Julius Nyerere Mixtape

Julius Nyerere: Well, you know the problem with democracy. I don't think there is any country in the world which does not call itself democratic. All countries in the world call themselves democratic. It's a matter first of definition, I think mainly of definition, and of what we regard to be the essentials of democracy. We certainly ourselves regard ourselves as democratic. We understand why countries used to the multi-party system don't believe that a one-party system can be democratic or are rather suspicious of the one-party system. We can't frankly convince them by sheer argument, philosophical argument, that this is possible. Perhaps the best thing is actually to see this thing in In practice, what are the essentials of democracy? The essentials of democracy are that individuals should feel unharassed, that they are actually free in their society. Individuals. This is the most essential thing. I never see why an individual should not feel free because of a machinery of election. And the two-party or the one-party is really basically a machinery of election. Yes. The second one, when it comes to machinery, is that an individual should feel a true choice of the people he wants to represent him in a government where it's no longer possible for people individually to participate in the government, that you have to select individual representatives. Now, either sometimes you select parties, sometimes you select individuals. Now, frankly, I don't see why the thing It cannot be democratic simply because sometimes you select a party, which is what the Western countries usually do.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Julius Nyerere: And in our own case, you select an individual, the party being given, the party policy being given. So this is the kind of election we went through the other day. And we honestly believe we are independent. And we really ask the old countries at least to be democratic enough to have a free mind And to study the new experiments which are taking place in the rest of the world and this experiment which is taking place in my own country. It is democratic. We believe it is democratic.

Speaker 3: Now, not very long ago you had a revolution across the water here and you have a union with Zanzibar. Some people might want to know why a small Why is it that a population like that of Zanzibar is so heavily represented in your Union Parliament?

Julius Nyerere: Well, some people want to know, both outside— this question is asked not merely by non-Tanzanians. Sometimes it's asked by Tanzanians. But remember what has happened. What has happened is a merger between 2 countries. It's a merger between 2 countries. And when you are talking about countries, there is no big country and small country. Countries are equal. Zanzibar was an independent sovereign state, not less sovereign than Tanzania and Tanganyika, and Tanganyika was an independent sovereign state. And the problem is really how— it's a question of constitution. How do you merge these 2 countries and what kind of constitution do we adopt? Now, take the United States of America. Their own constitution provides for 2 houses. In one house, what is represented there are the states, and they are treated as equal. There's no big one, there's no small one. All of them are represented in the Senate by an equal number of people. Then you have the House of Representatives, where then you base it on population. We did not have— we don't have 2 systems, but obviously Just as in the United States, you must take into consideration that you— the mergers are states, and states must be equal. Even in our own case, although we rejected a 2-house system, you can't forget that in their stateness, Tanganyika and Zanzibar are equal.

Speaker 3: Now, you recently attended the OAU conference in Accra. What is your opinion now about the say, the status of African unity? That's one part of the question. And the second one is, how about unity here in East Africa? Why don't we hear any more about the East African Federation?

Julius Nyerere: May I answer first the— I think the second part of the question is probably easier and perhaps could explain my answer to the first part of the question. I'm a great believer in unity. I believe in the old adage, you know, unity is strength. You know, I mean, this is truly— it is strength. And the human race would be much stronger if we were united. We would get rid of a lot of problems in the world if we could be united. And therefore, the human race must move towards unity. And continents like mine, a country like Tanzania must move towards greater unity. Continents must move towards greater unity. And the human race must move towards greater unity.

Hamza Gaddat: Thank you.

Julius Nyerere: But the difficulties. The difficulties are not philosophical. The difficulties are merely political. It is one of those funny things in history that a state represents nothing. It's sometimes accident of history. But once it is there, it has more power sometimes than religion, than philosophy, than all sorts of things. And people become extremely— while they accept philosophically we must be united, Once you have these lines on a map and you have created the thing you call the nation, it's a big problem. So Africa has in a sense missed the first opportunity and that was— this is the thing I said in East Africa, that in East Africa we should have become united before we became independent, before we became separate states. We should have done that. I did advocate that in 1960. I did even go as far as saying, realizing this, I went as far as saying, Tanganyika must delay her independence or ought to delay her independence so that we all become united and then we become— we take our independence. Well, this did not happen. The reasons I understand, but I felt it was a great pity that we did not become united before we became independent. Hence now the difficulties. We now become separately independent and as a result, since we are sovereign states, it's extremely difficult.

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

Julius Nyerere: And for the time being, quite frankly, we must forget the possibility of a political merger in East Africa. Things like economic cooperation, this we are maintaining with great difficulty, but I think we'll maintain. Now, this is true of Africa. If it is true on a small scale like East Africa, where we have a common language, Swahili and English, common traditions of government, because all of us have been under British rule, we have common services, we have no railways, all railways are East Africans, and all East African railways— And all sorts of things, common currency and all sorts of things running together. If this is difficult, obviously it's going to be much more difficult on the continental basis. And this is the context in which you must, people must view the unity that is taking place in Africa, the movement towards unity in Africa. This is the way you've got to assess the importance of the OAU, not from the The ideal of unity, but from the difficulties of moving towards there. And if you do accept this, then the organization of African unity is extremely significant because here you are, I mean, it's the one continent where you find this. Young, feeling very much about their sovereignty, but still we meet, you know, and we give and take. And there we are. So, I'm very hopeful myself. I'm not— I'm realistic enough to feel that our road to unity is going to be long, patient.

Speaker 6: Now only 3 bastions of white supremacy remained: Namibia, South Africa, and most urgently, Rhodesia. At the start of the Kissinger mission last week, President Nyerere had been pessimistic. But 2 days ago, when Dr. Kissinger returned to report to him on his talks with Dr. Vorster and Mr. Smith in South Africa, Nyerere broke the news that victory seemed imminent. Afterwards, in his only television interview since Dr. Kissinger's arrival in Africa, President Nyerere discussed the mission in detail.

Julius Nyerere: Kissinger tells me that next Friday he expects a statement from Mr. Smith which accepts not just the We agreed on the principle of majority rule, but majority rule within the terms expressed by Mr. Callaghan in his conditions. And these terms was independence on the basis of majority rule in 2 years, 18 months, 16— or 16 months.

Speaker 5: Now, if—

Julius Nyerere: If Kissinger expects Smith to say this, then I must say either he has converted him, which is not likely, or he has made the alternatives look very grim indeed to him.

Speaker 6: Do you expect Mr. Smith to say this, that he accepts majority rule, not only majority rule, but within 2 years at the outside?

Julius Nyerere: If Dr. Kissinger tells me that he expects Smith to say this, I must believe Dr. Kissinger. I don't believe Smith. So, so my optimism is based upon what Kissinger has told me, upon Kissinger's integrity and upon American power.

Speaker 6: What effective pressure can the Americans put on Smith that the British couldn't?

Julius Nyerere: South Africa supports Smith. Without South Africa, really, Smith is not likely to The Americans have the necessary economic— the necessary power to say to the South Africans, you are the supporters of Smith. Stop supporting Smith, or else. Or else.

Speaker 6: And that's what's been said, you believe?

Julius Nyerere: If it has not been said, then my optimism is unfounded, because if it has been said, I'm saying Smith can only accept majority rule under pressure. He can't— he cannot be converted to majority rule.

Speaker 6: If Smith on Friday does say, I accept majority rule, how long before a majority government will be in power, transitionally perhaps, in Rhodesia, which will then become Zimbabwe?

Julius Nyerere: This depends upon the length of the constitutional talks, and if I understand it, One of the conditions Mr. Callaghan laid down was that once a constitutional conference has been called, he expects that it's going to reach its decisions quickly. One is not going to have a protracted, long constitutional conference. One of the things that the constitutional conference must agree are the terms for the establishment of a provisional government. It would be established immediately. You expect that this government would be established immediately after the talks.

Speaker 6: So we're talking about a matter of weeks, in your view?

Julius Nyerere: I should think so. If this is my understanding, you say you accept majority rule. The British call a constitutional conference. A constitutional conference works out the program, and the program includes this formation of a provisional government. I should expect, unless one wants it to— wants the war to go on for another year or so.

Speaker 6: The provisional government would have to be an African-majority government for it to be acceptable to you?

Julius Nyerere: It has to be. It has to be. It's not the independence government, but it is an African government. It has a majority of Africans. It's led by Africans, and it has a majority.

Speaker 6: How long does the guerrilla war How long will the war in Rhodesia now go on for?

Julius Nyerere: Until you have formed that provisional government. That's why I repeat, it is important to bring the talks to an end as soon as possible, because it is that government which calls off the war. Nobody else can call off that war.

Speaker 6: Mr. President, do you have anything to say to the white minority in Rhodesia?

Julius Nyerere: I don't know what I can say. You know, it's very difficult what to say. We mean it when we say that we want to establish non-racial societies. The whites in Southern Africa have laid down the conditions under which they will live in Africa, and their condition is that they must dominate. And I'm saying on that condition, really, they have no future in Africa. This is a condition which inevitably puts them in confrontation with the majority of the people of Africa. But if they accept to live in Africa on the basis of equality, they ask for nothing that a human being anywhere does not ask, then there is no reason why they shouldn't live in Africa just like anybody else.

Speaker 6: Why was it then that you suggested, you proposed the fund of money to go to white settlers who wanted to leave after independence?

Julius Nyerere: Because I'm being completely realistic that these people don't accept majority rule, a large number of them. A majority of that minority does not accept majority rule. And if we agree that majority rule is coming in any case, These people will leave in any case, and therefore better that they leave now than that they fight and fight and fight and leave at the end of a long and terrible war. A minority will stay, and usually when this minority which stays does not ask for special guarantees, they stay as ordinary human beings.

Speaker 6: What is your reaction to the idea that What do you say to the view that white people should be given special financial and other guarantees to stay in Zimbabwe?

Julius Nyerere: I think it is absurd. I think it's absurd. That's why I'm saying really one should do on a larger scale in Zimbabwe what one did on a smaller scale in Kenya. You bought them off, those who didn't want to stay in that country. Were bought off. You didn't pay them to stay. What is the idea of paying a person to stay in a country in which he says, this is my country anyway, I'm going to stay here? You don't pay him to stay. You pay him to start a new way of life elsewhere because he doesn't want to live here under majority rule.

Speaker 6: Do you believe that as a consequence of Dr. Kissinger's initiative, Western interests have been strengthened? What's the role of the United States in Southern Africa?

Julius Nyerere: I believe Dr. Kissinger is right in saying if you want to work for American interests or Western interests in Southern Africa, throw your weight on the side of those who are working for majority rule. If you don't, And the war goes on. And we have said we can't give these people arms to fight. They will achieve their independence only through the support which they get from the communist countries. And this is not in the interest of the Western powers. So I suppose he's right in doing this. But I'm saying, so what? I want his pressure. I want American pressure.

Hamza Gaddat: Right.

Julius Nyerere: I want American pressure on the side of majority rule, and I have no intention of quarreling with Americans. What I'm interested in is majority rule in Southern Africa.

Speaker 6: One of the things that Dr. Kissinger said in Washington before he came here was that part of the process in his mind was to arrest— was his term— the radicalization of Africa, which he said would have profound impact in the Middle East and Europe and elsewhere. Has he been successful, in your judgment?

Julius Nyerere: On this one, I think he's wrong. This, again, it would be wrong for me not to say this. He's wrong. You can't set out in Africa on the basis of arresting radicalization. We are going to radicalize Africa. If you set out to stop radicalization, you are setting out for a confrontation with future Africa. Future Africa must be radicalized. We've got— we must change Africa, and Africa cannot be changed without being radicalized. If you are going to equate radicalization with anti-West, then you are in trouble, because, because we must radicalize Africa.

Speaker 6: Dr. Kissinger's mission was also intended to resolve the crisis on South Africa's other flank, in Namibia, where guerrilla war has also begun. Do you expect the guerrilla war in Namibia to intensify?

Julius Nyerere: There is no doubt that if the South Africans don't move quickly to a constitutional conference, the guerrilla fighting in Namibia will be intensified, as it has necessarily— it had necessarily to be intensified in Rhodesia.

Speaker 6: And is it your view that at the moment South Africa doesn't seem to be inclined to move quickly towards a constitutional conference?

Julius Nyerere: I have a feeling that the South Africans have not, in the case of Namibia, accepted Just before Dr.

Speaker 6: Kissinger went to see Mr. Vorster, your government expressed anxiety, saying that for Dr. Kissinger to meet a man whom you describe as a butcher would give Vorster respectability in the eyes of the world. Are you, though, now glad that Dr. Kissinger met Mr. Vorster?

Julius Nyerere: It doesn't stop him from being a butcher. He's a butcher.

Hamza Gaddat: Oh.

Julius Nyerere: He will— there is no some sacramental exercise which is going to stop Forster from being a butcher. The man is a butcher, and he knows it himself, and the world knows it. Forster has changed in relation to Rhodesia. He accepts majority rule in the case of Rhodesia. He does not accept anything like majority rule. He doesn't accept any change leading to relaxation of apartheid in South Africa at all.

Speaker 6: How now do the frontline states, assuming the independence of Rhodesia, how do the frontline states help the majority population of South Africa?

Speaker 5: We'll go on.

Julius Nyerere: Explaining to the rest of the world the meaning of apartheid, and we hope the the outside world will understand why the majority of the people in South Africa cannot tolerate that situation. They will oppose it. They'll be shot. There are going to be more and more Sowetos, and we hope the outside world will understand that this has nothing to do with communism. It only has to do with apartheid and people fighting against apartheid. We'll continue doing this.

Speaker 6: Do you believe that the life of apartheid has been shortened as a consequence of Dr. Kissinger's shuttle?

Julius Nyerere: I don't believe myself. Dr. Kissinger has made a statement on apartheid. He has condemned apartheid itself. But I don't believe his shuttle will have the slightest impact on South Africa itself, certainly not directly. But if South Af— if Kissinger's and the Americans' diplomacy and pressure helps to liberate Namibia and Rhodesia—

Hamza Gaddat: And Angola.

Julius Nyerere: South Africa now will have on its borders independent Africa, and the fact that South Africa is bordering directly on independent Africa, irrespective of the ideology or the degree of radicalization of the governments which border South Africa, this is bound to have a tremendous effect on what happens within South Africa itself. So, to that extent, what the Americans are doing now will indirectly affect, in the long run, what is happening.

Speaker 8: We would like to take a candle and put it on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, which would shine beyond our borders, giving hope where there was despair, love where there was hate, and dignity where before there was only humiliation. The words spoken by Julius Nyerere of Tanzania 18 years ago on the eve of his country's independence. Nyerere was the son of a peasant, his country's first graduate, leader of the struggle for freedom from British rule, a victor without bloodshed, the first president of Tanzania, and now an African statesman of world renown. At independence, his people were among the poorest on Earth. Stumbling into freedom with little sense of direction, until ten years ago. Then here at Arusha, President Nyerere proclaimed a revolution.

Hamza Gaddat: One man!

Speaker 8: Today, the children of Tanzania celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Arusha Declaration. A statement of principles and purpose which echoed across Africa. We're at war, said Nyerere. We've been oppressed and exploited. And he declared, we have two principles: socialism, self-reliance—the twin bulwarks of true freedom. Бубуб!

Hamza Gaddat: Войнекито а чем а чем а пиндус? Метаарися гوردевдианц кузотانو? Войнедадियल смилип? Ава по тари? О как узоко? Каким удугу?

Speaker 8: Independence had conferred formal freedom and allowed a nation to awake. It wasn't enough. Freedom was mocked by the poverty, ignorance, and disease which oppressed Tanzania. The conventional escape was and is money, borrowed from anywhere at any price. Nyerere spurned convention as another form of bondage. Instead, his people were to save themselves, build their own future, By their own work in equality with dignity. Tanzania would discard capitalism. But to turn from the West was not to head East. Communism, too, was spurned. Instead, 10 years ago, Tanzania set her own course, watched by a wondering world.

Julius Nyerere: Well, I really, frankly, I can't tell you that I had made an inspection of the Third World countries. And found that what they were doing was wrong, and then I decided to—we decided here to act differently. We acted from our own experience, and I think it can be summarized very simply: we were very idealistic. We had been talking about freedom, freedom. But you can't involve people freely to work hard unless. They're sure that they'll get the benefits for themselves.

Speaker 6: Can you explain why you set your face against a Western, a capitalist form of development?

Julius Nyerere: Our leaders were beginning to— a kind of commercialized capitalism. They were borrowing money from the banks and building houses for renting. They were beginning to run buses. They were beginning to have farms. in the rural areas, where other people began to work for them. They were not particularly enterprising people. This was not— this class which was developing was not really the class which in the 19th century in Europe you called the entrepreneur. This was a very unproductive kind of entrepreneur. These would be the people who had become the parasites in this kind of society. We've We couldn't mobilize our people to work hard for the benefit of a minority. And so we had to reject development to serve a minority. And that minority was bound to be the leadership, the few political leaders, and the elite, the small educated elite. So we had to say no.

Speaker 8: The alternative was socialism. But how? Tanzania was backward. Her people, 12 million of them, were scattered, isolated from this century. The British had ruled with benign neglect. Most of the peasants were still ignorant and malnourished, living to survive. They knew neither liberty nor equality. Democracy was alien, socialism a word without sense. Yet it was here that revolution had to flourish, in remote villages like this, 100 miles from Arusha. I'm a farmer. The village of Singe. Education. The nation will be built on education. They dance to inaugurate a classroom, built by themselves with help from the village, which provides space for 90 more pupils. In Tanzania, nearly two-thirds of the children now go to primary school, double the number of 10 years ago. By the end of this decade, every child should be at school. Education is unconventional, but filled with purpose. Even the dances are to foster national pride. Under the British, the schools were British, producing clerks to serve the colony, not the people. Today, there are not merely more schools— this official has spent the afternoon opening new classrooms all over the district— but their purpose is profoundly different. The children will still be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, but they will learn, too, about socialism and democracy. And they're told that true socialism requires real democracy, freedom of thought, speech, and the power to control their own lives. And they learn about self-reliance. The school has a farm worked by the children. They grow food for themselves and for sale, and the income is spent on the school. They're taught the skills required by an impoverished nation of peasants. How to produce more food, more efficiently, for ever more people. And they learn that their education is to serve the village, not themselves, that they must work hard, with intelligence, for each other. Sengi has a lake. 3 years ago, it looked the same, and the same men fished it. But then, they worked alone. Now, they fish together in a cooperative, producing for the village. For Sengi is searching for socialism, discovering the principles of ujamaa. Ujamaa means togetherness, togetherness for the sake of mutual support. The scatter of thousands of ujamaa villages are the seeds from which socialism and self-reliance in Tanzania are intended to flourish. But it's a fundamental principle of the Arusha Declaration, that there's no socialism without democracy. Men can't be forced into freedom. A man must develop himself. So here they may decide to work for each other, elsewhere they may not. No outsider may force the pace. To do so is to destroy the principle of Ujamaa by denying free will. But coercion there has been. Only 3 years ago, most of the peasants still lived scattered in remote areas far from schools How to make progress? A decree was issued that by 1977, all the people should live in villages. There followed a mass movement of peasantry. Most came freely, some were reluctant, and upon a few, force was used. Tsingyi is now 7 times greater in size than 3 years ago. Throughout the country, 80% of the population is now in villages. Some said the decree offended the principles of Ujamaa. I don't think it's a good idea.

Julius Nyerere: This was necessary. This is a kind of planning. This is planning. Governments do plan. And they say, look, you are going— this is the residential area, and that is a forest area, and that is an industrial area. And you jolly well have to live in the residential area. You're not going to live in a forest area. By law. By decree. And so we had to say, look, we are going to plan the rural areas, and we are going to have to have these places where we are going to live. This has not changed the concept of voluntarily working together for the common good. So the villages, although they are all called— in Tanzania, we have about 6,000, or I don't know how many we have— although they are all called Ujamaa villages, they are not. Because the people— although the people are living together, they're not working together. You will find you can grade them in their degree of ujamaa, and you can grade them only because each village will move at its own pace.

Speaker 6: Are you frustrated at the slow pace at which the ujamaa concept in Tanzania has developed? Did you hope that it would take place much more quickly?

Julius Nyerere: I was hoping it to be faster. I was certainly hoping that it will be much faster. No, it's slower. It is much slower. But I'm not particularly worried. We had to do 2 things in Tanzania, I felt. I felt socialism here has to take 2 steps. 2 stages. One, if you like, is purely the negative. And the negative is simply stop, stop exploitation. Stop one individual exploiting another individual. That we have virtually done. Virtually done. We really— we have a few— we may still have a few capitalists in Tanzania, but capitalism now is not really our problem. We have stopped the Exploitation of man by man in Tanzania—that we have succeeded. The next is to work together in a socialist manner. This requires a high degree of of understanding, and this stage is a difficult stage. It is this voluntary element which is a very difficult. This organization where the people have to organize themselves, which is very difficult.

Speaker 8: The principle of free will. Is overriding. Likewise, free discussion, open debate on issues great and small. Daudi Onna was elected by 10 families of Singi to be their leader, the head of their cell. Singi has 40 such cells, 40 such leaders. Here they discuss priorities. Which is more urgent, to clean the cattle dip or dust the crops against disease? Before any proposal becomes village policy, it must be approved by majority of the peasants. In principle, the institution is utterly democratic, but bullies can boss. It takes confidence to assert your right to speak your mind. The advance of democracy depends heavily on the wisdom and integrity. Of men like Daudi. Daudi was born in Singi, is educated, could have fled to the city, but is happy to be a peasant and proud that six years ago his family helped found Singi's first Ujama project, that his four children were born into socialism. Tu loyosuk fani hivio. We had 65 families. We put money in a fund. We bought a tractor between us and started to farm our land together. Which was shared? Yes, we shared the land between us. But the village now has 400 families. How do they understand about Ujama'? When everyone began to arrive, some of our leaders started to educate them about Ujama', and they began to see that it was the best way. And they started to join forces to make the policy work. But we have a lot to do, many plans. We want more tractors. We want to improve the water supply.

Speaker 6: For irrigation?

Speaker 8: Yes, for irrigation, but also for our homes. We want to change the look of the village. Even the houses will look different. That's better housing, in fact? Yes, better housing. How long before Singi becomes a complete Ujumaa village? It'll take some years. About 5, I should think. 5 years is fast, but never fast enough. In Singi, every family owns land, some 3 acres each. In a good year, there's abundant corn to keep you. But there are bad years, when crops fail. Then, no surplus to sell, so no money to buy, and hunger sets in— the essence of poverty, the evidence for revolution. But change in peace takes time and persuasion.

Speaker 5: Oh, oh, nerere, ajenganji. Oh, oh, nerere, ajenganji.

Speaker 8: The communal farm is no romance with socialism. It's the means to escape poverty. Higher production requires new methods, new attitudes, and greater cooperation. Tanzania must produce more from the land to feed more people and to sell abroad to earn money, which buys technology, which helps people out of poverty. Singi's communal farm is 80 acres. It should grow greatly in size as the village reaps the benefit of shared production, shared anxiety and shared success. But faith's required. And finance. Not least, finance for irrigation to save the crop in drought. But the village and the nation are too poor to pay for it. 1975 was a bad year. The harvest failed. The government brought food from abroad at crippling cost. And for a time, Singi lived on handouts. No one starved, but malnutrition still abounds. So does filthy water, the world's greatest killer. The drive in Tanzania is for clean water for all within 3 years. In the rest of the world, hundreds of thousands of children will still die from waterborne disease in the year 2000. In Tanzania, the advance of basic health services has been more rapid than almost anywhere else on Earth. Even so, such is poverty, 1 out of every 4 babies born still dies by the age of 5. In 3 years, though, All should have healthcare. In freedom, with equality, the village is meant to run its own affairs. But the affairs of state are theirs, too. National policy requires national support, the people's vote. In this one-party state, Western democracy is considered irrelevant. Instead, decisions are passed from cell to village to ward to district to region, and then to the nation. All officers at all levels are elected. Free debate should flourish. But bullies and bureaucrats can abuse democracy.

Julius Nyerere: We have succeeded in defining the socialist and democratic objectives for our country. We have succeeded in We have succeeded in building the necessary institutions, the necessary democratic institutions, the necessary socialist institutions. But we are not particularly efficient, because, after all, democracy is not just a constitution. Actually, I don't know whether there is any constitution in the world which is not democratic on a piece of paper.

Hamza Gaddat: On a piece of paper, every constitution in the world is democratic. Right.

Julius Nyerere: It is democratic, but it's got to be used. It's really practice which makes one constitution fundamentally different from another. And so we have to use those institutions. The people have to use those institutions. The leaders must encourage, must help people to use them. And we must stop using democratic institutions to intimidate people, because intimidation does take place. And so we have— We have to see that if the petty tyrant gets somewhere, we've got to remove him. And we've got to see that the people are going to stand up to the petty tyrant and say, behave yourself. But these things will be built over a long period, with political education, with political practice, with general education.

Speaker 8: Last month, Singi took In celebration of the Arusha Declaration, the village opened a shop. Peasants built it. Peasants stocked it. The cost, £2,000. Their choice, their money. Prices are fixed at national level. Profits are kept for the village. The purpose is to drive private shops making personal profits out of business. There is, though, a higher purpose. The Ujima shop joins the Ujima farm, the Ujima fishing, and the Ujima school to help form the Ujima village, the source of self-reliance and socialism, the start of the road to freedom. After 10 years, the direction is clear and the purpose certain.

Speaker 6: The contrast between what's happening here in Tanzania and what's happening in the United States is striking. And the conditions endured by hundreds of millions of people elsewhere in Africa and in Asia and Latin America is quite startling. But it would be romantic to conclude from that that Tanzania is safely on the way towards utopia. For in a world grotesquely divided between rich nations and poor nations, Tanzania is still struggling for economic survival.

Speaker 8: And her orderly progress out of poverty 500 miles away in the capital, Dar es Salaam, those forces never let up. True, the colonial governor's residence is now State House, an office block for the government. True, the city is socialist, if shabby. No contrast here between that Yes. True, the old exploiters who came to plunder have lost their grip on the country, have been politely but firmly expelled. True, the economy is now in public, not private, hands, under domestic, not foreign, control.

Speaker 6: But poverty is a trap.

Speaker 8: Tanzania sells sisal, The price is fixed by foreigners in Europe, fluctuates wildly in a free market. International slump and world inflation make a mockery of national plans. Sisal buys tractors, or should. Exports buy imports, or should. But when sisal prices fall and tractor prices rise, You either give up tractors or borrow to buy them. And Tanzania is already deep in debt, financing progress with foreign loans. But debts can hold you to ransom and steal your freedom. It's a harsh dilemma.

Julius Nyerere: I don't know how to put it. The world is one. We need those resources. Resources which are taking people to the moon. I need those resources here. It's a matter of right. So I'm going to get them somehow for our people. These resources are world resources for the people of the world. And we've got to get them and develop our country. It's true, unfortunately, under the present circumstances, because we're not We don't have a world authority which taxes the rich and benefits the poor, returns to the poor what was taken away from them by the rich. So to get them, I have to accept certain obligations. But if this is the only way I can get these resources, I'll still take these resources.

Speaker 6: You've described Tanzania as a poor country. How does the pauper regard the rich man?

Julius Nyerere: Well, if he knows the rich man very, very well, if he knows that the— that his poverty and the wealth of the rich man are linked, I suppose he's not likely to To like the wealthy person very much. We must judge harshly a system in the world which produces this kind of division, where the vast majority of the people in the world are poor and ignorant, and There is immense amount of wealth in the world being wasted.

Speaker 6: What would have happened, do you think, in Tanzania if you had developed according to Western principles in a capitalist way?

Julius Nyerere: I think we would be a country without really hope. At present, at least, we have hope because we have— our direction is right. We know that. It's not the leadership which knows. The masses know that our direction is right. We know better because we know a little more now about what is What's happening in the rest of the— in other countries, our people perhaps know less about through contrast than we do, but we know the contrast. So we would be poor without hope.

Speaker 8: Now we are poor with hope.

Speaker 6: The first 10 years of the Arusha Declaration is really a very short period. Will we be in a better position in 10 years' time to judge whether or not It has been successful.

Julius Nyerere: In the next 10 years? Certainly, because we will do much better in the next 10 years than we did in the last 10. In the last 10, we were building the foundations. They're slower to build. In the next 10 years, we are building upon those foundations. It's quicker. It's going to be quicker.

Speaker 6: Do you have to rely forever, as it were, on development of the kind you want on exhortation, persuasion, argument, education? And is there a point at which you would say, hey, this isn't working, we ought to be trying something else?

Julius Nyerere: What else? There is nothing else.

Speaker 8: It is dawn in Tsingyi, the start of the second decade. Socialism is 10 years old and growing up, while the world watches, wondering.

Speaker 5: It is true that in the Third World, we talk a great deal about economic development, about expanding the number of goods and services and the capacity to produce them. But the goods are needed to serve men. Services are required to make the lives of men more useful, more peaceful, and more fruitful. Political, social, and economic organization is needed to enlarge the freedom and dignity of men. Always we come back to man, liberated man, as the purpose of activity, the purpose of development. But man can only liberate himself or develop himself. He cannot be liberated or developed by another, for man makes himself. It is his ability to make himself. I have a question. To act deliberately for a self-determined purpose, which distinguishes him from other animals. The expansion of his own consciousness, and therefore of his own power over himself, over his environment, and his society, must therefore ultimately be what we mean by development. The same is true of education. Its purpose is the liberation of man from the strains and limitations of ignorance and dependence. Education has to increase men's physical and mental freedom, to increase their control over themselves, their own lives, and the environment in which they live. The ideas imparted by education, or released in the mind through education, should therefore be liberating ideas. The skills acquired by education should be liberating skills. Nothing else can properly be called education. Any teaching which induces a slave mentality or a sense of impotence is not education at all. It is an attack on the minds of men. This means that adult education has to be directed at helping men to develop themselves. It has to contribute to an enlargement of men's ability in every day, in every way. In particular, it has to help men to decide for themselves, in cooperation, what development is. It must help men to think clearly. Yes. It must enable them to examine the possible alternative courses of action, to make a choice between those alternatives in keeping with their own purposes, and it must equip them with the ability to translate their decisions into reality. The personal and physical aspects of development cannot be separated. It is in the process of deciding for himself what is development, and deciding in what direction it should take his society, and implementing those decisions, that man develops himself. There is another aspect to this. A man learns because he wants to do something, and once he has started along this road, of developing his capacity. He also learns because he wants to be, to be a more conscious and understanding person. Learning has not liberated a man if all he learns to want is a certificate on his wall and the reputation of being a learned person, a possessor of knowledge. For such a desire is merely another aspect of the disease of the acquisitive society— the accumulation of goods for the sake of accumulating them, the accumulation of knowledge, or worse still, the accumulation of pieces of paper which represent a kind of legal tender for such knowledge— has nothing to do with development. Adult education is not something which can deal with just agriculture or health or literacy or mechanical skills and so on. All these separate branches of education are related to the total life a man is living and to the man he is.

Hamza Gaddat: Yes.

Speaker 5: and will become or is becoming. Learning how best to grow soya beans is of little use to a man if it is not combined with learning about nutrition or the existence of a market for beans.

Speaker 9: Called emwalimu, the Swahili word for teacher, Nyerere has devoted much of his time to African solutions to Africa's problems.

Julius Nyerere: Very few leaders understand as deeply the roots, the evolution, the nature of the conflict in the Great Lakes as he does. Very few leaders have ideas about what to do about it as he does. And very few leaders have the influence that he has within that subregion.

Speaker 9: We met Nyerere during a recent visit to New York and asked first about Rwanda and the prospects for reconciliation there.

Julius Nyerere: It's not going to be easy to prevent people who have lost members of their families to want revenge. This cannot be prevented. And so some revenge killings here and there might take place. But the government itself is going to work extremely hard To reconcile the people. And my hope is that the international community will help them in 2 ways. One, that we do get hold of the perpetrators of the genocide and put them on trial under the international tribunal in Arusha. I hope we do that. I hope we do that. Some of these people are being harbored in the capital, in the capitals of a large number of our countries. We should hand them over. Secondly, we should help the government with resources. And that government is going to try and reconcile their country.

Speaker 9: Are African governments in which— in countries where these militia people are hiding now prepared to hand them over?

Julius Nyerere: Well, so far they're not handing Some are in Africa, some are not in Africa, some are in Europe, and it's just possible some may be outside Europe. We all have a responsibility to hand over these people. This is an essential element in the reconciliation of the peoples of Rwanda. I hope that will happen.

Speaker 9: What is the main problem in Burundi? You've been most intimately involved there yourself.

Julius Nyerere: Well, the main problem is a problem of power. In Rwanda, you You had a majority in power. You have these divisions called Tutsi, Hutu, and in Rwanda you had the Tutsi— the Hutu in power and the minority Tutsi excluded. In Burundi, it was the other way around. You had the minority Tutsi in power and the majority excluded. And this is the problem we have today.

Speaker 5: I see.

Julius Nyerere: deal with, that power really virtually since independence has been in the hands of the minority supported by the army. And that is really basically the problem we are dealing with.

Speaker 9: What would the solution be?

Julius Nyerere: The solution will be a reconciliation. We will have— we will have to negotiate a system under which both The majority and the minority feel reasonably happy.

Speaker 9: What's the biggest obstacle?

Julius Nyerere: Well, the biggest obstacle at present is that those who are in power, the minority— the minority is in power— they are like one riding on the back of a tiger. And they really want almost a watertight assurance before they get off the back of the tiger. Because they feel if they get off the back of the tiger— It will eat them. It will eat them. So really, we have— I think we have to be patient and devise some method that gives the assurance to the minority that democracy does not mean that they're going to be wiped out by the majority, and really to get the majority— to get the The minority itself to realize that clinging to that power is no answer.

Speaker 9: The African governments in the region, you've been working with the leaders there, and they have imposed sanctions on Burundi. Has this had any effect?

Julius Nyerere: Leaders of the region are absolutely united on this one. And the significance of this is sometimes lost to the outside world. The outside world regards Africa military rule and dictatorships by single-party system. My system was single-party system. But they don't realize the significance of what has taken place in East Africa. These leaders who met in Arusha were really saying to the military regime in Burundi, we can no longer accept military And this is a major change? This is a major change on the continent, and I really hope that this significance will be realized outside Africa.

Speaker 9: Does the history of this conflict, this Great Lakes region conflict— so many deaths, so many terrible things happening to the people, innocent people in the region— does it yield any lessons for the future? Do you have any vision for the future in terms of how you prevent future conflicts of this size and scope and nature?

Julius Nyerere: Well, I mean, this is not simply in this region. It's everywhere.

Speaker 9: In the world.

Julius Nyerere: In the world. It's not simply us. It's everywhere.

Speaker 9: It's not ethnic.

Julius Nyerere: It's not ethnic. And I'm— ethnic— I keep saying it's a matter of justice. It's a perception of the people feeling that they're not being treated justly. And ethnicity, yes, but Singapore has ethnic groups, has Chinese, the dominant group, has Malays, has Indians, but Singapore has done well economically. Had Singapore not done well economically, and you have these ethnic groups there, but the economy is not doing well, you would be hearing about the ethnic divisions of Singapore. And I have a feeling that, or if Singapore was doing well, but somehow one ethnic group was dominating the others economically, we would hear that.

Speaker 9: And this problem is basically You mentioned the one-party rule in your country, where you were president for 4 terms, during which time you promoted a— the principle of Ujamaa socialism, and you have acknowledged that it was a miserable failure. What lessons in retrospect do you draw from that and the kind of economies that Africa Where did you get the idea that I thought Ujamaa was a miserable failure? Well, I've read that you said socialism was a failure. The country economically was in shambles at the end of the experiment.

Julius Nyerere: A bunch of countries were in economic shambles. At the end of the '70s, they were not socialists. Now today it needs so much courage to talk about socialism, therefore perhaps we should change the phraseology. But you have to, to take in the values of socialism which we were trying to build in Tanzania, in any society.

Speaker 9: And those values are what?

Julius Nyerere: And those values are values of justice, a respect for human beings, a development which is people-centered, a development where you care about people. You can't say leave the development of a country to something called the market, which has no heart at all, since capitalism is completely Who is going to help the poor? And the majority of the people in our countries are poor. Who is going to stand for them? Not the market. So I'm not regretting that I tried to build a country based on those principles. You will have to, whether you call them socialism or not. Do you realize that what made— what gave Cuba its strength?

Speaker 9: Its strength?

Julius Nyerere: capitalism a human face was the kind of values I was trying to sell in my country.

Speaker 9: So what's the answer? Because with all due respect, the economy of Tanzania did not thrive under the socialism that you practiced. So what is the— how do you— what do you see as the answer for African countries which are still predominantly poor?

Julius Nyerere: The problem is not a question of socialism. You have to deal— we have to deal with the problem of poverty. You have to deal with the problem of poverty in your country, and your country is not socialist, or we are in trouble. People in rich countries don't realize the responsibility of handling poverty in countries like mine. But those countries will develop. Countries in Africa are poor, both capitalist and socialist. And today we don't have a single one which is socialist, and they're all poor.

Speaker 9: Finally, you've been critical of some Western countries and their roles in Africa. At the same time, you've called on Western nations to help— I think your phrase was clean up the mess in Rwanda and Burundi. Can you explain what, at least It sounds like a contradiction.

Julius Nyerere: Well, I'm saying some of the problems we are now handling in Africa, some of the mess we're trying to clean up in the continent, we have inherited. The mess of the borders, we have inherited.

Speaker 9: The colonials who—

Julius Nyerere: the colonial powers drew the borders. Yes. The colonial powers and some not colonial powers in Africa have supported regimes which are very corrupt on that continent. I think now they should stop backing up these corrupt regimes and let Africans in their own way try and establish regimes which can care about people. Some of the governments of the West, and including the United States, has really been very bad on our continent. They have used the Cold War and all sorts of things to back up a bunch of corrupt leaders on our continent. I think they should stop now and let the people of Africa sort out their own future.

Speaker 9: Does that include the leader of Zaire?

Julius Nyerere: Well, I didn't say so.

Speaker 9: Many people Would you say so?

Julius Nyerere: When we have African problems, we ourselves have a duty to solve our problems. I think we must accept that. When we have African problems, we should try on our own to solve those problems. We would prefer the outside world to keep out. If we want help, we can seek for help. But do you realize sometimes we ask for We ask for help, and it doesn't come. On the 5th of last month, our leaders met in Nairobi and said, we need an external— we need a force to go into Zaire to help the refugees to come back. It's not happening. We— and we appealed to the United Nations. And the United Nations? To establish that force, and we said we would also be participating in that force. Well, quite frankly, this is not happening. What is happening is a kind of self-help within Eastern Zaire itself, and the refugees are going back. I hope— I think the lesson which Africa should draw from that is that they should They they should rely upon themselves to the maximum when it comes to dealing with African problems.

Hamza Gaddat: Well, my name is Hamza Gaddat from Germany TV as a European cultural channel after. It's a pleasure to be here invited. Please, as chairman of the South Center regarding African countries. Since independence, where do you see still urgent problems which need urgent solutions? You mentioned so strongly the corruption, but isn't it also a lack of leadership, a lack of commitment to the people? Thank you. Yes, that is true.

Julius Nyerere: And really, that's what we have to address.

Hamza Gaddat: There is no way in which we can begin to deal with the problems of Africa without leadership and without commitment. People give the example of the development of the Asian countries. In Asia, the road will be built. In Africa, it will not be. So it's true. Commitment, commitment is, is the easy word. And, and you have to have a commitment to development.

Julius Nyerere: You, you see it in Japan.

Hamza Gaddat: It is that commitment of the government of Japan to development. Even now, even now, they're a developed country, but there is a tremendous commitment by the state. Don't listen to this nonsense that the state should give up the direction of the economy. It's nonsensical. And we have so many stupid leaders who think you can develop a country, that somehow you can hand over the development of your country to something called private enterprise. Unregulated, unregulated. Na chiya kubas? Na name na tipumba. Na name na tipumba. Who has done it? The Japanese have not done it. The British have not done it. The Germans have not done it. They meet. They will be meeting in Halifax in June. They will be meeting in Halifax. What for? To drink tea? What do you think they are going to meet to do in Halifax? The Big Seven are going to meet in Halifax to do what? to discuss how to control the economy. It's not a meeting of bankers, it's a meeting of presidents and prime ministers on the economy. And this ignorant people in Africa being deceived, you know, don't do— don't leave it to the private sector. Where is the private sector? Where is the private sector in Tanzania to which you are going to leave this development? Where is it? It needs nothing. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It needs nothing before you can have it. So you're nothing. This is what the Asian countries have done, and they go on nothing. So the Japanese did it. Korea, Korea tough, tough. It's only now they're beginning to open up their market. How do you open up your market to big competitors when you have no power to compete with big competitors? This is ridiculous. I mean, it's like Madam, I'm sorry. You you know in in the world, in the world of boxing, in the world of boxing, there are heavyweights, middleweights, flyweights, featherweights, and although the rules are the same, you put them separately in separate rings. The heavyweights. their own ring. You see, the middleweights in their own ring. You know, you don't put in the same ring a heavyweight and a featherweight. Never, never. How do you do that? That is murder. It can't be called freedom. But that's what, that's what trading is. That's what the Big 7 are telling us to do. That Germany And Burkina Faso should get in the same ring. And that is called globalization, freedom, liberalization. This is nonsense. This is absolute nonsense. You protect the weak until they become strong before they can compete. Always. This is the rule. This is the rule everywhere. But our leaders, even if we tell them that, They they are not charging. They can't charge you. What are you going to do? You can't say no. So one one as you say one is the weakness. Our own weaknesses in in internal the internal weaknesses and and really until we remove those internal weaknesses we can't begin. But the internal weaknesses are not the only problem. The problem is this pressure from the rich that we should, we should open up our markets for competition. I'm told we have opened, we have opened now here for banking, for instance. Banking. Now banking, can any banking to compete with your, with the European and North American banking? It is not sensible. Can, can NBC, can NBC Is NBC free to open to open a branch in New York? NBC. Can NBC really open a branch in New York? So when you are saying, you know, let's be treated equal, are you really saying that this equality will give NBC an opportunity to open a branch in New York? This is rubbish. I say rubbish. So so these big banks they come to. They come to Tanzania. I'm told they're beginning to come, and then they find at the NBC, they're now complaining. They're complaining the NBC is too big, we can't compete for today. NBC is big for what, Northern guy? Yeah. So, I'm sorry, I've answered your question. But I didn't want to touch that. I did not want to touch that because that's another area where I— where once provoked, I don't stop. So—