Julius Nyerere

Julius Kambarage Nyerere (13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999) was a Tanzanian politician who served as the first President of Tanzania and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1961 until his retirement in 1985.

Born in Tanganyika to Nyerere Burito (1860–1942), Chief of the Zanaki, Nyerere was known by the Swahili name Mwalimu or 'teacher', his profession prior to politics. He was also referred to as Baba wa Taifa (Father of the Nation). Nyerere received his higher education at Makerere University in Kampala and the University of Edinburgh. After he returned to Tanganyika, he worked as a teacher. In 1954, he helped form the Tanganyika African National Union.

In 1961 on independence, Nyerere was elected Tanganyika's first Prime Minister, and following the declaration of a republic in 1962, the country's first President. In 1964, Tanganyika became politically united with Zanzibar and was renamed Tanzania. In 1965, a one-party election returned Nyerere to power. During the first years, Nyerere created a single-party system and used "preventive detention" to eliminate trade unions and opposition.

Nyerere issued the Arusha Declaration, which outlined his socialist vision of ujamaa that came to dominate his policies. The policies led to a collapsing economy, systematic corruption, and unavailability of goods. In the early 1970s Nyerere ordered his security forces to forcibly transfer much of the population to collective farms and, because of opposition from villagers, often burned villages down. The campaign pushed the nation to the brink of starvation and made it dependent on foreign food aid.

In 1985, after more than two decades in power, he relinquished power to his hand-picked successor. Nyerere left Tanzania as one of the poorest, least developed, and most foreign aid-dependent countries in the world, although much progress in services such as health and education had nevertheless been achieved. He remained the chairman of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi for another five years until 1990. He died of leukemia in London in 1999.

Early life and education
Kambarage Nyerere was born on 13 April 1922 in the town of Butiama in Tanganyika's Mara Region. He was one of 26 children of Nyerere Burito (1860–1942), Chief of the Zanaki. He began attending Government Primary School in Musoma at the age of 12 where he completed the four year programme in three years and went on to Tabora Government School in 1937. He later described Tabora School as being "as close to Eton as you can get in Africa." In 1943 he was baptised as a Catholic. He took the baptismal name of Julius, which eventually became his given name. He received a scholarship to attend Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Here he founded the Tanganyika Welfare Association, which eventually merged with the Tanganyika African Association (TAA), which had been formed in 1929. Nyerere received his teaching diploma in 1947. He returned to Tanganyika and worked for 3 years at St. Mary's Secondary School in Tabora, where he taught Biology and English. In 1949 he got a government scholarship to attend the University of Edinburgh and was the first Tanganyikan to study at a British university. He obtained an undergraduate Master of Arts degree in Economics and History in 1952. In Edinburgh he encountered Fabian thinking and began to develop his particular vision of connecting socialism with African communal living.

Political career
On his return to Tanganyika, Nyerere took a position teaching History, English and Kiswahili, at St. Francis' College, near Dar es Salaam. In 1953 he was elected president of the TAA, a civic organisation dominated by civil servants, that he had been involved with while a student at Makerere University. In 1954 he transformed TAA into the politically oriented Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). TANU's main objective was to achieve national sovereignty for Tanganyika. A campaign to register new members was launched, and within a year TANU had become the leading political organisation in the country.

Nyerere's activities attracted the attention of the Colonial authorities and he was forced to make a choice between his political activities and his teaching. He was reported as saying that he was a "schoolmaster by choice and a politician by accident". He resigned from teaching and travelled throughout the country speaking to common people and tribal chiefs, trying to garner support for movement towards independence. He also spoke on behalf of TANU to the Trusteeship Council and Fourth Committee of the United Nations in New York. His oratory skills and integrity helped Nyerere achieve TANU goal for an independent country without war or bloodshed. The cooperative British governor Sir Richard Turnbull was also a factor in the struggle for independence. Nyerere entered the Colonial Legislative council following the country's first elections in 1958–59 and was elected chief minister following fresh elections in 1960. On 9 December 1961, Tanganyika gained independence as a Commonwealth realm and Nyerere became its first Prime Minister. A year later Nyerere was elected President of Tanganyika when it became a republic. A month later, Nyerere declared that in order to further the interests of national unity and economic development, TANU was now the only legal party in the country. However, it had effectively been a one-party state since independence.

Nyerere was instrumental in the union between the islands of Zanzibar and the mainland Tanganyika to form Tanzania, after the Zanzibar revolution on 12 January 1964 which toppled the Sultan of Zanzibar Jamshid bin Abdullah. The coup leader, a stonemason from Lira, Uganda, named John Okello, had intended Zanzibar to join Kenya. Nyerere, unnerved by the Tanganyika Army mutiny a few days later, ensured that Okello was barred from returning to Zanzibar after a visit to the mainland.

Transformation into socialism
When in power, Nyerere implemented a socialist economic programme (announced in the Arusha Declaration), establishing close ties with Mao Zedong's China, and also introduced a policy of collectivisation in the country's agricultural system, known as ujamaa or "familyhood".

In 1967, nationalizations transformed the government into the largest employer in the country. The state expanded rapidly into virtually every sector. It was involved in everything from retailing to import-export trade and even baking. This created an environment ripe for corruption.

The private sector suffered from the multiplying cumbersome, bureaucratic procedures and excessive tax rates. Enormous amounts of public funds were misappropriated and put to unproductive use. Purchasing power declined at an unprecedented rate and even essential commodities became unavailable. A system of permits (vibali) allowed officials to collect huge bribes in exchange for the vibali. Nyerere's policies laid out a foundation for systemic corruption for years to come. The ruling party's officials became known as Wabenzi ("people of the Benz"), referring to their taste for Benz cars.

Collectivization was accelerated in 1971. Because the population resisted collectivisation, Nyerere used his police and military forces to forcibly transfer much of the population into collective farms. Houses were set on fire or demolished, sometimes with the family's pre-Ujamaa property inside. The regime denied food to those who resisted. A substantial amount of the country's wealth in the form of built structures and improved land (fields, fruit trees, fences) was destroyed or forcibly abandoned. Livestock was stolen, lost, fell ill, or died.

In 1975, the Tanzanian government issued the "ujamaa program" to send the Sonjo in northern Tanzania from compact sites with less water to flatter lands with more fertility and water; new villages were created to reap crops and raise livestock easier. This "villagization" (coined by W.M. Adams) encouraged the Sonjo to use modern irrigation techniques such as the ‘unlined canals’ and man-made springs (Adams 22-24). Given the diversion of water from the Kisangiro and Lelestutta Rivers by dams, river water can flow by canals into the irrigation systems to alleviate the hardships of smallholder farmers and livestock owners.

Farming practices towards tea and cloves had increased for subsistence farmers. By 1974 ujaama programs and the IDA (International Development Association) worked hand and hand; while villagization organized new villages to farm, the IDA financed projects to educate farmers to grow alternate crops and granted loans to farmers with added credit to small farmers (Whitaker 206). For example, only 3 tons of tea had been produced in 1964 yet by 1975, 2,100 tons of tea was the net output of smallholder farmers mostly by Nyerere’s policies have given the communal villages the opportunity to grow tea leaves despite the long history of tea being only grown in estates (208). Although these statistics come from the late 1970s, one may understand agricultural growth through reorganizing traditional farms and investing into non-staple agriculture (especially through educating farmers how to grow tea and improve farming methods. One may look upon another example of Tanzanian government’s extensive services in training farmers to grow tobacco and improve farming methods, which aided significantly in tobacco yields 41.9 million pounds in 1975-1976.  By 1976, Tanzania became the third-largest tobacco cultivator in Africa (207).  Therefore, when the Tanzanian government utilized extensive services in agriculture, they achieved positive results and crop yields’ growth, especially in tea and tobacco smallholder farming whose prices are cheaper for Tanzanian villages to consume than purchase products within the cities.

As a result of this centralized government-controlled focus on tobacco and tea dominating arable land with only cash crops beneficial to the central government, food production plummeted, and only foreign aid prevented starvation. Tanzania, which had been the largest exporter of food in Africa, and also had always been able to feed its people, become the largest importer of food in Africa. Many sectors of the economy collapsed. There was a virtual breakdown in transportation. Goods such as toothpaste became virtually unobtainable.

The deficit in cereal grains was more than 1 million tons between 1974 and 1977. Only loans and grants from the World Bank and the IMF in 1975 prevented Tanzania from going bankrupt. By 1979, ujamaa villages contained 90% of the rural population but only produced 5% of the national agricultural output.

Nyerere announced that he would retire after presidential elections in 1985, leaving the country to enter its free market era — as imposed by structural adjustment under the IMF and World bank — under the leadership of Ali Hassan Mwinyi, his hand-picked successor. Nyerere was instrumental in putting both Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Benjamin Mkapa in power. He remained the chairman of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (ruling party) for five years following his presidency until 1990, and is still recognised as the Father of the Nation.

Nyerere left Tanzania as one of the poorest, least developed, and most foreign aid-dependent countries in the world. Nevertheless, Nyere's government did much to foster social development in Tanzania during its time in office. At an international conference of the Arusha Declaration, Nyere’s successor Mwinyi noted the social gains of his predecessor’s time in office: an increase in life expectancy to 52 years, a reduction in infant mortality to 137 per thousand, 2600 dispensaries, 150 hospitals, a literacy rate of 85%, two universities with over 4500 students, and 3.7 million children enrolled in primary school.

Foreign policy
Nyerere's foreign policy emphasised nonalignment in the Cold War and under his leadership Tanzania enjoyed friendly relations with the People's Republic of China, the Soviet bloc as well as the Western world. Nyerere sided with the Chinese in the Sino-Soviet rivalry.



Nyerere, along with several other Pan-Africanist leaders, founded the Organisation of African Unity in 1963. Nyerere supported several militant groups active in African colonies, including the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) of South Africa, FRELIMO when it sought to overthrow Portuguese rule in Mozambique, MPLA when it sought to overthrow Portuguese rule in Angola, and ZANLA in its war with the Smith government of Rhodesia. From the mid 1970s on, along with President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, he was one of the leaders of the Front Line States which campaigned in support of black majority rule in southern Africa. In 1978 he led Tanzania in war with Uganda, defeating and exiling the government of Idi Amin.

Nyerere was instrumental in the Seychelles military coup in 1977, in which soldiers trained by Nyerere deposed the country's democratically elected president James Mancham and installed a repressive one-party regime.

Nyerere claimed that homosexuality was alien to Africa and therefore it was right to have policies against it.

He was criticised for his vindictive actions after unsuccessfully appealing to the Pan Africanist Congress to adopt dialogue and détente with Pretoria instead of armed revolution. He supported a leadership coup that installed David Sibeko but after Sibeko's assassination he crushed PAC resistance at Chunya Camp near Mbeya on 11 March 1980, when Tanzanian troops murdered and split up the PAC army into detention camps. Nyerere then pressured the Zimbabwe government to arrest and deport PAC personnel in May 1981. The PAC never recovered and despite rivalling the ANC from 1959–1981 quickly declined. Its Tanzanian controlled remnant gained only 1.2% in the South African freedom election of 1994.

Outside of Africa Nyerere was an inspiration to Walter Lini, Prime Minister of Vanuatu, whose theories on Melanesian socialism owed much to the ideas he found in Tanzania, which he visited. Lecturers inspired by Nyerere also taught at the University of Papua New Guinea in the 1980s, helping educated Melanesians familiarise themselves with his ideas.

Post-presidential activity
After the Presidency, Nyerere remained the Chairman of CCM until 1990 when Ali Hassan Mwinyi took over. Nyerere remained vocal about the extent of corruption and corrupt officials during the Mwinyi administration. However, he raised no objections when the CCM abandoned its monopoly of power in 1992.

Nyerere retained enough influence to block Jakaya Kikwete's nomination for the presidency in the country's first multiparty elections in three decades, citing that he was too young to run a country. Nyerere was instrumental in getting Benjamin Mkapa elected (Mkapa had been Minister of Foreign Affairs for a time during Nyerere's administration). Kikwete later became president in 2005.



In one of his famous speeches during the CCM general assembly, Nyerere said in Swahili "Ninang'atuka", meaning that he was pulling out of politics for good. He kept to his word that Tanzania would be a democratic country. He moved back to his childhood home village of Butiama in northern Tanzania. During his retirement, he continued to travel the world meeting various heads of government as an advocate for poor countries and especially the South Centre institution. Nyerere travelled more widely after retiring than he did when he was president of Tanzania. One of his last high-profile actions was as the chief mediator in the Burundi conflict in 1996. He died in a London hospital of leukaemia on 14 October 1999.

Positions Held after Presidency: Chairman of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (1985–1990), Chairman of the independent International South Commission (1987–1990), and Chairman of the South Centre in the Geneva & Dar es Salaam Offices (1990–1999).

In January 2005 the Catholic diocese of Musoma opened a cause for the beatification of Julius Nyerere. Nyerere was a devout Catholic who attended Mass daily throughout his public life and was known for fasting frequently.

He has received honorary degrees from the University of Edinburgh (UK), Duquesne University (USA), University of Cairo (Egypt), University of Nigeria (Nigeria), University of Ibadan (Nigeria), University of Liberia (Liberia), University of Toronto (Canada), Howard University (USA), Jawaharlal Nehru University (India), University of Havana (Cuba), National University of Lesotho, University of the Philippines, Fort Hare University (South Africa), Sokoine University of Agriculture (Tanzania), and Lincoln University (PA, USA).

Cultural influences
In the late 1960s, Nyerere criminalized "decadent" forms of culture such as soul music, unapproved films and magazines, miniskirts, and tight trousers.

Nyerere continued to influence the people of Tanzania in the years following his presidency. His broader ideas of socialism live on in the rap and hip hop artists of Tanzania. Nyerere believed socialism was an attitude of mind that barred discrimination and entailed equality of all human beings. Therefore, ujamaa can be said to have created the social environment for the development of hip hop culture. Like in other countries, hip hop emerged in post-colonial Tanzania when divisions among the population were prominent, whether by class, ethnicity or gender. Rappers’ broadcast messages of freedom, unity, and family, topics that are all reminiscent of the spirit Nyerere put forth in ujamaa. In addition, Nyerere supported the presence of foreign cultures in Tanzania saying, "a nation which refuses to learn from foreign cultures is nothing but a nation of idiots and lunatics...[but] to learn from other cultures does not mean we should abandon our own." Under his leadership, the Ministry of National Culture and Youth was created in order to allow Tanzanian popular culture, in this case hip hop, to develop and flower. As a result of Nyerere’s presence in Tanzania, the genre of hip hop was welcomed from overseas in Tanzania and melded with the spirit of ujamaa.

Awards
Posthumous:
 * 1973: Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding
 * 1982: the Third World Prize
 * 1983: Nansen Refugee Award
 * 1986: Sir Seretse Khama SADC Medal
 * 1987: Lenin Peace Prize
 * 1988: Joliot-Curie Medal of Peace
 * 1992: International Simón Bolívar Prize
 * 1995: Gandhi Peace Prize
 * 2000: Statesman of the 20th century by the Chama cha Mapinduzi
 * 2009: World Hero of Social Justice by the 63rd President of UNGA, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann
 * 2011: Tanzania Professional Network Award

Eponyms

 * Julius Nyerere International Airport, (renamed from Dar es Salaam International Airport in 2005) the nation's largest and busiest airport
 * Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre, an ultramodern conference centre in Dar es Salaam with a seating capacity for about 1,000 people
 * Julius Nyerere University of Kankan, in Kankan, Guinea
 * Nyerere Day, a public holiday in Tanzania (14 October)
 * Nyerere Cup
 * Nyerereite, a rare sodium calcium carbonate mineral. Formula: Na2Ca(CO3)2
 * Roads and streets:
 * 🇧🇼: Nyerere Drive, Gaborone (1.6 km)
 * 🇰🇪: Nyerere Road, Nairobi (0.75 km)
 * 🇰🇪: Nyerere Avenue, Mombasa (1.5 km)
 * 🇰🇪: Nyerere Road, Kisumu (2 km)
 * 🇳🇦: Julius Nyerere Street, Windhoek (1.1 km)
 * 🇿🇦: Julius Nyerere Street, Durban (0.5 km)
 * 🇹🇿: Nyerere Road, Unguja, Zanzibar (6.5 km)
 * 🇿🇲: Nyerere Road, Kitwe (1.4 km)
 * 🇿🇼 : Julius Nyerere Way, Harare (1 km)
 * Schools in Tanzania:
 * Nyerere Secondary School in Mwanga District and J.K. Nyerere Secondary School in Moshi, Kilimanjaro Region
 * Mwalimu J. K. Nyerere Secondary School in Mbozi District, Mbeya Region
 * Nyerere Memorial School in Korogwe, Tanga Region
 * Nyerere High School Migoli in Iringa Region
 * Nyerere Secondary School in Unguja, Zanzibar

Memorials

 * Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation
 * Mwalimu Nyerere Museum Centre
 * Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Academy

Publications

 * Freedom and Unity (Uhuru na Umoja): A Selection from Writings & Speeches, 1952–1965 (Oxford University Press, 1967)
 * Freedom and Socialism (Uhuru na Ujama): A Selection from Writings & Speeches, 1965–1967 (Oxford University Press, 1968)
 * Includes "The Arusha Declaration"; "Education for self-reliance"; "The varied paths to socialism"; "The purpose is man"; and "Socialism and development."
 * Freedom and Development (Uhuru Na Maendeleo): A Selection from the Writings & Speeches, 1968-73 (Oxford University Press, 1974)
 * Includes essays on adult education; freedom and development; relevance; and ten years after independence.
 * Ujamaa — Essays on Socialism (1977)
 * Crusade for Liberation (1979)
 * Julius Kaisari (a Swahili translation of William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar)
 * Mabepari wa Venisi (a Swahili translation of William Shakespeare's play – The Merchant of Venice)
 * Utenzi wa Enjili Kadiri ya Utungo wa Mathayo (a poetic Swahili version of the Gospel of Matthew)
 * Utenzi wa Enjili Kadiri ya Utungo wa Marko (a poetic Swahili version of the Gospel of Mark)
 * Utenzi wa Enjili Kadiri ya Utungo wa Luka (a poetic Swahili version of the Gospel of Luke)
 * Utenzi wa Enjili Kadiri ya Utungo wa Yohana (a poetic Swahili version of the Gospel of John)
 * Utenzi wa Matendo ya Mitume (a poetic Swahili version of the Acts of the Apostles)