Tanzanian History Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Drawing on private papers and interviews conducted between 2009 and 2015, this article analyses the Swahili lyrics (mashairi) of three of the twelve songs or sung poems composed between the mid-2000s and 2015 by Mzee Waziri Omari Nyange (born 1936), a Muslim man of peasant origins who was once a solo guitarist with the renowned Cuban Marimba Jazz Band, a craftsperson and a herbalist. He is still active as a healer, promoter of Tanzanian culture and composer of didactic lyrics accompanied by tunes for guitar music (muziki wa dansi). Two of the three unrecorded and typewritten compositions presented here are on HIV/AIDS; one is on witchcraft. Lyrics largely conform to longstanding Swahili/
Islamic moral principles and converge with the government’s ideology. But they also at times depart from them and present innovative views. Notwithstanding their restricted audience or lack thereof, these compositions serve to illustrate that Mzee Nyange’s concerns with individual and national well-being are intertwined. By showing some of the ways in which one outstanding individual of humble social level has been keenly participating in the process of guiding the community in hidden ways, this article claims that Mzee Nyange’s life history and artistic production can shed light on the everyday process of self-making and nation-building in Tanzania.

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- Tanzanian Studies, East African history, African Intellectual History, Tanzanian History

will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of Tanzania. President John Pombe Magufuli was pronounced dead. The shocking death was unprecedented in one major respect-death of a sitting President, not a retired President. After a heroic farewell, the devoted and iconic Pan-Africanist leader was laid to rest. But before his burial and in the early days of national mourning, the then Vice-President was sworn in as President on 19 March of 2021. The discussion in this paper reveals some of core constitutional matters that were completely ignored in that power transition. In the process, the paper also highlights the insufficiency of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, 1977 (the "Constitution") in handling presidential power transition when the sitting President dies.

- by Raphael Kamuli
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- Constitutional Law, Political Philosophy, Political Science, Politics

This paper is an historiographical analysis of the making of Tanzanian history in the last four decades of the twentieth century.

- by Lorne Larson
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- Tanzanian History
- by Steven Fabian
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- Colonialism, Localization, German Colonial Empire, Imperialism

Wilhelm Methner (1871-1951) served as an official in the administration of German East Africa (now Tanzania) from 1902 until the First World War. His memoirs recount (among other things), his work as a land commissioner in Usambara (1903-4), his role in the suppression of the Maji Maji Rebellion in the Vidunda Mountains (1905-6), his activity as district officer in the Moshi and Arusha districts (1906-9), and his service as deputy to governors Rechenberg (1909-12) and Schnee (1912-14). He was closely associated with Rechenberg's policy of favouring African agriculture, in preference to the expansion of European-owned plantations. From 1914 to 1917 Methner served with the German forces during the East African Campaign of the First World War. He gives first-hand accounts of various actions, including the retreat from Kilimanjaro, the siege of Newala and the battles in the Lukuledi Valley.

- by John East
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- Tanzanian Studies, First World War, African Military History, German Colonial Empire

Mathias E. Mnyampala (1917-1969) is a famous Tanzanian lawyer, writer and poet who wrote in Kiswahili. The unpublished manuscript of his autobiography has been discovered in 2007 in Dodoma (United Republic of Tanzania) by Dr Mathieu Roy by finding the heir of the author. Roy then edited the manuscript for the first time in 2013. It was conserved in Dodoma with other unpublished manuscripts and rare literary archives by Charles M. Mnyampala, the second son of the author who received from his father the mission to conserve and publish these precious documents since 1969. This Kiswahili book is a light edition from the main paper book and contains only Mnyampala's autobiographical text with an introduction by Charles M. Mnyampala. Marehemu Mathias E. Mnyampala (1917-1969) aliandika habari za maisha yake wakati alipokuwa ameshaona kwamba anakomea mwisho wa uhai wake kutokana na kuumwa sana na ndwele miaka 1968-1969. Wakati huo alikuwa ameshakuza sana lugha ya Kiswahili kwa ufasaha wake wa kishairi na mambo mengine mengi pamoja yake vitabu vyake kuhusu historia ya Ugogo, siasa ya Ujamaa, dini na maisha ya wafu maarufu kama Mtemi Mazengo na Sheikh Kaluta Amri Abedi. Kwa sababu kumbe alifanikiwa sana kutoka utoto wake katika machunga ya Ugogo, bila kujua kusoma wala kuandika hadi umri wa kuoa mke na kulipa kodi, mpaka ubingwa wa lugha ya Kiswahili na utungaji wa idadi ya vitabu inayozidi ishirini na tano akiwa anadhaniwa na wataalamu wa ushairi wa Kiswahili na washairi wenzake wenyewe kuwa malenga mmoja mkuu wa Karne iliyopita. Alikuwa mzalendo mkubwa wa Taifa la Tanzania na alijitolea kabisa kueneza lugha yake Kiswahili maisha yake yote. Mchango wake Mathias E. Mnyampala kwa fasihi ya Kiswahili na Taifa lake ni tukufu, kadiri ya kupewa heshima kubwa ya Nishani ya Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania na Mheshimiwa Rais Ali Hassan Mwinyi mwaka 1994. Mswada huu ambapo marehemu Mathias E. Mnyampala anatusimulia habari za maisha yake binafsi ulibaki muda mrefu sana uliozidi miaka arobaini bila kupigwa chapa. Uligunduliwa mwaka 2007 mjini Dodoma na Dr Mathieu Roy na kupata kuhaririwa mwaka 2013. Mswada ulikuwa unahifadhiwa kwa makini sana na Charles M. Mnyampala, mtoto wa pili wa Mathias E. Mnyampala, kuanzia kifo cha baba yake mwaka 1969. Kwa mara ya kwanza, toleo hili kutoka shirika la DL2A – Buluu Publishing (Ufaransa) linawapa wasomaji watukufu na wapenzi wa Kiswahili nafasi ya pekee ya kugundua maisha ya mzungupule huyo wa Kiswahili na fasihi yake. Toleo hilo lenye bei nafuu limepunguzwa picha na kurasa kadhaa ukilingana na toleo kuu la kwanza. Mswada wote wa Maisha ni kugharimia ulinukuliwa kwa ukamilifu.

- by Mathieu Roy and +1
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- History, Poetry, African History, Africa

This article examines two cases through the scope of a twin theoretical focus: O.W Wolters’ theory of localization and Mao Zedong’s Sinification, which, in Mao’s words, means the blending of Marxian universals with the “concrete historical practice of the Chinese revolution” to suit the country’s unique historical experience, struggle, and culture (termed by Mao as its
“peculiarities”). The first case, Peru, conveys the ways in which the orthodox Maoist Shining Path appropriated Jose Mariategui’s concept of indigenismo and Andean cultural and traditional norms. In so doing, the Party attempted to “localize” Maoism to fit Peru’s unique geographical and cultural contexts. The second case in Tanzania, however, provides a counter example. Chinese advisers made concerted efforts to indoctrinate Tanzanians, but African socialism—embodied in Nyerere’s ujamaa villagization—prevailed over foreign ideological influences. Nyerere and the Tanganyikan African National Union (TANU), later the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), drew inspiration from Nyerere’s idyllic perception of pre-colonial African life and adapted it to suit Tanzania’s current needs rather than espouse a foreign ideology and apply it to local settings. But Ujamaa as a uniquely “African” idea ultimately failed to make the transition from egalitarian theory to practice.

- by Matt Galway
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- Intellectual History, History of Ideas, Localization, Peruvian History

We review the history of rock art research in Kondoa District, Tanzania, specifically the area covered by the ‘Kondoa Rock Art Sites UNESCO World Heritage Site’. We examine why, after nearly a century of research, there is neither a broadly agreed upon stylistic sequence for the rock art of the area nor a clear ascription of authorship. We seek to provide a solution to this impasse by introducing a rigorous and systematised analytical approach that considers both the content of the art and the location in which it was situated. The findings of our analysis, as presented here, demonstrate three clearly identifiable traditions of art, each with elements of overlap and borrowing. We provide an evidence based ascription of authorship to each tradition that confirms the ethnic complexity of the settlement of this area and lays the foundation for future studies of rock art interpretation and cultural interaction.

- by Benjamin Smith
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- Archaeology, Rock Art (Archaeology), East Africa, East Africa (History)

In A History of African Archaeology, ed. P. Robertshaw, pp. 252-70. James Curry.

- by Peter Schmidt
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- African Studies, Archaeology, Mythology, Historical Archaeology

The end of apartheid has opened up new research possibilities into the history of the African National Congress (ANC). Yet the scholarship on the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), remains largely restricted to questions of strategic, political and military effectiveness. The transnational character of the anti-apartheid struggle is mostly absent from nationalist
historiographies, while little is known about the daily lives of those who made up the ranks of MK, their interactions with host communities, and the implications of having a large, predominantly male army – with their feelings, longings and frustrations – stationed outside South Africa’s borders for three decades. Morogoro, a small upcountry town in Tanzania, was one of the key sites where relations between South African exiles and Tanzanians were forged. In the early years of exile, relationships between ANC/MK cadres and Tanzanian
women were not officially sanctioned by the movement, but from the late 1970s they were increasingly formalised through marriage. In this way, the lives of many Tanzanian women
became entangled with the South African liberation struggle. Relationships and marriages between South African exiles and Tanzanian women were not only a significant aspect of everyday life in exile, but also key components of an ANC familyhood, linked in turn to expressions of masculinity in MK and to the making of a national community and imaginary.
This article seeks to illustrate the complex implications and present repercussions of these marriages and relationships by tracing the lives of seven Tanzanian women, which reveal a
multiplicity of personal and emotional entanglements that are obscured by a narrow focus on military and strategic objectives.

- by Maria Suriano
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- African History, Transnational History, South African history, Tanzanian History
- by Tony Waters
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- Social Change, Development Studies, Horticulture, Peasant Studies

The chapter studies popular cultural memory and official (state-promoted) representations of the history of the Arab slave trade in East Africa and the Indian Ocean in the context of nation-building in the United Republic of Tanzania. The chapter is based on field evidence on different aspects of nation-building in Tanzania collected by the authors since the early 2000s and especially during the field seasons of 2018 and 2019 completely devoted to the study of the memory and representations of the Arab slave trade. In these years, fieldwork was done in the localities related to the slave trade and on the (re)production of the memory of it, such as in Bagamoyo (and the adjacent Kaole village), Zanzibar (the city and Nungwi village), Tanga, Pangani, and Dar es Salaam. Besides doing structured and non-structured interviews in English and Swahili, fieldwork included analysis of museum expositions, public memorials, and school history textbooks. One of the conclusions that can be drawn from the study is that association of Arabs with the exploitation of Africans in the past is present in the minds of many African Tanzanians, but the Tanzanian government tries, generally successfully, to smooth over this negative attitude and promote the Arabs’ inclusion in the nation by African Tanzanians by corrupting historical facts and manipulating historical memory. However, there is an important dualism in the perception of the Tanzanian Arabs by the African Tanzanian majority: The Arabs are recognized by them as co-citizens in the formal, political, or legal sense but not as people who belong to the cultural community of ‘Tanzanians’. For African Tanzanians, the latter is based on Swahili culture to which the Arabs, in their view, do not belong.

- by Dmitri Bondarenko and +1
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- Postcolonial Studies, Nationalism And State Building, Memory Studies, Cultural Memory

Independent Tanzania became a prominent frontline state in the struggle against white minority regimes in the early 1960s and remained committed to the total liberation of Africa until South African repatriations in the early 1990s. For three decades the country was a hub of Pan-Africanism and saw an extraordinarily high involvement of Tanzanians in supporting the southern African liberation movements in ways that went beyond TANU/CCM’s primary directions. While some research has been done on the daily interactions, relationships and tensions in the ANC/MK and SWAPO settlements and military training camps as well as in the nearby towns and villages that hosted them, this article shifts the focus from the camps and their surroundings to the forging of solidarity and transnational connections in urban leisure spaces, particularly the music scene. It seeks to bring to light both the enduring and fleeting intimate relations and everyday forms of conviviality between South Africans and Tanzanians which were produced in Dar es Salaam’s nightclubs. The central argument is that artistic collaborations with South Africans outside the camps not only amplified and solidified Tanzanians’ ability to transcend the idea of the national, but were key to the shaping of a specific form of grassroots pan-Africanism that I will call ‘convivial transnational solidarity’. The latter is intended as a practice rather than as an ideology. As I will show, the urban soundscape was central to its emergence. The article first charts how national politics – a key aspect of which was the duty to embrace transnational solidarity – extended into the lower echelons of Tanzanian society through the airwaves, the press and liberation songs. Following the trajectory of the Tanzanian band Afro-70 and its leader Patrick Balidisya, it then examines the everyday acts of welcoming that unfolded in Dar es Salaam’s music scene during the brief historical juncture between 1969 and 1977, which coincided with ujamaa and with Afro-70’s rise and demise. The last part of the article problematises the process of total liberation and the idea of transnational solidarity by exposing their fragility.

- by Maria Suriano
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- African Studies, Transnational History, Tanzanian Studies, Anti-Apartheid Movements

- by Raphael Kamuli
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- Constitutional Law, Political Science, African Politics, Pan-Africanism

For a global history of development, Swahili poems from the German colonial period are valuable sources as they help to question the diffusionist view of development discourses as colonial import. This article analyses how concepts of development (maendeleo) and civilisation (ustaarabu) figured in poems written by Swahili authors between 1888 and 1907. Going beyond a reading of these texts as pro- or anti-colonial, it shows the importance poets attached to urban infrastructural improvement. Poems were also informed by the self-image of the superior, urban, Muslim strata of coastal society (waungwana) in contrast to inferior non-Muslim inland societies (washenzi). Several poets suggested that inland societies should be disciplined, yet differences to coastal Swahili society were usually not couched in terms of temporality nor in terms of a civilising mission. Poets had to come to terms, however, with new power relations as a result of German conquest. While some authors openly criticised colonial violence, others also embraced colonial interventions in infrastructural and economic aspects – but still expressed nostalgia for the past. In sum, the poems constitute a transitional space in Swahili discourses on development, showing that these were not merely colonial imports but grew from multiple roots.

- by Eric Burton
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- Colonialism, Tanzania, German Colonialism, Swahili Literature
- by Eric Burton
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- African History, Ghana, Egypt, History of Communism

In this paper I discuss the media institutions, the social networks, the framing techniques and the prime narrative plots of Catholic missions in Central Europe. I look at Catholic mission media and cultural translation from a historical and praxeological angle - imperial communication work. In the second part I study in depth a published autobiographical text by a Catholic mission school teacher, Pauli Holola. He worked at the Benedictine mission in Southern Tanzania during the first half of the 20th century. In particular I look at the narrative framing of the account, the presentation by translator and editor and the photographic illustrations. Finally, I ask the question , how we might be able to read Pauli Holola as a self-reliant mission worker and writer in the light of the communication work that is interwoven with his narrative.

This is an interview with Jan Küver project manager of Fahari Yetu based in Iringa/Tanzania. We talked about the cultural heritage of the Iringa area in Central Tanzania, its colonial history, and the Iringa Boma Museum in Iringa City... more

- by Richard Hölzl and +1
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- Museum Studies, Cultural Heritage, Tanzanian Studies, Cultural Heritage Management

This article explores the history of two Tanzanian publishing houses and the remarkable life and career of Walter Bgoya, former general manager of Tanzania Publishing House (1972–90) and managing director of Mkuki na Nyota, which he founded in 1991. Using the lens of microhistory, and drawing from extensive interviews with Bgoya and conversations with two colleagues and three authors, the article first chronicles his early life and ideological formation and what influenced his career in book publishing. It then examines the key achievements and challenges faced by these publishing houses in different times of austerity (e.g. Structural Adjustment Programmes, foreign investment with conditionalities, declining state support and high printing costs), along with the complex ways in which Bgoya has navigated the shifting, often uncertain, political, financial and legislative landscapes, while retaining his intellectual freedom and core Pan-Africanist beliefs. Constraints have not hampered Bgoya’s pursuit of ambitious projects or his commitment to publishing relevant and progressive books, either written by African authors or on African matters. I suggest that reducing the scale and identifying how specific conditions of austerity have affected the choices made by a publisher over time can yield insights into the ways in which cultural institutions have contributed to knowledge production and dissemination in postcolonial Africa.

- by Maria Suriano
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- African Studies, Book History, African History, Pan Africanism
- by Michael McInneshin
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- Environmental History, First World War, Landscape, German East Africa

This volume corresponds to the section on metric analysis of classical Swahili poetry. A formal analysis tool is defined based on available data, aiming to address the extraordinary heterogeneity of data analyses. Some authors, primarily... more

- by Mathieu Roy and +1
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- Religion, History, African Studies, Literature

This paper, which is a first chapter in a much broader work on the impact of state policies on the Chagga Community in northern Tanzania, is an overview of the various theories that inform thinking on African nationalism. In greater detail, it focuses on the assumptions behind such identitarian categories as tribes, ethnic groups and nations. It makes it possible to view these as mainly historical human inventions rather than biological gifts of nature and, as such, capable of being sustained, re-modelled, abandoned or recreated for a multitude of reasons. In regard to Africa, it is argued that 'exclusive' ethnic identities emerged at the same time as territorial identities under the instigation of the colonial state and that the two actually depended on each other. For this reason, the 'African nation' is imagined as intrinsically multi-ethnic, in which case there is nothing necessarily problematic with being, for example, both Chagga and Tanzania.

- by Festo Mkenda
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- National Identity, Ethnicity, Chagga people, African nationalism

Higher education was a central concern of postcolonial governments as they set out to produce national academic elites. In socialist Tanzania, the elitism inherent to systems of higher education was challenged by policies aiming to create an egalitarian society. This chapter analyzes the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Dar es Salaam as an “arena” of competing interests in which actors of different generational, national, ideological, and class backgrounds struggled over the meaning of the engineering profession, which has traditionally been at the heart of modernization projects, and the allocation of resources. It discusses how the faculty was established and run with foreign (particularly West German) aid and personnel, what critiques were brought forward against this orientation, and how the economic crisis and engineers’ peculiar position eventually provided a pretext for the commercialization of the faculty—a process that signaled the gradual demise of Tanzanian socialism in the late 1970s and 1980s.

The end of apartheid has opened up new research possibilities into the history of the African National Congress (ANC). Yet the scholarship on the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), remains largely restricted to questions of strategic, political and military effectiveness. The transnational character of the anti-apartheid struggle is mostly absent from nationalist historiographies, while little is known about the daily lives of those who made up the ranks of MK, their interactions with host communities, and the implications of having a large, predominantly male army – with their feelings, longings and frustrations – stationed outside South Africa’s borders for three decades. Morogoro, a small upcountry town in Tanzania, was one of the key sites where relations between South African exiles and Tanzanians were forged. In the early years of exile, relationships between ANC/MK cadres and Tanzanian women were not officially sanctioned by the movement, but from the late 1970s they were increasingly formalised through marriage. In this way, the lives of many Tanzanian women became entangled with the South African liberation struggle. Relationships and marriages between South African exiles and Tanzanian women were not only a significant aspect of everyday life in exile, but also key components of an ANC familyhood, linked in turn to expressions of masculinity in MK and to the making of a national community and imaginary. This article seeks to illustrate the complex implications and present repercussions of these marriages and relationships by tracing the lives of seven Tanzanian women, which reveal a multiplicity of personal and emotional entanglements that are obscured by a narrow focus on military and strategic objectives.

- by Maria Suriano
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- African History, Transnational History, Southern African History, Tanzanian History