and articles, as well as a weekly column printed in national newspapers. He most recently co-authored the book "Constitutional and Legal Systems of Tanzania" (2005).
